In part 1 of this series, we talked a little bit about database driven publishing platforms, such as WordPress. The key point of that discussion was that your blog data is separate from your blog design (the look and layout of your site). The data – such as blog posts, blog comments, blog categories, etc. – reside in a database on your web server/web host (you establish your database during the WordPress install process).

The template files (theme) tell WordPress and the various web browsers how to organize and present your blog data to your website/blog visitor. You may hear people refer to the blog theme as a “blog skin” because it determines the look and feel – or design – of your blog. At a basic level, that’s true, but a WordPress theme can – and usually does – do more than just determine the design style of your blog.

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There are probably over 1000 free WordPress blog themes/templates out there. Yet, I still get people who write and ask me to help them design their own. And that’s cool. After all, it’s a great way to express one’s creativity. This post marks the first in a series to help you do just that: create your own WordPress blog theme. Before we get into WordPress blog/theme design, however, we need to talk a little bit about WordPress itself.

Database-Driven Websites (AKA Push-Button Publishing)

WordPress, like most blogging platforms, is a “database-driven” web publishing platform. In other words, all of your blog’s content is stored in a database in the form of, well, data. The database merely acts as a repository for all the information you add to your WordPress site. That includes blog posts, blog comments, blog categories, the title of your blog and a whole slew of other information. Most people, me included, would say that database driven websites are a key characteristic of Web 2.0 websites.

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