Create Your Own WordPress Theme: Methods to Get You Started

WordPress is a fully customizable platform. That means every aspect of your website can be changed, and while there are thousands of themes to choose from, you can also create your own WordPress theme.

There are several ways to create a WordPress theme, but they all require different skill levels, thus, I will focus on two methods today. The first is to use the theme customizer to customize an existing theme to the point that it can be considered a unique layout.

The second method is to use the Create Block Theme plugin, which was made by WordPress devs to allow you to build a block theme from scratch. Neither of these methods requires you to have any coding knowledge because there is no coding.

Today, I will demonstrate both methods so that you can create your own theme for WordPress.

Why Create A WordPress Theme

WordPress is home to thousands of themes that you can access for free. Many of them have professional-grade designs that can be used as is without any modifications, which is why it is so easy to build a site with WordPress.

Yet, this raises the question, why build your own when you can choose from such a large library?

The answer is simple: it gives you the ability to create a theme that perfectly addresses all of your needs. Often, a theme will meet most of your needs but will lack some critical components that you will have to add with a plugin.

By building a WordPress theme yourself, you can create it with all of your needs in mind and ensure the feature is baked in. With this said, beginners are better off using a theme from the WordPress library.

This is because themes are updated regularly to close security exploits. Naturally, if you create a theme, you will also be responsible for keeping it safe. And if I am being honest, most beginners do not understand this aspect.

With that said, it is not difficult to build your theme, so if you want to give it a try, this tutorial will serve you well.

Method 1: Using the Theme Customizer

As long as you are using a block theme, you will have access to the theme customizer. This allows you to tweak the existing theme as much as you want using the default WordPress blocks and settings.

Once you have customized it to your liking, you can export and create your theme file, which will technically make it a new theme. However, you will need to change the name to avoid duplicate naming issues.

You can do this with any block theme in WordPress, but for this tutorial, I will be using the Twenty Twenty-Five theme.

Step 1: Choose A Theme As A Template

While I am going to use Twenty Twenty-Five, that doesn’t mean you have to. I strongly advise taking a look in the theme library for one that you want to use as a template. As long as it is a block theme, it will work.

Themes have their own elements that were made specifically for them; thus, picking a theme with a lot of those elements might make it a better option than the default WordPress theme.

For this tutorial, it does not matter what you choose, as the options will be the same.

Step 2: Edit The Theme

With a theme picked out, you can begin editing it. To do so, click on Appearance and select the Editor option.

Note: If you do not see this option, then you are not using a block theme. This method will only work if you are currently using a block theme.

Once you are inside the editor, you will want to begin editing your existing templates. The templates act as the foundation of your theme. For example, there is a template for page content.

This means that every time you create a new page, it will use this template as the base. The same is true for posts and all other types of content you’ll make. To access your templates, click on the Templates option.

This will open up a list of all of your existing templates. You’ll want to go through each one and customize it to meet your needs.

Editing the templates is identical to editing a page or post with Gutenberg. As such, I am not going to spend any time demonstrating this, as how you design your theme is completely up to you.

Once you are finished editing a template, save the changes and move on to the next.

Step 3: Exporting Your Theme

With all of the editing done, you’ll now need to export the theme as is. This will create a Zip file that contains all of the changes you have made to the templates. To do this, click on the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the editor.

Towards the bottom of the options that appear will be an Export option. Click it.

This will add a Zip file into your computer’s Downloads folder. It will be named the current theme that you had active. We need to change that because it will create a duplicate name error in WordPress. As such, go to your computer’s Downloads folder.

Note: This tutorial is on a Windows computer. The options are slightly different for Mac users.

Once in the Downloads folder, right-click the file and select the Extract All option to unzip it.

This will create another file that has the same name, but it is not zipped. Right-click on that folder and select the Rename option.

Rename the theme to whatever you want. We are still not done, and we need to change one more thing with the folder to prevent a duplicate name file from occurring. We need to go into the Style file and change the theme name there.

While this may sound complicated, it isn’t. Simply enter the folder you just renamed and double-click on the Style file.

This will open the file contents on Notepad. The second line in the file will be for the Theme Name. Simply change the theme name to whatever you named the folder. These must match.

Save the changes. Close out of the Style file. You now want to return to the downloads folder where your unzipped theme folder is located. Right-click it and select the Send To option, then select the Compressed (zipped) Folder option.

This will rezip the file, which is required if we want to add it properly in WordPress.

Back in WordPress, go to Appearance and click on the “Add New Theme” button at the top.

On the next screen, click on the “Upload Theme” button.

This will give you an option to choose a file from your computer. Select the renamed zip file we just created. Then, click on the “Install Now” button to install it in WordPress.

The theme is now available to activate. To do so, go back to Appearance and activate the theme you just uploaded.

And that’s it; you have created a new theme and activated it in WordPress. You can also share this with friends or other sites you may own if you wish to use it elsewhere.

Method 2: Using the Create Block Theme Plugin

The first method is straightforward, and you could even argue it is more theme modification than actually creating a theme. In this method, we are going to create a theme from scratch with the Create Block Theme plugin.

This plugin allows you to create a blank theme within WordPress. You can then similarly edit that theme using the theme customizer on an existing theme, thus, the method itself doesn’t change much at all.

The main difference is that instead of having to rename the theme like in the previous method, the plugin will handle that for you.

Step 1: Install Create Block Theme

Let’s start by clicking on Plugins and selecting the Add New option on the left-hand admin panel.

Search for Create Block Theme in the available search box. This will pull up additional plugins that you may find helpful.

Scroll down until you find the Create Block Theme plugin, click on the “Install Now” button, and activate the plugin for use.

Step 2: Create A Blank Theme

With the plugin installed, you may not notice any new options immediately, but they are there. To find the plugin area, click on Appearances and select the Create Block theme option.

The plugin gives you four options. The first is to export your existing theme as a Zip file. The second option is to create a new blank theme. The third is to create a clone of your existing theme. The last is to create a child theme for your existing theme.

In this case, we are going to create a new blank theme, so select that option.

This will open up a small window. The first text box allows you to name your theme, the second box is to add a description of the theme, and the last box is to add the author’s name. Fill out this information and click on the “Create and Activate Blank Theme” button.

Upon doing this, the theme editor will open, where you can begin the editing process.

Step 3: Customize Your Theme

Customizing your theme is identical to using the theme customizer. The main difference is that you do not have any templates, and instead, you’ll need to make those, yet that process is no different than using Gutenberg.

And just to reiterate, this tutorial’s purpose is to show you how to make a theme, so I will not be focusing on the actual design aspect. For that, you can take a look at our comprehensive Gutenberg guide to learn how the editor works.

Inside the editor, you will be in the only template that is created in a blank theme, the Index template.

Let’s start by expanding the theme customizer options by clicking on the WordPress icon in the top left of the editor.

We want to create a template, so click on the Templates option.

Here, you will see a list of your current templates. With a blank theme, the only template is the Index template. Click on the “Add New Template” button in the top right corner.

A new window will appear. This will contain various template options that are part of WordPress. You can pick any of them to get started, or you can pick the custom template option at the bottom if you want to start with a blank slate.

In my case, I chose to add a Blog Home template, but it does not matter what you choose. You will be asked to choose a pattern; skip this option, and you will have a fully blank canvas to work with.

At this point, you are free to create whatever you want by using the Gutenberg editor. Once you have created what you want, simply save the changes. You can then repeat this step to create as many templates as you want.

If you were to go back to the theme section of WordPress, you can see that your custom theme is set as the active theme.

Overall, this process is no different than using Gutenberg as you would normally. And that’s all it takes to build a theme with this plugin. If you would like to use this theme on another site or share it with friends, you can use the Export option within the plugin area to do so.

Theme Creation FAQ

Creating a theme in practice is rather simple, but you will likely still have some lingering questions. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions concerning themes in WordPress:

Start Building Your Own Theme Today

As you can see, it is rather easy to build your own theme in WordPress if you are familiar with the Gutenberg editor. The process is very straightforward and can give you a little more freedom or just help you save time in some cases.

With that said, I do stand by that it is not recommended for beginners to do this. Themes from the library are safer to use, and if you purchase a premium theme, you’ll also gain access to a support team that can help you troubleshoot.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful in learning how to create your own theme in WordPress.

Why do you want to create your own theme in WordPress? How easy did you find the process?

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