Throughout this guide, I highly recommend you refer to the WordPress codex article on Theme Development.

Step 1: Download the Blank Theme

For the purpose of this demo, I am going to use the Blank Theme (Download Link) from Digging into WordPress

Step 2: Rename the Folder

Extract the zip file contents. You will now have a folder called “BLANK-Theme”, which is a horrible name for the contents of your new theme. Go ahead and rename it to be the name you want to call your theme (remember to adhere to standard URL naming patters–all lowercase, no spaces, etc).

Step 3: Rename the Theme

1. Open style.css
2. Change the Meta information at the top of the file (make up your own info):
   style.css

   /*
   Theme Name: BLANK Theme
   Theme URI: http://digwp.com
   Description: This is just a BLANK starter WordPress Theme template -- WordPress v2.9.1
   Author: Chris Coyier
   Author URI: http://chriscoyier.net
   Version: 1
   */

Step 4: Upload the New Theme

SFTP Method

You can connect to your server via SFTP (remember, never use FTP if you can avoid it) and upload your new theme folder to {your_web_root_folder}/wp-content/themes/

Zip and Upload Method

You can also zip up your new theme folder contents, name the zip file whatever you called your theme, then go to your WordPress admin panel to Appearance > Themes > Install Themes > Upload and upload your zip file.

Purge Other Themes

• Make sure Your theme or Twenty Ten is ACTIVE
• SSH into your server with Putty on Windows or Terminal on OSX
  OSX Terminal:

  ssh -l {username} {domain}

  Example:

  ssh -l adam itc210.ipirates.net

• Change directory into {domain}/wp-content/themes/
• Move your theme into the higher directory
• Remove all other themes
• Move your theme back into the themes directory

Example:

cd itc210.ipirates.net/wp-content/themes;
mv itc210_theme ../;mv twentyten ../;
rm -rf *;
mv ../itc210_theme ./;mv ../twentyten ./;