Did you know that each day, 50,000 different WordPress sites come online? How are you going to stand out from the crowd in an ocean of different places? By creating your own unique, custom theme converted from PSD to WordPress that is designed specifically for your site – that’s how!
There are three rules when designing a website theme. PSD (Photoshop files), WordPress (WP), and reasonably recently these last few years. Twitter Bootstrap – a framework for developing responsive sites that industry professionals are using these days. In this post, we’re working to provide you a full and straightforward guide on how to connect all three: How to convert a PSD to WordPress (Bootstrap) theme in 5 easy steps.
Later on in this article, you’ll find templates, ready for download, for you to use as a basis for this tutorial.
But why would you need to convert a PSD file inside a Bootstrap WordPress theme?
What is PSD?
Most people who have been in or around the design and web design industry can easily understand this terminology – like they would appreciate any other design terms which are not familiar to people outside of the niche (kerning, CMYK, padding, typography, leading, Serif, etc.) But in reality, the term is straightforward to understand.
PSD is short for PhotoShop Design. For PSD to WordPress is the process of changing a Photoshop design file into a working WP template working Bootstrap or other methodologies and frameworks.
This is because Photoshop is a single piece of software which is most popular with graphic and designers and how most WordPress website designs are created.
Most people who have been in or around the design and web design industry can easily understand this terminology – like they would appreciate any other design terms which are not familiar to people outside of the niche (kerning, CMYK, padding, typography, leading, Serif, etc.) But in reality, the term is straightforward to understand.
PSD is short for PhotoShop Design. Therefore PSD to WordPress is the process of converting a Photoshop design file to a working WP template using Bootstrap or other methodologies and frameworks.
This is because Photoshop is a single piece of software which is most popular with graphic and designers and how most WordPress website designs are created.
What is a WordPress Theme?
There are two primary aspects to creating a WordPress website, usually.
(1) The actual look of the website, and
(2) the content of the site.
In WP, the most popular CMS for creating a site, the content is independent of how the website looks. How the website looks is defined by a WordPress theme. Think of items like you would for smartphones, for your desktop computer or laptop, or anything else which can be “skinned” to your preference. The template or theme you use can be used to “skin” the content, or give it a look and feel which you are opting for.
WordPress themes are a collection from PHP files which contain “commands” about specifications which define the colors and patterns, the styles, the icons, the fonts, the sizes of headers and text, the buttons and virtually the whole look of all about the elements about the website you are designing.
There is an entire industry around these designs, where you can either get your template for free or buy one which is already made (typically called premium), for anything from $25 to a few hundred dollars.
There is also the option to create your custom design, rather than go for a popular product which has already been created. This is the actual process from converting a PSD to a WordPress theme (what your website will look like during the end).
Going forward, we will guide you to the exact procedure of creating your design.
PSD to WordPress Services
Before you continue reading – are you looking for developers or partners to help you with your website project?
You’re in the unenviable position of having to find a right reliable partner, without getting cheated, or lose a lot of time (and money) with a low-quality services provider.
Our experience in finding trusted developers has not been pleasant. We’ve had to deal with several significant issues:
- Developers returning extremely low-quality code
- People who communicated very sporadically, creating significant communication problems
- A system which was 100% plagiarized creating legal issues for us
- Expensive rates, with quality which was mediocre at best
- Developers who vanished (or we never heard back from following deposits)
But don’t let this scare you from outsourcing; you need to find a trusted company – and we’re here to help!
Given that we’ve been in the business for over 15 years, we’ve built a network of providers who we know and trust when it comes to WordPress and web development services. These are fully outsourced providers who can work with you on a project basis.
Want to know more? Have a look at the below options:
PSD to WP Service
Emranul and his team have built an excellent reputation for working with WordPress, building custom themes and would be an excellent partner choice for such work.
Off-shore location: Bangladesh
Hourly Rate: $15
Freelancer Emranul
Freelancer Emranul offers a different concept. Rather than offshoring directly, Freelancer Emranul is marketplace made up exclusively of WordPress freelancers, where freelancers need to pass through a rigorous vetting process to make it to the marketplace. Their pricing algorithm gives you a fair price to eliminate both undercutting and overpricing.
Location: Worldwide, you decide who you prefer to work with
Hourly Rate: $15 upto $120
Not interested in hiring developers yet? Read on!
Converting a PSD to WordPress theme
Step 1: Slice the PSD File
In terms of our PSD to Bootstrap tutorial, “Slicing” is the first and foremost thing in the entire PSD to the responsive WordPress conversion process.
The term “slicing” might seem pretty confusing to you at first, but don’t worry too much about this. Slicing refers to cutting and dividing a single image file into multiple image files, each of which contains different design elements of the whole design.
Some people see those as splicing because it is creating separate elements from a single model “organism,” which will eventually be rearranged or synthesized and morphed into a complete design.
This is crucial as you can’t code a template/theme of a single image design file.
Therefore, to design a web page, you first want to slice the main image file inside many individual image files and then stack them together seamlessly.
Usually, most web and graphic designers prefer to work Adobe Photoshop to slicing.
Although the same thing can be done using an equivalent image editing software like GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) or any other imaging software package, we highly recommend you use Photoshop since it makes the job easier and faster, with tools such as Layers and Layer Masks, extracting Metadata, blending, manipulating and using PSD files and RAW images .
Whatever software/application you use, the main point is to come up with pixel-perfect image files in the end – representing the different elements of your final design.
Besides that, you don’t want to cut design elements – like header/footer color and solid color background – in full, which container be created dynamically. Instead, only cut design elements – like buttons and images – that cannot be created dynamically.
Find below a YouTube video which explains the basics of PSD Slicing
Step 2: Download and Bootstrap your theme
Once you have your image design file sliced, go to http://getbootstrap.com and download the latest version of Twitter Bootstrap from there. After completing the download, extract the zip file in a folder.
Now, if you open the extracted folder, you’ll find three folders – CSS, fonts, and js – inside it.
Note that one of the primary uses of this framework is because it makes extensive use of media queries to be able to create designs which work in any device, allow your design to flow seamlessly between one size of equipment to another (xs – Extra Small, for mobiles, sm – Small, for tablets, md – Medium, for laptops and desktops and log – Large, for Large desktops). This is called responsive web design.
Additional Reading: PSD To WordPress Conversion Myths
5 Easy Steps to Convert a PSD to WordPress Theme (Bootstrap) Part-2
