One of the common questions on various Web sites in the SharePoint community seems to be,
“How do I design a site with a common theme or my own branding?”
There is more than one way to do this and the method you choose depends on how much customization you want to do, how many sites you have, how comfortable you are writing code, and how much time and resources you have.
Depending on the answers to those questions you might choose to modify the master pages, themes, or the CSS out of the box, use another product like SharePoint Designer, or use third-party tools.
No matter what your choice, understanding how SharePoint works is a good place to start.
To learn the basics about master pages and page layouts in SharePoint Server 2007, read the article Improve the consistency and efficiency of your site design.
Heather Solomon has a great three-part series called Branding SharePoint.
- Branding SharePoint – Part 1: Designing your SharePoint Site This part includes tips for how to start your design process, and some questions for you to think about to help get you going in the right direction.
- Branding SharePoint – Part 2: Creating the Design in SharePoint This part gives you the pros and cons of working with master pages, themes, and CSS.
- Branding SharePoint – Part 3: Changing the look and feel of SharePoint components – Intro and Web Parts
In this part, learn how to modify Web Parts to further customize your site.
Hopefully, these resources will get you on your way to building custom sites!
