Creating the look and feel of a new Magento store is, for those designers among us, one of the most exciting aspects of creating a new website. However, as we have seen, to give store owners the level of power and functionality that Magento affords, designers can no longer build static HTML pages, slap in a bit of PHP, and upload to the server. With high levels of functionality come higher levels of architectural complexity.

Fortunately, the complexity of Magento is not nearly as daunting once you understand the methodologies of how pages are built, rendered, and styled. I struggled initially to fully understand this system. However, today I feel very comfortable navigating the design-related components of Magento, after taking the time to understand how it all pieces together. Today, you have the added advantage of a much improved architecture, as well as this book in your hands.

Hopefully, I've also shown you that in most cases, if you want an extensively customized theme, you really...