Skip to content
Contact Book a call

Custom Themes · WordPress · Los Angeles

Custom WordPress theme development for US brands

Your colors, type and spacing written down once, then used on every page your editors build.

A custom theme is the code that decides how your WordPress site looks and what your editors are allowed to change. We turn a Figma file or brand guide into a lightweight block theme, with the design tokens in theme.json, templates for each page type and patterns your marketing team can reuse. Built by our Glendale-led team for companies across the US, with forms that drop leads into Zoho CRM.

  • Design tokens in theme.json
  • Templates for every page type
  • Patterns locked to your brand
Book a WordPress call Try the token editor
Zoho Advanced PartnerTheme forms that feed Zoho
You’ll talk to our senior team, not a call center.300+ projects · serving US clients since 2025

01Custom theme or not?

What is a custom WordPress theme, and is it worth building one?

It’s a theme written for one company instead of thousands. Nothing in it exists for a feature you’ll never use, and every color, font and layout choice comes from your brand. That makes it lighter and easier to keep on-brand, but it only pays back when the site matters to how you sell.

Inside a block theme we hand over

  • theme.jsonPalette, fonts, sizes, spacing and what editors may change
  • templates/Home, page, single post, archive, search and 404 layouts
  • parts/Header and footer, edited once and shared everywhere
  • patterns/Ready-made sections: hero, testimonial, pricing, FAQ, contact
  • styles/Optional style variations, such as a holiday or sub-brand look
  • functions.phpKept short: asset loading, block styles, nothing that belongs in a plugin

FitsWhen a custom theme earns its keep

  • You have a designed brand (or a Figma file) and a bought theme keeps fighting it.
  • Marketing publishes landing pages every month and keeps drifting off-brand.
  • Your current theme ships sliders, page builders and fonts you never asked for, and pages crawl.
  • Several sites (locations, product lines) should share one design system.

Skip itWhen we’d tell you to wait

  • A five-page site with no designer yet: a well-chosen block theme and a style tweak is enough.
  • Your team is happy in Elementor and the site works; rebuilding the theme won’t change much.
  • The real problem is content or hosting speed, which a new theme alone won’t fix.

02Theme development services

What we build when you hire us for a custom WordPress theme

Most theme projects are a mix of the six jobs below. The first call usually tells us which ones yours needs, and the list goes into the BRD line by line.

  • Block themes from scratch

    A full site editing theme built on theme.json, HTML templates and template parts, so headers, footers and layouts are edited in the Site Editor instead of PHP files.

  • Figma to theme

    We read your Figma variables and text styles, match them to WordPress presets, and flag anything in the mockups that editors won’t be able to reproduce.

  • Classic to block theme conversion

    Older PHP themes with header.php, sidebars and a customizer get rebuilt as block templates, keeping the look your customers know and the URLs Google has indexed.

  • Guardrails for editors

    Custom colors, font sizes and spacing can be switched off where they cause damage, and user roles decide who may touch templates. Freedom inside the brand, not outside it.

  • Speed and accessibility baked in

    Self-hosted fonts, only the CSS a page needs, sensible image sizes, focus states and color contrast checked against WCAG 2.1 AA while we build, so there’s less to retrofit later.

  • Child themes and rescues

    Inherited a theme someone edited directly? We move the changes into a child theme or a clean rebuild, so the next update stops wiping out your work.

Need blocks that go beyond styling, like a product comparison or a team grid fed by structured fields? Those live on our Gutenberg block development and ACF pages.

03From design file to working theme

How does a Figma file become a WordPress theme?

One layer at a time, each sitting on the one below. This is the order we follow for a sample client, a restoration contractor in Pasadena with a fresh brand and a twelve-page Figma file.

  1. Layer 1 · The design file

    Read the design like a developer

    We list every color, type style and spacing value in the file. Twelve pages turned out to use nine blues that were meant to be two; the designer picks the keepers before any code exists.

  2. Layer 2 · Tokens

    Write the tokens into theme.json

    Two brand colors, three neutrals, two font families, a fluid type scale and seven spacing steps become presets. WordPress turns each into a CSS variable that every block can use.

    --wp--preset--color--brand

  3. Layer 3 · Templates and parts

    Build the page types, not the pages

    A header part, a footer part, then templates for the home page, a project, the project archive, a blog post and the 404. Eight templates cover all twelve Figma screens.

  4. Layer 4 · Patterns

    Turn repeated sections into patterns

    Before-and-after gallery, project facts, a quote with a photo, a service-area list, a contact band. Editors insert them from the block inserter and only swap the words and pictures.

  5. Layer 5 · Handover

    Hand the office manager the keys

    Custom colors are switched off, templates are editable by admins only, and a short recorded walkthrough shows how to publish a new project page in under ten minutes.

Sample project and numbers, shown to explain the order of work.

04Try it · sample tokens

Change five tokens and watch a theme follow

This is the idea behind theme.json: change a value in one place and every template, pattern and button picks it up. Pick a brand color, a heading font, the body size, spacing and corner radius. The preview, the theme.json snippet and a contrast check update as you go.

Brand color
Heading font
Body text size 17px
Spacing scale
Corner radius 8px
Sample Co.ServicesWorkAbout

Long Beach, CA

Commercial roofing, inspected twice a year

Flat roofs for warehouses and retail centers across Los Angeles County, with photo reports after every visit.

Request an inspection
InspectionsSpring and fall walk-throughs
RepairsLeaks traced and sealed
CoatingsReflective roof systems

theme.json (sample excerpt)

Sample only. A real theme also defines neutrals, link and focus colors, a fluid type scale with several sizes, and block-level styles for buttons, quotes and navigation.

05Custom themes + Zoho

Where does Zoho plug into a custom theme?

In the places a visitor raises a hand: forms, chat and booking. Because we write the theme, those pieces get designed with the rest of the page instead of looking pasted in, and the data lands in the right Zoho app.

A contact pattern that creates CRM leads

The form is styled by your tokens and posts to Zoho CRM or Zoho Forms. Hidden fields carry the page URL and campaign tags, so sales can see which page produced the lead.

Chat loaded from the footer, after the page

The Zoho SalesIQ widget sits in the footer template part and loads once the main content is on screen, so live chat doesn’t slow the first paint. Its colors are matched to your palette.

A booking section editors can drop anywhere

A pattern wraps your Zoho Bookings page with a heading and a short reassurance line. Marketing adds it to a service page in two clicks, and appointments sync to the right staff calendar.

06Custom theme pricing

What decides the cost of a custom WordPress theme?

WordPress itself is free, open-source software, so there’s no license to buy for the theme or the editor. What you pay for is the design and build work, plus the running costs every site has. Six things move the build cost more than anything else.

Number of templates

A brochure site needs five or six; a site with projects, locations and a resource library can need fifteen.

Where the design comes from

A finished Figma file with variables is quicker to build than a brand guide we design from.

Custom blocks

Patterns are cheap to add. Blocks with their own settings or data take real development time.

Content you bring over

Moving a handful of pages is quick. Hundreds of posts with old shortcodes need cleanup scripts.

Integrations

Zoho forms, chat, booking, search or a members area each add their own testing.

Accessibility target

We build to WCAG 2.1 AA by default; a formal audit report on top is scoped separately.

Running costs that sit outside our quote: hosting, a domain, any premium plugin licenses and paid font licenses. We name each one in the plan so nothing turns up later as a surprise renewal.

Our side is one number. The templates, patterns, guardrails and Zoho connections are listed in a BRD you sign, and the theme is built for that fixed price on a dated schedule. The first conversation costs nothing.

07Custom theme questions

Custom WordPress theme questions we hear most

Block or classic, child themes, rankings and who owns the code. Send us your Figma link or current site before the call and we’ll come with notes.

Book a WordPress callOpen the token editor →

What is a custom WordPress theme?

It is a theme written for one business rather than sold to many. It controls the look of every page (colors, fonts, spacing, headers, footers and layouts) and what editors are allowed to change. We build them as block themes, with the design tokens in theme.json and layouts in templates and template parts.

Custom theme or a premium theme from a marketplace?

A premium multipurpose theme is quick to start with but ships options for every possible site, which adds weight and lets editors drift off-brand. A custom theme carries only what your design needs. If you have no designer and a small site, a well-chosen ready-made block theme is often the sensible choice, and we will say so.

What is the difference between a block theme and a classic theme?

A classic theme builds pages with PHP template files such as header.php and footer.php and is styled through the Customizer. A block theme uses HTML templates made of blocks, a theme.json file for settings and styles, and is edited in the Site Editor. New builds from us are block themes unless a plugin you rely on still needs a classic one.

Should we use a child theme instead of a custom theme?

A child theme is the right move when you like your current parent theme and only need a few changes, because updates to the parent no longer erase them. If you are fighting the parent theme on layout, speed or branding, a child theme just adds a layer on top of the problem, and a custom theme is cleaner.

Can our marketing team still build pages after launch?

Yes, that is the point of patterns. Editors insert ready-made sections such as a hero, testimonial or contact band and change the text and images. We decide with you which settings stay open, for example allowing any palette color but turning off custom hex values, and who can edit templates.

Will a new theme hurt our Google rankings?

It should not if the switch is handled carefully. We keep or redirect every existing URL, carry over titles, meta descriptions and structured data, keep heading order sensible, and test speed on staging before launch. Search Console is watched closely for the first weeks after the switch.

Can you turn our Figma designs into a WordPress theme?

Yes. We map Figma variables and text styles to theme.json presets, build each screen as a template or pattern, and point out any parts of the design that editors could not recreate on their own. If the file is missing mobile layouts or states like hover and focus, we raise that before the build is priced.

Who owns the theme code after launch?

You do. WordPress themes are released under the GPL, and we hand over the theme files and the code repository along with admin access. Any developer can maintain it later, and nothing about the theme ties you to our hosting or support.

How long does a custom WordPress theme take to build?

It depends on the number of templates, custom blocks, content to move and integrations. Once the scope is agreed, the BRD includes a delivery schedule with dated reviews on a staging site, so you know when each template will be ready to check.

How do you price custom WordPress theme work?

The first call is free. After it, the templates, patterns, editor guardrails and any Zoho forms or chat are written into a BRD with one fixed price. Larger design systems shared across several sites may need a short paid discovery first, and we quote that before it starts.

08How a theme project starts

We agree the design system before writing a template

Four steps take you from a design file to a signed theme plan. A small theme can often be scoped from the first call and the Figma link; a multi-site design system may need a short paid discovery, priced before it begins.

Reviews happen on a staging site you can click through from anywhere in the US, Canada or Latin America, and we’re happy to meet your designers in person around Los Angeles.

  1. Discovery callYour brand, the design file, who edits the site and what keeps breaking today
  2. Token and template listColors, type, spacing and every page type written down and checked against the design
  3. Editor guardrailsWhat marketing can change freely, what needs an admin, and which patterns they get
  4. BRD sign-off Our promiseTheme scope, Zoho links and launch date in writing, at one fixed price

Once signed, the build follows our schedule-led delivery process. See how we work →

09Let’s talk

Tell us what you’re building. We’ll map the fix.

Book a free consultation with Elite Tech Global. We review your Zoho, AWS, Shopify or WordPress setup, show where AI / SI agents can save time, and agree the next step. If we work together, every requirement and a fixed price go into a signed BRD before the build starts.

Real people, one team. Led by co-founders Ikramul Karim and Khris Kakosimidi, and a 40+ member team across Zoho, AWS and AI.

Get your free consultation

Tell us a little and we’ll reply with next steps.

What can we help with?

No spam. We use your details to reply about your project, and send occasional updates only if you tick the box above. See our Privacy Policy.