This talk will cover best practices in WordPress theme development with a strong focus on using the Underscores theme as a starting point. Underscores is a starter theme created by the Theme Team at Automattic and serves as a base for all of the new themes they create for WordPress.com. Talk will cover the benefits of starting with a solid base that passes Theme Check right from the start, an overview and demonstration of converting a design comp into a WordPress theme, strategies to approach styling nested elements: menus, widget, and comments, and how to activate core custom header and background features.