Yes! That’s what most people do 😉
Actually, I strongly don’t recommend using the default theme for customising. It is quite ugly inside and things get very difficult with the CSS.
I highly recommend starting out using Sandbox as your theme. Sandbox is a theme designed to be themed. How it works is that it has a “skins” folder that you put your CSS into. The selectors in the HTML are powerful enough that you can program your entire site design in CSS.
Designing my own sites with Sandbox has been a great CSS learning experience for me.
Ah okay. But it is okay to use the default theme, right? And the sandbox theme is okay to be modded too, right?
most of the themes at themes.wordpress.net are available for you to take it as a starting point.
what most theme authors ask is, when you are done with your version, to have a link to the original author somewhere.
just check with the original authors by email, before you release your version., if you plan to release it.
