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This is a guide for creating a theme from the default theme provided by Magento. This is frowned upon because the default features provided in a previous version of Magento may not work on newer versions.

But for the sake of ease, I choose to ignore this warning. So this is a simple guide that I use for quickly creating a Magento theme to dirty up from the default theme.

1. Copy over the default frontend app design folder to the new_theme folder:
   

   cp -r /usr/local/www/magento/app/design/frontend/default/default /usr/local/www/magento/app/design/frontend/default/new_theme
   

2. Copy over the base default frontend skin folder:
   

   cp -r /usr/local/www/magento/skin/frontend/base/default /usr/local/www/magento/skin/frontend/default/new_theme
   

3. Login to the Magento admin panel, then System -> Design.
4. Click on Add Design Change, then set the Custom Design to new_theme.

Now the images, CSS files, and various theme files in the app/design/frontend/default/new_theme and skin/frontend/default/new_theme folder can be changed.