Before we go any further it's important to understand the purpose of this series and where we're heading over the next few weeks.

This series is aimed at the very beginner and will cover the basics of front end theme development. If you're an advanced Magento developer this may not be the series for you. 

In this series, we'll be covering the following topics:

• Magento hierarchy
• Packages and themes
• Fall-back hierarchy
• Layout files
• Template files

By the end of the series you will be well-equipped to at least have a solid understanding of Magento theme principles and be able to create and modify your very own themes like a professional!