When I initially started down the rocky road to learning SharePoint branding, it began with SharePoint 2007. Back then the branding experience, from a designers perspective, was seriously lacking. SharePoint Designer 2007, albeit a forerunner for FrontPage, was somewhat helpful as I embarked on my journey. My first SharePoint branding project was an intranet for a client, and the firm I was working for at the time, gave me free reign on the overall design and layout of the site. When I conducted my research into how to change the look and feel of the site, I felt that customizing an out-of-the-box theme was too limiting. Sure I could have gone into the hive and copied an existing theme folder, and then customized it. However, this strategy didn't meet my requirements. I wanted more control over the design of the master page and page layout. In other words, I wanted to have this site not look like SharePoint at all.