Genesis Framework

Good question.

I use Genesis exclusively and think it's fantastic. There's a bit of a learning curve with it. It helps if you have experience as a developer. If not, you'll need to start with a stock child theme.

If you have no experience with developing sites then you may find another theme that offers a lot of customization options easier. Genesis is a Framework and itself doesn't offer any easy-to-use customization panel.

That being said, though, it's worth learning because the code is so fantastic and it's really really good for seo.

Further, using a child theme goes a long way in protecting you from future updates.

EDIT:

I also want to add that the Genesis community is really great and supportive. Studiopress has some great tutorials, the forums are great, and there are several developers that offer fantastic tutorials, as well.

Genesis Framework is great platform to use.
It is not the easiest but well worth the effort in learning.
If you have a lot of experience then it will not take long a all.

i use genesis now and i think it's great, next is THESIS

Genesis theme is great.. But not great if you want to customise it. Messes up and the CSS file is one big line of text! Ridiculous.

I would love to use Genesis, but as others have confirmed, there seems to be a big learning curve. Guess that's because it's so flexible.

Curious, how many people have made their own design, or do most people just use child theme's?

The Genesis Framework (from www.studiopress) has become somewhat of a de facto standard.

It is excellent and also good for SEO. However, I sometimes prefer the "Gantry" framework shown on the RocketThemes website (but from an independent site and developer: What Is Gantry?).

The Gantry framework has many more adjustments possible than does Genesis, so it's very flexible.

On learning to use the frameworks - StudioPress has a great forum and will help you with custom code snippets, etc. They also have a very thorough PDF document that goes through every feature and setting (and the image sizes needed for headers). I expect that the Gantry framework has good documentation as well, but have not looked into that yet.

In answer to Ron's question: I've toyed with creating my own theme from scratch (you can find good website how-tos with a Google search). But for now, I just use a child theme. The WordPress "JetPack" now comes with an easy automatic CSS child theme widget.

For those who don't already know - you need a "child theme" so that your theme edits won't be lost when you update a theme.

Hope this helps...
_jim coe

I use genises as the base for a number of my sites.
It is strong, has a range of "child themes" that are quite cheap.
I'm not a proper coder so sometimes I need help they have great help and excellent forums.

The TRUE answer for you is "What kind of site are you setting up"???????

I have other themes that suit different sites out of the box and ALL are backed by reputable companies.....It's one of the criteia I use when buying atheme.