How do I customize the look of a wordpress blog?

[ClickBuster]

My suggestion would be to first find a blog theme that has the right visual structure for your blog (2-3 columns, etc.). Upload the theme in the right folder and switch to it from the Presentation section in the WP admin.

Go to Presentation > Theme Editor, on the right side of the page, you'll see a list of all different parts of the blog interface split into files. The file names are explainatory enough for you to know what you're editing (404 template, header, etc). These're the template files.

WordPress uses Smartie Templates, which means each template file has HTML and PHP in it.

TIP: Don't edit the code in the TEXTAREA directly, copy it to the proper HTML/text editor. I personally am using Dreamweaver. That will make it much easier for you to understand the code and edit the files.

The PHP parts of the code call different functions or include others PHP scripts. Like the template files, the functions and the files for inclusure have pretty logical names, plus you'll find comments next most of the PHP, that explains what the code does.

If you're new to PHP, make sure you have a working backup of the file you're editing. Looking at the source should make it easy for you to find the right place to stick your HTML or PHP.

When you change the headers and you add advertisement to your sidebar(s), the next step would be customizing the fonts and colors of the template. This is done by editing the blog stylesheet, which again, you'll find in the Theme Editor section of the WordPress admin.

WP's output (i.e. the site) is based on DIVs and CSS, so if you how to work with that, you can do pretty much everything with the template, turn it upside down if you want

I hope this is helpful... have fun!