Theming a resorts new Aspenware Commerce site is an important part of the on-boarding services that we offer at Aspenware. One of the reasons that resorts choose Aspenware is that we have the ability to integrate our e-Commerce platform seamlessly into their customer experience - transitioning customers from their brand site to their store with the same general look and feel between both experiences.
How AW does theming.
To accomplish this, we provide custom theming as part of the standard on-boarding experience. The process involves several members of the team: a dedicated service team member, a product owner to manage the delivery and timelines and facilitate the process, and a front end developer to provide technical support via the Purchase Team support channel on Slack if needed.
Theming has evolved considerably over time. The first iteration of theming involved creating custom theme directories for each resort and writing custom CSS for each resorts theme. Theme Designer V1 improved the process by implementing custom CSS variables, limiting the theme options, and generating the CSS files via the stand alone Theme Designer app. Theme Designer v2 moved the stand alone app into the browser, allowing real time theme updates. It also did away with the individual theme directories for each resort, and moved the theme files to storage containers on Azure. This enabled theme updates to be done by the CS team without the need to deploy code by using the Theme Designer App.
While we do still support our legacy themes to a very limited degree (P1 fixes only), the CS team now uses AW Theme Designer v2 for the theming process so that they can expedite the entire onboarding experience and make theme updates without needing to involve engineering.