We where tasked with studying and developing a site using the genesis framework for Wordpress. Which is a pretty nifty framework with hooks that you can use to do your own customization using child themes. The concept basically is to choose a child theme to put your modified code in. Think of it as a mod folder where you put your customized code so they wont get over written when you do a update. It comes with many layout and themes. It makes it a lot easier for people who do not know much about web development and it give developer and programmer a good framework to code in.