How can I add recent posts like you did on the forum? That looks pretty awesome.

Hello!
I've got some questions about your way of coding and designing themes and I was hoping you could tell me or point me in some directions in order to be able to do some cool stuff to customize my SMF forum.
Per example, you changed the zone where the avatar and "Messages/Unread", and you also changed the navigation bar to top, and the linktree makes a cool slide that I don't know how it works, and it looks really awesome. So my question is, could you highlight me, and possibily many others on how you manipulate the coding when doing your SMF themes?
Also, do you start from the default theme when you begin customizing a new theme?

Thank you,
Manaen94