MSDN made public the Real World Branding with SharePoint 2010 Publishing Sites (this article was provided by two SharePoint MVP's Andrew Connell and Randy Drisgill).
You can get the code from MSDN Code Gallery here and read the article on MSDN Library here.
This article walks designers through the process of creating a custom brand in SharePoint Publishing sites as well as helping developers take the design and implementing it as a custom brand using Features and Solutions.
When you are ready to create a great design for a SharePoint site, you first need to take time to plan the site well. Use a planning phase to gather design requirements for site elements such as master pages and page layouts. By properly understanding what the business objectives are before starting to code, you can avoid difficult and time-consuming rewrites later in the project lifecycle.
