| A lot of custom web site designers are really critical | | | | website design elements. |
| of commercial website templates. I have seen snide | | | | 3. The last big problem is that they are rigid. Often a |
| comments on Forums and Blogs along the lines of | | | | content block is a specific size and if your content |
| 'This site has template written all over it'. There are | | | | does not fit into that, it is your problem! Because the |
| two main reasons not to like templates, and then | | | | content and the presentation are not separated it is |
| some ways to mitigate these problems. | | | | very easy to break the template if you want to |
| Let's explore these. | | | | make extensive changes to your website content. |
| Templates are not original | | | | So how can these persuasive negatives related to |
| There is something to be said for creating your own, | | | | the use of templates be overcome? |
| all original work. But there is a difference between | | | | Firstly, the fact that there might be another site out |
| being somewhat artistic and being an artist with the | | | | there somewhere that might have the same look |
| capability of bringing together all the elements of a | | | | should not really be a deterrent. There are over 8 |
| website headers, judicious use of graphics, menus | | | | billion pages on the Internet, according to Google. |
| and layout into a cohesive and pleasing whole. Not to | | | | Admittedly there are fewer websites than pages but |
| talk about creating a website with a definite wow | | | | even at 16 pages on average per website, we might |
| factor and one that loads fast to boot. | | | | have close on 500 Million possible websites. What are |
| I discovered soon in my website design career that I | | | | the chances? But there are things that can be done |
| am just not quite artistic enough to really create the | | | | to minimise the screaming template effect: |
| effect that I was looking for. My first websites were | | | | 1. The stock photos and graphics used on the |
| all created from scratch by hand and I spent hours | | | | template can often be replaced by photos of the |
| and hours on choosing the right colours, selecting the | | | | company or person that the website is being |
| graphics, optimizing the graphics and designing the | | | | designed for. Even just using other stock photos or |
| menus with the right rollover effects. | | | | graphics can make a big difference. |
| The most frustrating thing was that after my | | | | 2. Company logos can be incorporated into relevant |
| masterpiece was designed, it still fell far short of | | | | places |
| some of the other websites that I regularly came | | | | 3. Sometimes the whole colour scheme can be |
| across in my travels on the Internet. | | | | changed by making use of tools such as Photoshop |
| Now, professionally designed website templates are, | | | | or Fireworks. |
| as the name implies, designed by professional graphic | | | | Secondly, the bad design elements of the template |
| designers. They might not be professional website | | | | can be addressed in the following way: |
| designers as such since these templates often have | | | | After all the effort that I put into designing my |
| certain intrinsic flaws, however, most of the time the | | | | websites from scratch I soon ran into the problem of |
| look and feel created by the template, especially its | | | | maintenance. Successful websites need content. |
| graphical elements, work together in a way that is | | | | They need lots of content and they need content to |
| difficult to achieve for someone without either years | | | | be added in a constant stream. The only tool that |
| of practice or formal training (not to talk of intrinsic | | | | can help you do this is some form of Content |
| artistic capabilities and talent!) | | | | Management System. |
| But let's look at the second reason why people don't | | | | There are several of these available commercially or |
| like templates: | | | | under the GPL license; people have their own |
| Templates are often badly designed from a website | | | | favourites. The point is that most Content |
| design perspective | | | | Management Systems work on the principle of |
| Website templates might look nice on the outside, | | | | separating the content from the presentation, and |
| but any experienced website designer will tell you | | | | therefore work on some sort of template system |
| that under the hood they suffer from the following | | | | themselves. |
| problems: | | | | The best solution therefore is to convert the |
| 1. In most cases they do not make use of Cascading | | | | commercial website template into the CMS template |
| Style Sheets to control layout, fonts or colours. | | | | format. I often convert commercial website |
| Some of them nominally make use of an external css | | | | templates, after suitable modifications to the graphics |
| file but most of the times style commands abound | | | | to personalise it, into my favourite CMS Joomla's, |
| inside the html code, often negating the benefit of | | | | template format. During the process I retain the |
| the external style sheet. | | | | graphics but move all the styling into an external style |
| 2. Probably the biggest problem and biggest bugbear | | | | sheet; I get rid of the tables and make use of CSS |
| of web design purists is that most of these | | | | positioning. And because you are using a CMS you |
| templates are heavily tables based. While tables | | | | can easily add menus, new pages and all the other |
| undeniably make it easy to quickly position text and | | | | bits and pieces of content that you want without |
| graphics it does go against the grain of good website | | | | breaking the layout. |
| design. Tables are supposed to contain content, not | | | | As far as I am concerned, the best of both worlds.... |