A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Bryan Zimmerman, who suggested that he would like to see a post discussing the following question:
Is it wrong for a graphic designer to use a “web template” for their personal web presence? Especially if they are looking for a graphic design position and not a web design position?
To be honest it was something I was seriously debating myself. Through blogging I have realised the true value of Wordpress and its love affair with Google. I have noticed I am receiving more and more visitors via Google searches. My own freelance graphic design site desperately needs redoing and I can see the potential of using Wordpress as a basis for my new site in preference to a static site.
Now while I could probably put together a static site from scratch (with a bit of work and hair pulling) I know I couldn’t start completely from scratch creating a theme in Wordpress. That’s where the dilemma kicks in, is it wrong for a designer to use a template and customise it to their needs for their design business website? As Brian suggests, what if you are only offering design for print too, does that make a difference?
How adapted from the original template does a website need to be to call it your own? How much does the template need to be customised in order for you to legitimately remove the original template creators credit, or should this never be done?
Several fellow designer bloggers I admire use templates they have customised see for example:
David Airey who talks about how he has just updated his site (though still retaining a lot of the sites previous style) after using an adapted version of Brian Gardener’s Vertigo theme for 6 months.
Randa Clay who uses 3 K2 Redux which she has heavily modified (she does also create her own Wordpress themes)
Char from Essential Keystrokes who has customised the dKret 1.9 theme.
I would love to hear your views on the subject.
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36 Comments
it all depends on who is your target audience and I mean if it is your portfolio website then yeah you should atleast attempt to come with original design even though you can’t re-invent the wheel you still need to add touch of personalization to it.
However if it is for personal blog or even your portfolio blog which is part of your site then it comes down to how convenient it is or how important you rank it
I personally think that if you are looking for work as a graphic designer, you can still get away with using a template for your website. If you are looking for work as a web designer however, using a template can send the wrong message to potential clients, except it is a very customised template.
if you have a very good portfolio however, you can pretty much get away with any design for your site. As most people will attribute it to the fact that you do not have time…
Hey Tara!!
Thanks for posting this question. I did wind up designing my site from the ground up using a 2-column fixed-width CSS skeleton to get started. The only reason I used the skeleton was to address Internet Explorer issues. All of the hacks were already in place.
To be completely honest, I have four clients that I designed sites for, and the biggest stress factor was IE. Now that I have a skeleton with hacks included, I can fully customize any web site.
For those of you who may be interested, the URL for the templates is http://www.sixshootermedia.com/ostemplates/basic/
Bryan Z
Interesting question. For me, starting with a theme made sense back when I started the blog in January as I still was relatively new to WordPress and designing themes hadn’t even entered my mind. After I released my first theme I really wanted to redesign my site with a theme I did from scratch. I tried several options, and then I realized that it was a silly waste of time, as I really liked how my theme was running, and I just needed to give it a makeover rather than starting all the way from scratch just to prove some point that I didn’t need to prove anyway.
Hi M Jama, Tolumi
Thanks for your comments,its good t hear some different views on the subject.
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for suggesting the question as I say it was something I had been debating myself too. Thanks for link too.
Hi Char
I hope I haven’t offended you at all, it wasn’t my intention. As I mentioned in the blog post I know you have all customised your themes and they don’t look like the original templates. It is a debate I have been having in my own head for a while now, and like you will probably go the route of customising a theme for my own site. Graphic Design Blog itelf is quite a long way off its original Leia theme. Its almost the problem of why start from scratch when you can speed up the process by sketching out a layout and then finding a wordpress theme that will be most easy to modify to the look you want.
What are your thoughts on removing the original template creators link – if you have made significant modifications that it looks nothing like the original?
When Bryan emailed me I realised it was not just me (and I’m sure there are others out there) who are debating the same template questions.
I have just noticed your OGA Gym link doesn’t seem to work – if you let me know what it is I will add it.
Tara – not offended at all! This is a really good question and I know it is one that a lot of people do struggle with.
I think the original creator of the template should remain in tact with additional credit given to the designer. If you look at Randa’s footer, it gives credit to the template and then adds “heavily modified” by Randa. I like that approach.
When it comes down to the backbone code – why reinvent the wheel when it is rolling so well as is?
Hi Randa,
Thanks for responding
just needed to give it a makeover rather than starting all the way from scratch just to prove some point that I didn’t need to prove anyway.
I think I am thinking on the same lines as you, as I mentioned in my previous comment its seems crazy to spend 3 times as long just to show you can do it. I know in design for print, if I can find a suitable stock illustration to use in a design that save me time (on a tight deadline) I do so, rather than spending days and illustrating myself.
Hi Tara,
I think that, as others have mentioned, it depends first on what services you’re offering, and second how far you remove yourself from an existing template.
Your work is mainly print-based, and you do a great job with your own appearance through this modification.
I on the other hand advertise through my blog that I offer web design, which is why I recently launched my own custom theme. Brian’s Vertigo theme did me very well until I found time to learn the WordPress coding.
I also think that no matter how much you customise someone elses theme you should never take away any credit from the original designer. Credit where credit’s due, as you’re rightly sticking by.
What’s the address of your freelance design site?
Hi David
Thanks for your input. I am too embarassed to share my freelance site link
, when my new one up and running I will add a link then
Awww
I look forward to seeing what you come up with though.
I think it really depends on how much of these design element your redesign uses. If you are simply using a template as a shortcut for the code, then why not.
But once you keep design elements and call them youre own….thats another story.
This is a good discussion. What constitutes a unique theme, though? No one has talked about that yet. Is it the code or the imagery? I doubt most theme designers start with a blank html/php page and generate 100% of the coding themselves.
For my theme, I’m taking the code from the default WP theme and then modifying it to fit my design. It’s good to have something to start with (if only to understand how it works), but if all that’s left of the original design when you’re done is a couple of lines of code, do you really need to give credit to the original author? I’m not sure, but I would say if this is the case, then no.
Tara, absolutely wonderful post. (and thanks to Bryan for instigating it.) I’ve tried my best to come up with my own unique designs for my themes (which find themselves being changed way too often IMO – my biggest flaw as a designer is changing themes due to my boredom!) Anyway, I will admit that most of my work (including my own site) has been influenced in tiny ways by other design elements I’ve seen elsewhere.
I do think that if you are trying to sell yourself as a designer, you should have something original. (or at least spend quite a bit of time customizing something like David Airey did with my Vertigo theme.) IMO, his rendition of that was proof that you can take a public theme, put your design signature all over it and be ok with that.
Straight out of the box themes on a designer’s site? No way.
Hi Danny, thanks for your comment, I agree I wouldn’t keep main images etc for a design site.
Hi Lauren, you raise a good point, I guess many of the newer themes on the wordpress site started out as aanother theme.
Hi Brian, great to have a Wordpress theme guru commenting
. I was previously using your vertigo 2 col theme. I guess every designer “borrows” ideas from others. Like you suggest as I designer I agree the theme should at least have a fair bit of customising. For myself as with many print based designers starting from scratch (at the moment) technically wise is just not an option, but a customised theme is.
I think it’s important to remember that blogging still is a pretty geeky clique, and whilst it is gradually becoming more mainstream, I reckon most of your graphic design clients don’t know the difference between various themes and don’t particularly care.
For blogs using a template is fine
People in prints designing can also use design
Webdesigning guys should have their own unique design..
Hi Aaron,
I hope you’re not calling me a geek
Hi Santosh
I look forward to seeing your finished theme.
Damn right I am… nerdo! :p
It’s my very personal opinion that if you’re really serious about advertising yourself as a designer -be it web or print-, you should definitely not use *any* template at all. You might look at some to see more or less where you want your design to be, but you should ultimately design your own stuff if you want people to trust you to design theirs, it doesn’t matter if you can “get away with a theme” because they won’t know the difference. If you’re a web designer design your site, if you’re a print designer you can design your own stuff and get a programmer etc to put it on-line, make work, etc. I believe it’s not only something to show your would be clients, but also for personal satisfaction; again, would you trust someone that uses templates and things like that to design your projects?
I find it somewhat amusing, and somewhat discouraging that some of the comments in here imply that a designer should highly customize a template theme. Amusing, because most of those people appear to be highly knowledgeable in CSS, etc. Discouraging because I would like to customize my site, but I’m a print designer, not a Web/code guru.
I’m a designer. I have a Wordpress site. I have absolutely NO knowledge of CSS or how I can customize the placement of things on my own site. It sucks. But I’m more interested in providing decent content than how it looks. Is that really wrong? Sure I would love to be able to come up with a cool theme for my site, but readers tend to get past the design fairly quickly if you have good content. And generally speaking, most agencies and clients could care less about the look of your site if your portfolio is filled with great creative work.
Hi James
My knowledge of CSS a couple of month ago was nil too and now its still only minimal. I am a print designer (at the moment until I improve my skills) like yourself. As long as you are comfortable with your site and are not misleading anyone, surely thats all that matters.
I really want a blank wordpress theme that’s just the template tags. I think Wordpress’s theme documentation makes it hard to easily figure out which tags you need to keep.
I know that I start with Kubrick, strip away all of the non wordpress / post/comment wrapping divs, and build from there. Because it’s far easier than digging up the 187 template tags I would need.
I think, though, I’m going to sit down and write a blank theme before long.
Hi Kath,
I found a site a while back that had blank wordpress themes, I haven’t tried them but they might be what you are looking for http://www.tomorrows-laundry.com/
Perhaps plaintxt.org will help you Kath?
There is nothing wrong using template but don’t over using. In my opinion, I would like to create my own template rather than using pre-built template.
There is nothing wrong use pre-built template but don’t over using. In my opinion, I would like to create my own template rather than using pre-built template.
just watching this comment, hope get something to learn
Hi Tara,
That’s a really great question and it’s very interesting to see other peoples responses and opinions. My view is I don’t think it is wrong to use a template as long as you have customized it to a point where you have made it your own. Graphic designers can be very busy these days and to take some of the work away using an existing template can be a godsend instead of designing coding etc your taking away weeks of work! but as long as you make it your own i don’t think their is anything wrong with that.
Regards
Taz
I think it’s not wrong for web designer using themes. But I think, it will good for him to design his own themes or template
I dont think so, because it is rightful way for a beginner to get practice by downloading templates and work according to the them.
Here is my 2 cents worth. As a graphic designer I think that web design has a long way to go before any of it is original. I have looked at many, many websites and think that I have seen just a hand full that are creative and original. I know that someday soon technology will allow for more font, color and layout choices but for now I am hardly willing to call it an art form. The only creative part of most websites is the graphic content. So I guess my answer to the question is yes it’s ok to use templates, at least until they reinvent the wheel.
I dont think its a good or bad thing, templates allow you to reduce costs for clients – as long as they know the options at hand and dont believe what they are getting is unique its fine.
AS long as the designer makes it relevant and the sight is everything the customer wants, what is the problem?
I personally don’t see any problem with templates, but I do agree with Brian on one point. If you are advertising yourself as a designer, your site should be unique and original.
I agree with Tolumi, A graphic designer is showcasing designs ON their website, where as a website designer is showcasing their website.
Not smart to use a template for your design unless you have some heavy customization skills.
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