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CSS web templates for inspiration?

Posted on by Clive Walker in CSS Portfolio

I wrote this post a while back. The content can still be relevant but the information I've linked to may not be available.

There are many websites that provide CSS web templates (either free or for purchase) and they can offer some advantages when creating a website for a client.

Blue and orange web templateGreen and blue web template

I have been considering using CSS XHTML web templates for recent projects and this is a summary of my recent thinking.

Advantages are:

  • Many designs available to present as a starting point to any client.
  • Designs can act as a stimulus for your own design ideas.
  • Templates can offer a new ‘look’ for your own portfolio.
  • A lot of the initial CSS and layout work has been completed – although my experience is that there can still be a lot of work to do when ‘customising’ the template.
  • CSS web templates can provide great learning points for designers wanting to move from tables-based websites to table-less layouts.
  • Cheap prices

Disdavantages:

  • The template you use may be used by someone else – although in practice this is unlikely to be a problem so long as the client knows this (be honest!). In any case, the finished website will have images/text that are relevant to the client which will differentiate it (at least in part) from another website using the same template.
  • It’s not my original idea.

Conclusions:

Overall, as a freelancer, I think I’m going to make more use of web templates in the future. Not for every project – but for some. One of my main motivations is to broaden out my ‘usual approach’.

Purchase: » 4templates.com | The Template Store
Open source: » Open Source Web Design | Open Web Design

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Comments

  • 23 Apr 2006 00:24:31

    If you are looking for CSS2 based templates you will find some pretty good ones on : www.intensivstation.ch/en/templates

  • 23 Apr 2006 11:40:09

    You can see similar CSS layout examples here: http://blog.html.it/layoutgala/

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