An excellent blog and resource for any web designer, Above the Fold Blog — written by Brian Miller, author of the book Above the Fold, is worth a look or two. His articles are well written and this one in particular illustrates a very good (and important) point to consider if you are in the web design field. The war on templates. Are you for or against them? I am all for taking a template and customizing it completely to suit a client’s specific needs. I would never use a template as is without having done a design for the client first. Design must come first. I use wordpress templates so that I don’t need to rebuild functionality and it saves me time coding things that can easily be plugged in and tweaked. The question for me is “Why reinvent the wheel?”. I believe you should take the wheel, make it bigger and better – build on top of it and take it to the next level… What are your thoughts on using templates in web design?
Ultimately, I believe that this theme trend devalues the work I do as a Web designer. Clients no longer expect to pay what they once did for a Web site…
Like with every other trend in this ever-changing industry, it’s the designers who adapt that survive. So perhaps in the future you’ll see a line of “Above the Fold Themes,” but I’m not ready to make that leap just yet. I believe there’s still a dire need for brand-specific ideas that make companies more memorable and connect with their audience more effectively.
