James recently did a little research on what other graphic designers and WordPress site developers are charging for their services. It’s good to know what the competition is doing and how we compare.
He noticed some wild pricing extremes. One site offered themes at two different rates, one low, one high. There didn’t seem to be much difference between the two services, either.
I offered the suggestion that the more expensive option probably meant the designer built new themes from scratch versus customizing template themes.
This prompted more questions. “Why reinvent the wheel each time?” James was perplexed. “There are thousands of templates. How many ways can you make something look different above the fold? Why push this to customers when they could save money on templates and still have a unique site?”
They were good questions. Why would anyone want to start fresh each time and charge clients when they could easily take a pre-existing theme and slice a unique design over the layout or customize certain layout areas?
Maybe I’m missing something, but I can’t see enough value to justify the cost and effort.
What Do Customers Want?
It’s often said there is nothing new under the sun. This is especially true for themes. There are only so many ways to arrange the layout within a given space before you begin to repeat yourself.
A good designer can take any pre-existing theme on the market and make it look unique and different. There’s no reason to spend thousands of dollars having a theme built from scratch when there’s probably already a template out there built to the specs you seek.
Consumers – the people who are going to buy from you – care about appeal, quality, credibility, and solutions. They don’t care if the RSS button is two pixels lower than the next guy’s site. They don’t care if the sidebar column is a little wider or a little narrower.
Buyers care about a trustworthy-looking business that sells something they want.
The Best Car on the Lot
Think of cars. What attracts buyers? The shape, the color, the sleekness, the emotional feeling that comes from a glance at a Solstice or a big-ass Ford 350. Those features invite drivers to step closer, maybe open the door, even sit inside.
The look encourages people to linger and buy. How the car is built doesn’t really matter.
When was the last time you got down on all fours in a car dealer’s parking lot, laid down on the ground and slid under the frame to see where the gas tank was located? When you bought your last car, did you care whether the tank was three inches to the left or 1.5 inches to the right?
Of course not. You bought the car because it looked nice, felt good and drove well. It responded to your needs.
Car manufacturers don’t built new models from scratch every time. They don’t invite a customer into their factory and build a car just for that person. Car manufacturers use existing models and make them better, shaping new designs. They improve on what has already been built.
Why? Because it saves time and money, and it gets the job done.
I’m sure purists will be quick to step up and defend building new themes for each client that comes along. They’ll say that unique is the only way to go, top to bottom, head to toe.
Remember: There’s nothing new under the sun.
Tweak to Your Specs
With all the site themes and templates out there – and there are thousands – you should be able to find a theme with good coding and the features you need for your site. With a creative design and a little bit of customization, your site will look perfectly unique.
Maybe you can’t find exactly what you want in a site layout. We still bet that you can find something close to your vision – close enough that you can use it as a base and have it tweaked just right.
Don’t have a site built from scratch if an existing model gives you the foundation of what you want. It just makes sense to save some serious time and money.
Don’t get me wrong. Creating themes from scratch does have its place. If you’re a developer and have a great idea for a layout or feature that you haven’t yet seen after looking at what’s out there, then sure. Go ahead. Build from scratch. Have fun.
But if you’re just Joe Average looking for a nice site that brings in business, ask yourself if you really need to spend that much money for unique framework. Wouldn’t your money be better spent on an appealing, credible, trustworthy image instead?
We’re always seeking ways to help people do better in business, save money and still have a professional site. We’re in this business to help clients get what they need and earn revenues from it without draining their cash flow.
We’ve never suggested building a theme from scratch simply because it doesn’t make financial sense.
So before someone tries to convince you that a unique theme is the best way to go and that investing thousands of dollars in moving around the layout is going to make a difference, stop. Consider carefully. Think about your goals. Figure out the best areas to spend your money for the most returns.
Then figure out whether a from-scratch theme will have the most impact on your sales – or your wallet.
Good post. Sometimes clients spend all their time fussing over design features at the expense of copy. A little more time getting the copy right would be a better investment. Good talk isn’t cheap. And it definately isn’t an add-on.
Thanks for the blog – it brightens my day in grim olde Blighty.
You guys are certainly churning out the posts this week.
I am currently going through the throes of deciding whether I want to upgrade my theme to something now I know my site’s vision better. The trouble I find though, is that my theme I am using is so dramatically different from what I bought it due to countless hours of tweaking, that it’s hard to compare it to existing ‘off-the-shelf’ models.
I mean, I look at things like thesis and revolution company and think ‘yeah they’re pretty snazzy’, but at the same time they don’t have the unique touches I put into my own theme myself. Yet I do wonder whether those themes do have a better ‘backbone’ for what I want.
It’s hard to judge how good a theme is for a backbone sometimes when you know you will be tailoring it greatly.
You so do not car shop with the Urbane Lion. He does care about the guts, and this and that and the next thing, and spends hours and hours researching it. That is why I was not allowed to buy the Solstice despite how incredibly BEAUTIFUL it looks!
Ah, but you were talking about templates. Okay, when I was programming (back in the day, and COBOL at that, and no I am not THAT old), quite often I found that if I needed to make major changes to a program it was easier, and way less time consuming to start from scratch.
So, if you want to do more than a minor tweak here or there to a template, is it actually easier … and less frustrating … to start from scratch?
Wait, wait. You DIDN’T buy the Solstice? And you COULD HAVE? Oh Jesus. I have to talk to Marc about that. Seriously.
In regards to what you mention, most major changes that you would need to make can be found in an existing template so that you don’t have to make them.
I think there’s a misunderstanding out there about what a “template” is. Is it the same as a “skin”, or is it, as someone above phrases it, a “backbone”? There are quite a lot of templates out there that are pretty skins with deplorable guts and no backbone whatsoever.
Do the guts of a site matter? Of course they do! Best practices in coding help ensure that a site loads quickly, that all its features are accessible to those browsing in nontraditional ways, that its appearance is consistent across browsers and devices, etc.
It’s not bad advice to tell people its okay to opt for a lower-cost option. Doug Bowman’s templates for Blogger are excellent and many people are perfectly happy to do minor tweaks to them and blog practically for free. Chris Pearson’s Thesis theme for WordPress is a relatively inexpensive premium theme that has GREAT guts and is very customizable. I recommend it to clients all the time.
It is bad advice, though, to tell people that the thoughtful guidance of a pro isn’t valuable. Build-from-scratch isn’t the only thing that sets apart good custom work. Yes, sites share many common features: headers, navigation, main and secondary and even tertiary content. A good custom designer isn’t going to reinvent that wheel–but they also aren’t going to use the same kind of wheel for every vehicle. Bicycle tires won’t support a semi.
Custom work is more than just deciding should it be a two or three column design–good custom work is the designer taking the time to really know the client and the content and helping to shape the best possible vehicle for them both. Custom work isn’t for everyone or every budget, but its not an idiotic or foolish choice.
I am a big proponent of starting with a web template, and then building up from there. However, I have recently joined the other side. I’ve found that with Photoshop, I can create a good layout, cut it into slices, and add the slices into a table layout to get some great effects.
It doesn’t take that much longer than starting from a template. In fact, if I keep my sizing all the same, the “guts” of the website stays the same. All I change are the graphics, colours, CSS, etc.
So essentially this really is a template, from the “guts” side of it anyway. But I think it is the best of both worlds — a time-saving guts template, and a beautiful and unique design every time…
~Graham
Graham Strong´s last blog post…The Art of Perception V: How Does Apple Do It?
@Lisa: The guts definitely matter. We get a lot of clients who are taken in by a pretty skin on a premium theme and when we finally get it and look under the hood, the code is appalling. We often find ourselves telling clients to ignore the pretty and focus on the function. After all, we can make anything look pretty
I have to say though I think you misunderstood my point. I wasn’t saying that the pros should be ignored. I was saying that before you plunk down thousands of dollars for a custom theme from scratch, take a look at some of the very same options you mentioned. The theme is still being customized, you’re still changing the basic framework.
The car analogy works very well for this. How many people make a hobby of customizing cars? Or motorcycles? You start with stock and you add chrome and performance parts, but you rarely start from the ground up – unless building the whole thing yourself was your goal from the start.
@Laura: Yes, it’s all a matter of looking past the bling and seeing what it is you really need to make your site work. That could be as simple as freshening up your copy or changing out a banner.
@Patrick: That’s what we did with this theme. If you looked at the original Revolution theme you’d see it looks nothing like the original. How much you want to change it depends on your needs and style, and really the sky’s the limit as long as you have a budget that can accommodate the changes.
@Panther: Now I’m curious about what Marc discovered when he looked under the hood of the Solstice.
@Graham: Photoshop is a good way to go and it has made life easier for many web designers, however you still need an understanding of what happens on the back end to make those slices work.
@Harry I believe it was something along the lines of ‘a total girlie engine. And if you are going to get a sports car get a REAL sports car’.
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I’m not a designer (go look at my site if you need proof).
But I am a back-end code guy and it’s code that drives my site start to finish.
There are lots of back-end engines (code templates) to drive websites. They range from very basic (blosxom) to pretty darn sophisticated (Drupal et al.)
I DO NOT LIKE hacking other people’s code. Therefor, I write my own. From scratch. That’s because I don’t want to invest the time to learn someone else’s protocols and interfaces. If I write it, I can change it. Quickly.
BUT: if I were doing sites for other people, I would take the time to become expert at WordPress or Drupal or wherever I decided to concentrate my efforts and I’d NEVER write from scratch.
It’s possible to make a living doing custom work. I did that for years before the web in the early days of computing. I know people who still do it today because there are customers and situations that demand it. I suppose there are situations that call for “from scratch” websites too, but I suspect they are few and far between.
I think Harry is right on the money here.
Anthony Lawrence´s last blog post…What I want in my next GPS by Anthony Lawrence
@Anthony: Yes, that’s it exactly. Use the right tool for the situation. If you can make it work using a pre-existing theme, then do it, if not, then go for the other alternative.
Well, first, I’m a bit surprised by the new white text on black. It’s probably the hardest possible combination for the human eye ever, which is already pretty strained by the static light source of monitor screens. It’s so hard, in fact, that I simply won’t click through to read your posts online again.
But, not that I’m here, my concern with templates is identifying the ones that are coded well. If you are not a techie, you’re left in the dark figuring out which of the thousands is a good idea to customize.
I was going to say that I can see both sides of the coin here – but everyone else beat me to it!
Personally, my budget limitations and my talent (or lack of) dictate that I will be modifying an existing template.
However, some businesses may feel that it’s vital that their site be completely unique. To that end, they may be able and willing to pay for a custom design rather than chance that another site might end up resembling theirs. If that’s the case, I say more power to them!
I remember some months back when a popular blogger released their easily recognizable custom template to the public (after adopting a new template). All of the sudden dozens of clones of the old site popped up all over the Internet. Sadly, most of the clone site bloggers lacked the talent of the original blogger. The whole thing made somewhat of a negative impression on me.
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@ariane:
You are hardly the only one
Go read the post where they first announced this..
For me, it’s like the old Ars Technica site. Same black background that gave me a headache, but I read it faithfully regardless.
Same thing here. I hate it, it’s awful, but I’ll keep coming anyway.
Anthony Lawrence´s last blog post…What I want in my next GPS by Anthony Lawrence
@ Ariane – We’ve been through the black/white issue before, and actually either black on white or white on black is just as readable for the human eye. I even covered this issue during my human physiology courses.
We are *USED* to seeing black on white. That doesn’t mean white on black is less readable.
@James – Ah, okay — I thought the conversation was about hiring a web designer to build from scratch or from a template, and the cost difference between those two. Definitely, a template is the way to go for the DIY who doesn’t have the time or inclination to learn all the ins and outs of web design.
~Graham
Graham Strong´s last blog post…The Art of Perception V: How Does Apple Do It?
I think you really need to look at it through your customers eyes. Most do not care what the underlying code is. They simply want the design that they have in their head put on the web. I am %100 sure that you could build the same template in different ways so the average web user, not in the business, has no clue it the same underlying code. We see and can sometimes pick these out because we are in the business, but to a lot of our customers have no clue what a template is, they just know they want a custom design. I think it is time wasted reinventing the wheel every time. Start with something flexible and add a nice design and you have a winner!
My $.02
Dave
Dave C´s last blog post…Joomla 1.5.8 Released takes care of some bugs
To me it all comes down to what is the best use of time and money to reach your goals. And for 95% (or more) of web-clients, a tweaked theme does just that.
Choosing the right theme, however, can be very time consuming. I remember going through a zillion of them before deciding on the one I picked. I even looked at the code of many of them.
One thing that I really liked about the theme the PenMen suggested was it’s ease of understanding in the coding. Things are explained, they’re laid out clearly, and making tweaks and changes is more or less straightforward.
This was especially important since I planned on doing tweaks myself and didn’t know much about theme design and php.
So, what was my goal then and how did my final decision serve it?
Goal: to find an inexpensive or free theme that I would pay to get customized then tweak myself afterwards.
Having that clearly in my head meant that I could dismiss a multitude of themes in moments. Made life much easier.
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome´s last blog post…Why Do We Choose to Be Unhappy?
Back @ Harry, yes, it is very possible to tweak a theme.
My main issue is that after so much tweaking, the theme you end up with is very much custom, and it becomes really hard to evaluate future theme upgrades, cause you’re depending so much on your own unique tweaks.
I know personally, I think I need a new theme. But there doesn’t seem to really be a theme out there that has ~everything~ I want, so it’s a difficult process of trying to choose the closest and visualizing how it would look after a week’s worth of tweaking.
Maybe I should make a dummy site to play around on and try to get a new theme up and running to a superior level of functionality.
@ Patrick – I highly suggest that you take a piece of paper and sketch your perfect home page. Lay it all out. Then we’ll tell you which theme would fit best.
I’m curious, though – why would you need/want to do so much tweaking? It seems that you have a Chevvy in your head but you keep looking at Fords, thinking, “Damn. I want a Chevvy.” In short, if you’re always looking at the *wrong* themes and not dismissing them quickly (as Alex did), then you’re wasting time.
Or seeking perfection
@ Graham – Yes, yes we were. And I’m so sick of people coming over with their snotty, uninformed comments about white on black that I couldn’t help but leap right out of context.
I mean, really, people. Would you walk up to someone on the street and say, “Dude. I fucking hate your coat, it’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’m never looking at you again.”
/rant. Thanks for listening.
Back to the theme versus custom…
To be frankly honest, the price difference I saw at one site was $900 for theme template and over $3,000 for custom. ALL OVER this woman’s site, it was written, “Get custom because otherwise, your business will fail.”
I thought that was such bullshit and a huge ripoff.
Well, the reason for the tweaking is that I bought a theme which wasn’t all that suited for my needs, so made it work with brute force…
Don’t regret it, as learned a lot about WordPress customization, but guess I’m used to doing that.
Is the main reason why am looking at a new theme though.
And yes, am doing up a sketch of what would be the ideal theme, so can then compare against what is on the market.
I think a lot of the confusion surrounding this topic depends on how you use the template. Some “designers” just throw a new photoshopped skin over a template without making any adjustments/optimizations at all. But that’s not design.
Real design also involves making choices based on the fuller needs of the client. As you pointed out, a lot of that can be done by figuring out which template to start from. A good designer can work from a template and do it right. The problem isn’t templates, it’s lack of design sense.
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None of the top copywriters or graphic designer I’ve modeled ever start from scratch.
I heard from someone in a position to know that even Dan Kennedy who was charging $80K to write a single sales letter, has gotten to the point where he’s just rewriting his own letters for every new client.
Louis Burns´s last blog post…Conference and Next Model
I agree that using a free template or apaid one ( under $100) is a great way to go. It’s a matter of finding a good template with clean coding. I recommend Brian Gardner his tempaltes are great and free. Can’t get better than that. They you can manipulate it to make it unique.
If you have the money to spend on customization I say go for it but if you are getting a loan or using up your savings or chequing account then you are nuts to have it customized.
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