Thread: Free design or custom?

What kind of theme do you use on your new website?


I personally start out with using free one, and then as I get going I will start designing a new custom theme myself.. I know how to code my own theme so I will do a all custom theme..

What do you like to use?

For a business or private website i prefer to use custom themes or free themes which can be customized. For money sites is prefer free themes, so i have lesser work.

Depends...

If I can find a nice theme for free that I can customize to my liking, I'd take it.
But if I find a VERY COOL paid theme and I can customize it to make it even a LOT COOLER...I'd use that one.

That's what I did with IM-InnerCircle.com...using the same theme as IMTalk.

Andre

Originally Posted by econtinue

Depends...

If I can find a nice theme for free that I can customize to my liking, I'd take it.
But if I find a VERY COOL paid theme and I can customize it to make it even a LOT COOLER...I'd use that one.

That's what I did with IM-InnerCircle.com...using the same theme as IMTalk.

Andre

Oh its the same? Wow, i find both designs very good and suitable to topic.

Originally Posted by aps_uk

.. I don't want to work with someone elses manky code :P...

Customizing the looks of a theme is not much more than replacing some graphics and color codes...
Perhaps some size numbers or width and the like...
Nothing fancy really.

Andre

i also use free theme.. and will customize that theme according to what i wanna look like, but be careful with free themes, don't simply install theme from theme provider that don't have any reputation, sometime there are secret code inside the theme that can be a hole for hackers to penetrate in

You can find very good free themes. A couple tweeks and it is like your own. It woupd have to be very good with custom seo stuff that I could not get from a free theme for me to pay.

At the very first time when I was learning designing then I had used some free theme for websites but now I only prefer to use a custom theme for the new website because it assists to obtain desired goals in the business and also good for SEO.

I think initially you can use free web design template but when times goes and if you have made some profit, You should prefer to have custom web design where you can take conrol of your website design an put the things in a design the way you want.

custom web design template

Free themes! Slap one on there. Get the content on there and forget about it. If I sell the site I put something fancy / edit it myself. If it's still doing crap in the serp's then I cry.

I don't need much from a template. As long as it's clear, user friendly and not bloated then I'm happy.

Of course clients websites etc are different things. Normally all hand written templates in conjunction with Joomla!

I mostly use free themes and customize them to my liking.