Is it me or do most of these so called great looking hosting templates seem to have the same shape colours and designs to them. For gods sake where is all your artistic talent.

Most of the templates I have seen in here in the last while I could get for free in certain websites (I ain't gonna tell you lot where mind you) lets have some originality. Some thought put into the design because it's starting to get very very boring.

I don't mean to offend it's just that everytime I see "Amazing Hosting Template for Sale" or " Template for sale" I like many others in these forums quickly click onto the link and am dissapointed to see the same old shapes and designs over and over.

I am not saying I am a whizz kid at templates (I have already admitted that I use templates in some of the wording above) but if some of the templates in here are from some of the companies who profess to building your website then there is gonna be a lot of websites very very soon all looking the same.

There you go gals and guys my wee rant for today. Feel better now I got that out of me :)

ok, i get the big picture

Bojangles,

While I agree with you in some areas I also disagree in others. There are plenty of talented artists here, some do not post that often.

While I agree some templates are not very eye pleasing, for you to sit there and bash them for trying, is wrong. They may not be as good as others, but nobody was born a graphic king. You have to start somewhere and the more of these templates one makes, the better they get. I look back at some templates I made a while ago and admin now they are nasty and aren't worth a cent, but I have gotten better. No thanks to those negative comments as such those from you.

Also, I see you have only posted 3 times, including this post and you signed up in May 2002 which means you have been a member for no more than 21 days. Please stick around a while longer and I assure you that you will see some nice pieces of work floating around here for a few bucks.......or you can goto www.pixelbrick.com and pay around $15,000.00.

Thanks!

Jim

A few things to consider in this discussion:

-There are only so many ways to make a hosting company website look like a hosting company website.
-If customers don't know they're at a hosting company website, they will be confused.
-Anybody with a computer can call himself a web designer.
-The web design will not make or break a company. It's not even among the top ten factors in whether your company will or will not be successful.

I've been around the block as a web designer (been doing it for money for close to 5 years) and have also had many college classes in Internet usability and design concepts... Anyway, there are a few points I wanted to make about this.

As far as creativity and design go for web sites, a very good designer doesn't have an incredible amount of wiggle-room to be creative and functional at the same time. Users expect (because of close to ten years of training) a certain type of layout and design metaphor from web pages: There is always a navigation bar and it is always either on the top or left (sometimes it can be on the right but the designer must be very careful about this); there is usually a banner of some sort to identify the specific page; there is usually a logo or other branding and it almost always gets the most prominent spot on a page in the upper left corner; there is always consitancy between pages (meaning a defined header area, footer area, and sometimes side areas); because web pages use bitmapped graphics and not raster, everything must be broken down to square design elements (meaning it's very difficult to succesfully have a site built using only circles for everything).

Granted, at least one of these rules gets broken by every site, which is fine, but as a whole the user demands them - otherwise they get lost and confused and then leave. I'll also say that the rules above DON'T hold for sites which do not depend on the user having to quickly and pleasantly find information such as portfolio sites or ad agencys. In those cases the designer wants to throw the web on it's side a little - which is cool for what it is but not great for a hosting company. In fact, go to many web shops, their own page is very different and creative but the pages they build for clients fall back into the same old design concepts (in general).

I guess all this just leads to the point that even the best designers know their audience and in this case the audience expects the same kinds of design leaving only marginal room for extreme creativity. The best designers will be very creative within these boundries.

Anyway, just my two cents. I always welcome conter-arguments!

Dave

also had many college classes in Internet usability and design concepts... Anyway, there are a few points I wanted to make about this.

wow dancies, wats the course called? i wanna take that also :)

btw, nice points, i totally agree

Some great points being made. But still my main point was most of the templates on offer look the same and most of you agree but you would not say it out loud just in case you need that members service sometime.

I also think you are treating a lot of web users with very little or no intelligence at all. Look at sites that pixelbrick make and ask yourself would you like one of them. Most of you would. Even though they have not broken the navigational boundries they still manage to make their sites look different hence the BIG price tag.

I know it is in you to make great hosting web templates, so stop being a bunch of lazy sods and ask yourself "do I want to charge $15.000 for a web site" you bet your ass you do. The only thing stopping you is you.

Lessons will start again tomorrow at 2.00pm :)

Thanks :)

I'm enrolled in a program at George Mason University (in Fairfax, VA) called New Century College. It's pretty cool because it lets you create your own degree based on existing classes. NCC also offers many courses to it's students you wouldn't find elsewhere - titles of some of the ones I've taken are Internet Literacy and HTML, Network Computer Graphics, Graphic Information, Multimedia Design & Deployment, Digital Arts, Multimedia Project Development and Web Usability Studies.

More info: http://www.ncc.gmu.edu/

Dave

I believe sometimes we in the industry forget that our perspective is distorted. I personally have looked at so many thousands of templates they all start to look somewhat familiar. And here its even more so as they are primarily aimed at the same industry. How many different ways can you arrange the same information on a page.

That said, I do periodically see some very inspired and different work here. And, I have found, if you contact those designers and get custom work they will truly show their skills.

Originally posted by Bojangles
Some great points being made. But still my main point was most of the templates on offer look the same and most of you agree but you would not say it out loud just in case you need that members service sometime.

I also think you are treating a lot of web users with very little or no intelligence at all. Look at sites that pixelbrick make and ask yourself would you like one of them. Most of you would. Even though they have not broken the navigational boundries they still manage to make their sites look different hence the BIG price tag.

I know it is in you to make great hosting web templates, so stop being a bunch of lazy sods and ask yourself "do I want to charge $15.000 for a web site" you bet your ass you do. The only thing stopping you is you.

Lessons will start again tomorrow at 2.00pm :) I don't agree with you. And I'm not afraid to say anything out loud.
Seems like you just want to troll and start an arguement.

The main thing wrong with your logic is that there are not many people that visit this site looking for a $15,000 web site.
That doesn't make the designers that frequent here "lazy."
They are providing what this market wil bear.

Mr. B; Can we see your site? We have been looking for a new layout and nothing has jumped out and grabbed us yet but we still think a lot of the work on here pretty good. Can we see what your site looks like. Maybe that will inspire more people??? I personally am not or can not afford $15K on any site nor would I pay that much even if I could.. I would rather put $13K into advertising and reep the benefits of that

:confused:

Why must there be so much hate between companies. There is plenty of business for everyone. :)

My 1.57 cents.. I'm to broke to put in a full 2 cents

templates here generally run for between $20 and $100. how much time and originality can you expect for such a petty price? most templates here are meant to be functional and clean for companies who cannot afford a large price tag. they arent going to be amazing, if they were we would be working for big design companies

Originally posted by DWood
templates here generally run for between $20 and $100. how much time and originality can you expect for such a petty price? most templates here are meant to be functional and clean for companies who cannot afford a large price tag. they arent going to be amazing, if they were we would be working for big design companies

Hahaha, this I agree. I sell templates off here for ard usd 50, so I try not to spend too much time on one, but I will try my best to infuse some creativity in them. However, let's say a customer is willing to pay more, obviously I will put in more effort into conceptualising.

There's a difference between templates and web design.

Thin line, but still a difference.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
The main thing wrong with your logic is that there are not many people that visit this site looking for a $15,000 web site.
That doesn't make the designers that frequent here "lazy."
They are providing what this market wil bear.

I agreed with SoftWareRevue.

I think you cannot compare a $15,000 template with a $150 template. Obviously, pixelbrick has a team of graphic designer doing different graphic task and art work. The resources they are having is beyong you and me. Beside the demand for a $15,000 template in WHT is Zero and many here are designerentrepreneurs trying to develope a good portfolio for themselves.