We need lots of custom design. Hire a web designer or buy templates ? Any suggestion ?
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Well it depends what you skill level is and what you want to do.
If you just want a blog, Wordpress has [URL=“http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/”]numerous templates and it is free, but it requires installation on a server. As long as you have server space, the installation takes > 5 minutes.
If you do not have server space and want a blog then blogger is the way to go in my opinion.
If you have some experience in HTML and CSS for styling,then I recommend you buy a template and do it yourself. This is obviously the cheaper option, but some templates do not have room for structural or layout customisation. You will find the best templates at themeforest.net
If you need any help, we at sitepoint can help you with issues, after you have tried them yourself, but we will not do web design for free-- pretty much no one will, there is usually a catch.
If you want to learn how to do it yourself, here is an amazing and free place to get started: w3schools.com
My final idea would be that if you know how to use a graphic design software (Photoshop, Illustrator, GIMP, Etc.) then you can sketch what you are looking for and find a service that will write the HTML as close to your drawing as possible for > $100.00 , usually around $70.00
Here are some sites: http://www.xhtmlchop.com/
https://www.psd2html.com/order-now.html
or this: http://tinyurl.com/37rud2a
Hope this all helps bring things into view,
Team 1504
Well it might be a good idea to explain what type of a website you are going to create, the functionality needed for it & your approximate budget. But mostly I agree with team1504 - they provided several reasonable suggestions on how to develop a good website.
Actually I doubt the last suggestion as it’s rather complicated to write a good code for a piece of graphic, but these guys might be good at this, who knows
I would recommend you to buy templates instead of recruiting one designer, paying him, providing him all required tools.
We see the result of that all the time here. People who use off-the-shelf templates and frameworks and come here asking questions about how this particular system that they have chosen is working. And more often than not, the most helpful answer we can give is “scrap it and start from scratch”. Off-the-shelf templates may be fine if you are always happy to accept whatever the template gives you, but as soon as you start trying to change it, you are likely to be up against serious difficulties. Whereas if you buy in a designer, it might cost more up front but it should result in a better site and one where you have someone to turn to when you want changes made.
I agree with this 100%. There are so many clients out there that have stuck with either a bespoke, purchased solution or have picked a template off-the-shelf and now want it to do something it was never built to handle.
Hire a web designer to handle the design and coding of your templates. If you’re worried about the cost, get two of them from a local college or university part-time to work on the project one or two days a week. A lot of CS students would rather be building templates than working in McDonalds.
well it doesn’t guarantee they will develop something decent 
If anything, students find real-world work to be far more interesting than the stuff they’re doing during their studies, regardless of how boring it is in an actual job. During one of my internships I wrote a SEO reporting application and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, even though it is a fairly basic, but troublesome application for a full-time developer to fit in.
Also, I’d be willing to bet that a lot of people on here are students, and from personal experience there are a bunch of budding, talented designers and developers at all universities. It’s just a matter of structuring your interview to find the right one. A lot of businesses and startups are keen to hire talented students during their studies as it’s cheap and provides them with great experience.
I would guess from your sig link that you dont really care about the answers we give…
At least others will benefit from the answers given.
Who knows, perhaps he’s asking because he needs to find more free [url=http://www.tineye.com/search/e8d0e418c5aa8c67acc1200e63f4e5c00a88b4ca/]and [url=http://www.tineye.com/search/716a753a2f04d1e67d8636de160ee5e8101677cf/]paid templates to sell on from his website?
Thats kind of the line I am thinking too which is why I have left it open, the replies are great and informative :tup: to all of you!
I would recommend you to hire a web designer rather buying templates because in that case your website will look almost the same to anyone else website who purchased or downloaded the same template, also many templates especially that are provided free have “sloppy” coding.
Template = Cookie Cutter, other sites can use it unless you buy it exclusively ($$$) and even then, others who bought before are still licensed to use it.
Designer = More expensive than template, but less so than buying template, plus you get something custom designed to your wishes, so it is unique.
buy template, atleast result is nt unexpected n u save time
Get them from Themeforest or something similar. For thirty bucks you can get a template that would easily cost a few grand if you were the sole owner. They are easy to modify, and I often change them significantly. If you need a great, unique design, then hire a designer and coder.
With the democratization of the interwebs’ design and development, we’ve been left with a cookie-cutter universe, and I don’t like it one bit. That said, if you need a robust CMS, I would still hire a designer (now to read designer/developer) to upload, implement and get the site going. Why? Well, people are under the impression that CMS are ready-made, plug and play products, but they don’t always work that way. Also, many designers who have worked with CMS are in the loop as to updates, security issues, etc. and can advise the client as to these issues on an ongoing basis and implement necessary changes. There are also other things to consider such as image optimization (how many times have you looked at the image info of a .jpg that’s 150 pixels square on the page, but was uploaded as a 4 meg image?) and SEO considerations in the content of the page.
So, my advice is to choose whether you want a custom-designed site or a CMS, and then have a designer/developer do the thing.
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