DH Templates

When to use a web design template?

So we're having a little debate at work, can you help? Some of us agree that it is OK to use a pre-made template (Flash, Dreamweaver, etc), and then make it our own. Some think that you must start from scratch on a design in order for it to truly be yours. What do you think? Is it cheating to go ahead & have a designed template, then modify it - or do you think it's necessary to ALWAYS start from scratch? I got $$ riding on this one! Thanks!!

Public Comments

1. Personally I think websites should be done from scratch.
2. You're asking 2 different questions here. "When to use a web design template?" Whenever you want to. The real question of your debate sounds more like: For a design to be "truly your own", can you use a template or do you have to design from scratch? From a legal perspective, everything produced and published, even on the web and that includes web design templates are intrinsically copyrighted. If you go to any "free" web design gallery site, you will find "terms of use" stating what you can and can't do with their templates. That should tell you that they are the owners of their own templates but they give you the right to use it however it's stated according to their terms. So you can say that your web site is yours, but it's based on a template from elsewhere, so in the strictest technical sense, you can't say it's "truely your own". Deriviate works modified from from their templates may be legally considered your own however, but that's stipulated if you're allowed to do make any modifications or not too. But from a purely artistic perspective, nothing is "truly your own" unless you do everything yourself.
3. If you are creating a website for a business, service, or product online... It is preferred that you produce your HTML, style sheets, and images from scratch. The reason this is important truly depends on your intended use for the website. If you plan to advertise your services online I would recommend creating a website that is search engine friendly. What this means is that duplicate code is easily identified by search engines and if your website mimics the structure of another group of websites or meta tag information is left in place there may be a very low possibility of ranking on the search engines. On the other hand, if your website is just for show and you do not intend to be found by the public, using a template may assist in the more difficult aspects of development. It still depends entirely on your intended use. For more information visit us at http://www.webtechs.net