Website Themes?

When I design web sites I typically sketch out the pages on paper based on use cases from the target market, with the "theme" derived from the branding identity in the company's business plan. Any professional web designer should be able to do the same. I usually create web sites from scratch, I've never used wordpress (it's the web design equivalent of baking with a cake mix).

Kudos to you Jason, for coding your own site. We had to use Wordpress for our site because our coded site was awful. I would love to code my own personal website though. How did you learn?

 

I had a former boss tell me that Wordpress and Joomla were the future, and that those that did their own coding would soon be obsolete. 

 

 

while my website is no longer up

 

i took pictures of favorite patterns

 

and used that as my background

 

then i just added the other buttons & things & links to the pages

 

probably had a 'loving hands at home' look but i liked it

 

i wasn't truly 'in business'--just family & friends etc.

 

i used to have book pages as a background too

I started 20 years ago, in 1993 (about a year after the web went public) I created the web site for my high school using a text editor, since there were really no other web design tools available. I had been doing some graphics work and desktop publishing/page layout for class assignments as well as coding before then so those skills naturally transferred to the web. I would say one of the most important skills is being able to look at the code and see a picture in your mind of what the resulting page will look like.

I agree that CMS tools like Joomla are the way to go for sites that will be updated frequently, but web sites for business are relatively static, and it's easy enough to integrate dynamic components like photo slideshows and twitter feeds into a hand-coded site.

If you want to learn how to code web sites, learning HTML is the best starting point, followed by CSS, JavaScript, and eventually HTML5. W3Schools has an excellent series of tutorials that covers all of these.

http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

i've worked for people who were at the mercy of their web people/designers

 

sounded like a nightmare to me

 

i used yahoo sitebuilder

 

they offered phone assistance that i used a time or two

 

does webpress offer that?

Where have you been looking for web designers? Most areas should have at least a few local designers who you can meet in person and come up with some on-the-spot mockups. If a designer is not willing to teach you how to update the site yourself then you need to find a different designer.

I got my theme from themeforest, very cheap. I paid a web designer for my 1st site and it was crapola. I've done this one by myself, very good theme with lots of different options to customize.http://www.sugaredsaffron.co.uk

I can add photos myself, change text as and when I want, optimise it for SEO, add many pages as I want, I could go on and on. Clients comment on how professional it looks, I cringe looking at the old site.

The support forums are also excellent as are the wordpress plugins. It took some time to work out but its the best think I've done for the business.

I will look into the site you provided Jason. I would like to build my own website. Getting our webmaster to swap out a picture for a page is such a hassle. He stopped replying to my emails, but web design is not his primary job. He has a full time job, is getting his MBA, and dealing with his family. I just wish he had taught me how to change out major pictures on the top of the site.

 

I agree with SugaredSaffron, the forums for Joomla and Wordpress are great. When I worked with Joomla, I received a lot of help from the forums...much like CakeCentral.

I hired a designer to do my site. My brother is a graphic designer (print) but he referred me to the web guy he works with that freelances on the side. It's worked out really well for both of us. I'd be hesitant to hire someone random off the web, but I knew I couldn't do it myself :) We have a maintenance agreement in place and he updates the site 1x/month for a flat fee (new pics, updated specials, etc - no major design changes). I gave him my logo, the content of the pages, and told him I liked pink. He did the rest and I'm pretty happy with it. www.sweetfancycakes.com

I have 0 coding skills.  I couldn't even really figure out the basics of wordpress.  It was all so confusing!

 

I did a little start-up site from wix.com.  I was able to modify it to be a bit different than the template.  Most importantly, it was VERY user friendly. The site is free & the templates are free.  I ended up paying $9 a month to "upgrade" so they host the site & there are no wix ads.  Really very happy with it for now.  Someday when we have enough $$$, I'll hire a professional.  For now, it's great.

 

http://www.verydeliciousdesserts.com/

 

yes i think you got it

 

yes just learn what your web provider offers

 

have you put together anything yet?

 

what i did was go to the free website places--the really dumbed down ones and played around there

 

then i went to mine and started plugging things in

 

you can make your pages first and later decide how to link them all together

 

the theme is just a framework but it doesn't always have to be in place first

 

sometimes when you make changes you have to re-tweak everything but that's part of setting it up and getting to know what's there and what you want to do

 

for example get your portfolios all assembled by plugging in your photos, write your 'about us' piece decide what you want on the 'contact' page do you want a 'prices & flavors' page a 'faq' page

 

you can try different themes

 

i guess the most important question is

 

what does your web provider offer you??