I want to design my own templates
About the only option I presently have is to use templates designed by other people on my sites. Of course, I try to modify them a little to suit my needs, but I could never call it my own.
I have been hunting around the web and there is some great information on designing WP and Joomla templates. Picking up the technical things is fairly easy, but coming up with a killer design is another thing entirely.
When I was in HS I really enjoyed doing graphic design, but I think I have lost a lot of the creativity I once had.
I think you need to get away from your PC, go to the beach or a park and work on it with your sketch book and a 2HB pencil. Unfortunately, at the moment I don’t own either items. Like so many things, solving a technical problem is simply a matter of doing a Google search. Unfortunately Google can’t solve things like “design me a fantastic new Web 2.0 Wordpress, Joomla compatible 3 column blog”.
Well, not yet.
Google actually just released a ‘webpage’ design tool (https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=pages&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fpages.google.com%2F<mpl=yessignups) not sure how well it works tho, and im pretty sure it doesnt work for WP, and for sure not Joomla CMS.
I just launched, and am still working on a Joomla powered site (http://www.scootsite.com) which has become a very time intensive project. Joomla is amazing in it’s flexibility, but it’s not the easiest tool to redesign for. I started by striping down an existing Table based template, tried converting it to CSS (DIV’s) which i havent yet completed – still have some tables in there. The biggest issue i’ve found is that the CSS files arent the only place you’ll find styles. many of the componants have styles within the PHP code which causes a bit of a nightmare.
I think another thing to keep in mind is that it’s great to be able to manage all aspects of a project, but it’s quite difficult to be a strategist, designer, writer, and administrator and still pull off an impressive final project alone.
Your site looks cool! Maybe I will start with doing a WP template. I see you are using simple board for your forum.
Have you installed the CB extension? I have installed it on a site and it looks great for building a community site.
BTW, what are you using for the classifeds? Is this your own script?
Hey Mike,
I’ve installed quite a few of the free Joomla extensions on Scootsite.com – the classified ads included. It’s great how it all ties in together in one admin area, and allows you to set permission levels for guests and registered users.
There are also a few affilliate modules i’ll be adding soon – but since the site is new, im more interested in building up the userbase before i bombard them with too many ads. Had 40 users register over the weekend and only after seeding 2 forums.
I’ve seen a few decent joomla templates that are under $100 but even after installing, to truly clean up the design, you have to dig through the system files.
it’s messy, but for the level of techonology that is relitively free i think the time is definately worth it.
40 users is pretty good. Sounds like you are on to a good niche.
http://www.compassdesigns.net/resources/articles/joomla-template-tutorial/
http://www.joomlashack.com