Kicking myself

[Jessi]

So I've been getting by quite nicely over the last 5-8 years with using templates for sites and then tweaking them into submission to be what I wanted. I don't always get exactly what I want, but I get pretty close and I'm happy with that.

 

Or at least I have been.

 

I've finally hit a wall where I'm really, really kicking myself for not staying up-to-date with designing my site from the ground up. I've spent the last several hours (and multiple days of similar adventures) looking for a template that I can bend to my will, but alas, I'm not even finding anything close to what I want. I'm sure I will or I'll settle at least, but it's very frustrating to not be able to find something that I know must exist in a thousand places I've yet to find. Grrr. I should've just taught myself this stuff over the years and done it myself.

 

/end rant

[Thomas]

You sound like you do understand HTML and CSS so why haven't you? Are you like me and scared of photoshop?

Edited June 12, 2012 by Thomas

[ridwan sameer]

If you were able to tweak templates.. YOu probably have a good understanding of HTML and CSS...

So I'd say follow some "PSD TO HTML" tutorials.. what this does is take tempaltes made in photoshop and convert them to sites... So if you follow them youll get a good grasp of it

[Jessi]

I definitely have the understanding of some of it because yep, I can code. And I'm actually really familiar with Photoshop, Thomas. I've been using it for years.

 

As for why I haven't gone beyond that? Time has been my main restriction. It's usually much faster to find a base code and then tweak it than it is to create it from scratch. What I'm running into now, though, has been the time sink of not being able to find that base and now wishing I would've spent the time just doing it myself, ya know?

[ridwan sameer]

Well Mate... It's Never Too late

[Victor Leigh]

I am still a bit lost here. You said you have been able to tweak the templates you used before so that means you do know what you are doing. Now you said that you could not find a base to tweak from. What kind of base are you looking for? Or, to put it another way, what is the final result that you plan to have? Something like Pinterest?

[bryce12]

Jessi you can always outsource if you are not able to do it yourself. What I understand from your post is that you are having a hard time tweaking your site since there are so many changes to be done. Managing a site is not easy, there are so many skills involved that it can quickly become overwhelming.

[Jessi]

What I understand from your post is that you are having a hard time tweaking your site since there are so many changes to be done.

 

Actually, the tweaking is fine. I can edit code pretty well and change things how I want. The issue I'm actually having is that I can't find a decent base template for a new site I'm working on. It's hard to tweak if I can't find anything close to what I want in the first place. So yes, I can outsource, but it'd have to be for someone to completely build a site and -then- I'd still have to start the work of tweaking it anyway.

[Marc]

Think of the time you spend looking for one etc, its surprising how quickly you can come up with a decent design. Im absolutly terrible with them at times, however I always do my own. I tend to get it into a reasonable state then keep tweaking it whilst its live until its perfect.

[OhioTom76]

It's not a big deal, this has become much more common place with the proliferation of Wordpress sites. Whereas it used to be relatively quick and painless to build static web sites from scratch, it's very time consuming and tedious to create a Wordpress theme from scratch. Regardlesss if you know how to code Wordpress themes inside and out, they still take a good amount of time if you want something solid that takes advantage of the platform.

 

Several prominent Wordpress "premium" theme developers have started using (and selling) their own custom theme frameworks which give them (and you) a solid head start when creating your own themes/layouts.

 

I use these now more than ever for clients, they're a huge time saver. And it makes the overall costs more palatable to the client. They would probably get sticker shock if they saw how many hours I would have to bill them for building a theme from scratch. Instead I just tack on the cost for the theme framework into the total cost, and use it to create the site.

 

One of my favorites is the Headway Theme for Wordpress. It's literally drag and drop, and it's also very easy to do some custom CSS beyond what the control panel offers when needed. Some other popular frameworks include Thesis and Pagelines, but there are more.

[LivetoErr]

If you have the ability to tweak templates, can you not just take bits and pieces of what you have used before and make it into what you want?

 

That way, you don't have to entirely start from the bottom up and you're not wasting your time looking for something that you can't find.

Edited January 19, 2014 by LivetoErr

[crazycroc]

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? PM me if you need any help, I'm quite good with HTML and CSS.

[KingJabeyt]

I definitely have the understanding of some of it because yep, I can code. And I'm actually really familiar with Photoshop, Thomas. I've been using it for years.

 

As for why I haven't gone beyond that? Time has been my main restriction. It's usually much faster to find a base code and then tweak it than it is to create it from scratch. What I'm running into now, though, has been the time sink of not being able to find that base and now wishing I would've spent the time just doing it myself, ya know?

 

Ha, same here. Been just getting some templates and get their base code and tweak it from there. Some of which templates comes from paid and free sources like codebasket. I also which I could have find time to study and built one myself from scratch..

[kx8]

It's so easy to learn things these days. Also, it's never too late to learn something new. So why don't you try and learn them, sure it'll be hard but at least you'll earn yourself a new skill. Good luck!