How to Select a Design Template — Important Considerations Most People Forget to Make When Choosing

Photo adapted from “Hot and cold” by Raxon Rex (Flickr, Creative Commons).

Today, I’d like to discuss various things you should be thinking about while selecting a template for your web site. Before we begin, please know that you do not have to use a pre-designed template at all. You may certainly design your own and have that ported to your CMS. But, in all practicality, it’s simply more affordable to start with a template, as the majority of the design work is already done — and done well.

Here are the top 10 considerations (in my humble opinion, anyway) to keep in mind when making your selection online.

1. Know the best pre-designed theme companies! Personally, I recommend RocketTheme, makers of the Gantry design platform.
2. View their templates, opting for the most current as you can. Most designs these days will be responsive, meaning that the site will look good on many platforms and devices (e.g., desktops, tablets, phones, etc.). Theme designers get better over time, and the code improves as they mature. So, again, look at their most current releases first.
3. View the variations! So many times, people say, “Oh, I saw that template but didn’t like it.” However, they may have not seen preset variations that many templates have built in. Sometimes, these variations dramatically…