What is your experience w free/$$ site templates?

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   Hi Martin,

Not at all uncommon -- rather actually the norm -- that we developers aren't great at graphic arts and the finer elements of site design (myself included; which is why my partner is the lead on graphic arts and design). However, designers should be well aware of/familiar with the application they are designing for. That is, you'd do well to hook up with a designer familiar with ProductCart.

There are quite a few talented designers in the ProductCart community, and a few who really know their XHTML/CSS and have serious talent. PM me and I could make some recommendations.

As for "free" or "low cost" templates, in our experience, as they are not designed for the application in hand, they often take as much time to redesign for the intended application as it would cost to take a concept you like and design from scratch for the applicaton you want to apply it to -- in this case, ProductCart (I sense this is similar to Greg's reference to ~ 12 hrs to integrate one of these types of design templates). 

Keep in mind that these kinds of templates are not taking into consideration the unique functionality of the application you are wanting to apply them to, and can typically be more struggle to get them to apply than is worth the effort.

What's more, IMHO, templates almost always look like . . . well, templates. Unless your clients are seriously scraping the bottom, it's almost always better to consider their business first, and then design a site theme for that.

Finally, while ProductCart is rather independent of design, at some point you do have to maintain design coherency once you get into the shopping cart functionality. It's best to have a design concept that will work consitantly accross the entire site from home page to order confirmation.

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Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 26-October-2009 at 10:24pm
	Hi Martin, Not at all uncommon -- rather actually the norm -- that we developers aren't great at graphic arts and the finer elements of site design (myself included; which is why my partner is the lead on graphic arts and design). However, designers should be well aware of/familiar with the application they are designing for. That is, you'd do well to hook up with a designer familiar with ProductCart. There are quite a few talented designers in the ProductCart community, and a few who really know their XHTML/CSS and have serious talent. PM me and I could make some recommendations. As for "free" or "low cost" templates, in our experience, as they are not designed for the application in hand, they often take as much time to redesign for the intended application as it would cost to take a concept you like and design from scratch for the applicaton you want to apply it to -- in this case, ProductCart (I sense this is similar to Greg's reference to ~ 12 hrs to integrate one of these types of design templates). Keep in mind that these kinds of templates are not taking into consideration the unique functionality of the application you are wanting to apply them to, and can typically be more struggle to get them to apply than is worth the effort. What's more, IMHO, templates almost always look like . . . well, templates. Unless your clients are seriously scraping the bottom, it's almost always better to consider their business first, and then design a site theme for that. Finally, while ProductCart is rather independent of design, at some point you do have to maintain design coherency once you get into the shopping cart functionality. It's best to have a design concept that will work consitantly accross the entire site from home page to order confirmation.

Greg Dinger Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Certified ProductCart Developers Joined: 23-September-2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 238	Post Options Post Reply Quote Greg Dinger Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 26-October-2009 at 8:41pm
	Unlike some of the other carts out there, there is no repository of standard templates for PC. There's the basic template that comes with the cart so that there is something wrapping the pages, but it's pretty simple. Most serious merchants and developers throw it away and design their own. We did some work for a client who selected a Magento template and asked us to implement that over PC. It worked out ok - took about a dozen hours or so. Might take longer for someone not accustomed to working with PC. In terms of our experience, it's a great platform. We create a design that is custom for the client, reference the appropriate code into the header/footer, and voila - instant site. Well, not exactly instant, but you get the idea. There are plenty of tricks and techniques that experienced developers use when building stores, but I'm not sure how that could be easily summarized in a forum post. Since you are looking for free, I guess you are running with a thin budget. But if the budget allows, and your client wants a professional design, you may want to consider partnering with an experienced developer to help with that aspect of the project. If you'd like to discuss possibilities, feel free to call me.

simplyathleticgear Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 26-October-2009 Location: Toronto Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote simplyathleticgear Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 26-October-2009 at 8:18pm
	Hello Everyone: I'm very excited about ProductCart as I plan to deploy my first site over the next few months . My background is in development, but my concern is that I don't have much experience with image editing and site design. In short, I'm comfortable diving into the ASP to customize at will, but creating the site layout is a whole other ball game. This brings me to my approach: My hope is to use a template for the site (free or purchased). With this in mind, I have a question for all the brilliant minds that reside in the forum. What is your experience with using HTML/CSS templates to integrate with ProductCart? Is there anything in particular that I should be aware of or watch out for? E.g. Are there certain layouts that do not lend themselves well to ProductCart? Thank you all in advance for your help and wisdom on this topic. Cheers, Martin.