Brent Crouch - My Online Journal

Web design isn’t one of my strong points.  I can build any web page I want, I just don’t know what looks good.

Most of the time, I just hire a designer from a service like Elance.  But that isn’t always practical.  I read a blog post recently that stated it is impossible to hire someone that is good, fast, and cheap.  At best, you can only find two of these three characteristics in one designer.

Hiring a designer doesn’t always work into my budget and time line.  When I want a design, I want a good layout, for a great price, in as little time as possible.  I’ve found a good solution to use when it isn’t practical to hire a designer.

There are tons of templates you can download for free on the internet.  Just do a search on Google for the terms “free template” and you’ll have more than a few to choose from.  The problem is these free templates have most often been downloaded 1,000s of times.  I’m not crazy about using a design featured on 1,000 other sites.

The solution is to use the basic layout, but change the colors and graphics.  You’ll be surprised at how unique these two things will make your new template.

Colors is one of the hardest things for me to choose.  I found a website called Color Combinations that makes this process a lot easier.  You simply pick out a color you like and the site will give you three other complimentary colors.  You can also use a slide to create different shades of your favorite colors.

The site will give you the hex# for any of the colors you want, so you can easily add them to your site.  Best of all, the service is free.  I added to my bookmarks yesterday and will be a frequent visitor.

Another site I found is IStockphoto.com.  This site has literally millions of high quality pictures you can add to your site.  Most of the pictures aren’t free, but can be had for a dollar or two.  I was really impressed with the quality and number of pictures that could fit any theme you could imagine.

With any design skill whatsoever, you should be able to download any free template, use the resources above, and have a professional custom looking design for a fraction of the time and cost it would take to hire a designer to complete your project from scratch.

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Tags: design-photos, free-website-templates, web-design, website-colors, website-photos