Hate to say this but....

After searching over a period of days for a decent wordpress template, I've finally realized that you truly get what you pay for (most of the time). I'm trying to avoid spending $500 on a template, but it seems I may have to, because most of the ones offered here (even the $30 ones) are literally crap in a bucket.

I'm not a designer, and most likely never will be, but I can guarantee you that I could come up with a better concept than 75% of the so called wordpress theme designers on here!

Look, I'm not a negative person AT ALL, but I get so frustrated when I see someone offering there "amazing" and "unique" wordpress template for $40, and it looks like something from 1997. Seriously guys, and you know what I'm talking about - those should be free, at best. At least you'll actually get people to use them (maybe).

Where are all of the badass designs at (that don't cost an arm & a leg)? Folks, if I were in a position of being able to design a wordpress theme, I would take a hard look at the popular ones out there that cost $400-$1000, essentially mimic them (of course with your own twists), and sell them on the forums. TRUST me, they would sell like hot cakes on here.

Give us something we can work with, and quit posting all the horrible, nasty looking themes that a lot of people on here do. Present me with something that I would jump hurdles to buy, and the money will flow.

Put some damned talent into it already...

Anyone else feel the same?

 

what is an great wp theme to you?
i see a lot of great themes here,im my opinion

 

no offense, whadda mean give us something we can work with, the only reason I dont try to make designs like that is because on here it wont sell for more then $45 or even $55 dollars. Design like that take way more then 45 minutes- 1 hour. So it isnt worth it

and I have seen some great design here, and you know what happens to them? they just get buried under this section, why? because they aren't coded

 

I've seen a few standout designs on here and on, say, deviantArt that have gone for a hundred bucks. I'm not a rich guy, but i'd part with that kind of cash for something attractive. But yes, those 400 dollars are a little excessive for me... and there's a lot of less than eye pleasing stuff here, but i guess that's what happens when people want a quick buck.

 

Trust me, designer people, I know what you mean as far as the time it takes to come up with something...but some of the so called "good" designs are hardly that at all. From someone who outsources most design work, I'm telling you this from a consumer point of view. Keep in mind that you are rightfully able to defend your work, but that doesn't make it "good" and certainly doesn't entice me to buy it.

Also, I didn't say that ALL designs on here suck...but let's be honest, many do. I can say this as I've hired designers from DP many, many times, and have had good luck with most. But for those of you that come up with $30 designs that actually sell...I guess, more power to you.

 

Well I believe a lot of people on dp already knows the "You get what you pay for" concept..
And they do scout for those designers and pay them the price they deserve for their quality designs.
You just have to weed the good ones out of about a 100 templates for sale in this section. patience
and a lot clicking is required.

However, there are some buyers who have little budget at all, and those $30 templates here will do
atm. my templates costs way more than 30 but i don't really post in the templates section..
however, i still have a lot of buyers from dp.

Buyers want More Quality Designs... i guess this is the bottomline.. give your work more dignity..
aim at selling your templates at a higher amount. improve your design skills. everyday
should be a work in progress. so you can stop selling templates for 30. as for those designers
i know here in dp (whose work rocks btw.. ) keep at it!

 

Thats because most the "designers" on here are 15 year old's with cracked copies of photoshop. What do you expect?

 

Look at the good design on here, a lot of people post in their threads, not to buy, but to ask is it coded. When a topic says uncoded template, I dont see why people would even ask in the first place

I will try my hand at one of those a design and just to see if I can sell it for $70+ dollars

And you gotta look at it on the other side as well, some people don't do this for a living so they don't need to make money. I am just a bored college kid, who makes a couple bucks here and there. My parents pay for everything, and I mean everything even gas >_____>, but I gotta do everything they say.

I just looked at it like this, if I sell a template I made for $30 and it took me 45 minutes to 1 hour thats a nice amount. Considering I have to work for 4-5 hours @ minimum wage to get $30 at a real job

 

No one will make proper money on DP with templates anymore because there are too many crap designs from 12 year olds trying to act like they are a designer, I do not think for one minute that I am a fantastic designer I let my clients decide that but I can design something that people want and that does not go for a couple of bucks. The problem is the people who design crap templates and sell them for $20 will not go because they sell them for $20 and to 12 year olds thats a lot of money whilst proper designers who do this as a job like me end up going broke because we get no sales because the pricing of templates is dramatically reduced and we cannot afford to go that low, we have bills and expenses not parents paying for everything for us. The only way I can sell templates now is on Sitepoint but even that is getting too crowded now.

 

That's quite an interesting point. If your work is good people will seek you out though. Some of the templates here and frankly shocking.

 

Good points made....but for the person that said "for people with low budgets, the $30 design works" is what I take issue with. If you're going to use one of those, you're better off and would have better luck finding a free one that looks 600 times better. I just can't imagine paying even $5 for some of these...

Just want to clarify....there are some unbelievable designers here, and like someone said above, keep up the good work, for those of us who need your services are greatful for it.

 

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=643831

this is a example, of what I was saying earlier. The Template is better than a good percentage of what you see here, but...

the "..." is supposed to be there >.>

 

I think there are some decent templates on here - you gotta weed through them though .

Everything on www.themes.theuniversitykid.com cost under $50 - they are well worth that, IMO.

 

It would be interesting and helpful if you posted some examples of what you consider good designs Shamus.

 

@Gawk - While I would love to do that for you, I honestly don't think it's necessary. In my eyes, it's pretty easy, if not instantaneous, to pick out junk as opposed to half way decent.

Again, I'll be conservative and say that 6/10 wordpress templates posted daily on DP are ugly, incoherent, and make me want to cry and spank myself.

 

but there is a big difference in buying a nice looking PSD for $30 and paying $30 for a coded theme, i used to charge $30 just to code from html > wordpress, if your buying a coded theme for $30 the chances of it being 1) nice and 2) well coded are slim.

 

I definately agree.
I think that all the better designers shouls just stop selling their designs for lower amounts and sell them only for what there worth of because once you drop the prices they will never come up.

Good developers know which design are good. And good design translates into better flow of trafic so they wont mind paying more.

Also Id like to suggest another section in the forums where we could push only the real quality designs through ratings.
For example the threads which have at least 3.5 star rating by 20 people could be moved into that section by the mods.
So the better designs could be easily seperated from the "not so good".
EACE:

 

Meh, this is totally true. This does not only apply to Wordpress templates but also to XTHML+CSS templates as well. There are a lot of free ones you can see that are 100x better than the templates being sold in here.

 

I honesty agree with you. I had my theme design by a professional but the bad part is that I had to redesign what the professinal did. I am still not satisfied and I did pay 999$. just for the design only. But I am sure in the long run it will be well worth the money.

 

All I can say is all of the templates have the same layout just different graphics I think a nice original layout with some decent graphics would sell well on here.

Shmoe