How do you like this Template to be your website?

Hi!

I just got accepted on Template Bay with my latest PSD Template and i was wondering how much do you like this template to be your next skin for your online business?

Check the link below:
http://templatebay.ez-bc.com/site/template/id/38

Thanks!

 

Starting from some goofy PSD and calling it a web design is like drawing a picture of a building with crayons and calling it an architectural blueprint.

Perusing the screenshots, it's filled with the typical "not viable for web deployment if you care about accessibility" GARBAGE that has no business on a website, likely forcing fixed width, making responsive layout difficult, stuck using px metric fonts as well...

I have never once seen a website built with the 'piss out some stupid PSD first' approach to design be anything but an accessibility disaster, since in the end it results in content being shoehorned into a layout it was never meant for,


Wheover started this idiotic trend of dicking around in Photoshop before you even have semantic markup and a semi-fluid elastic responsive layout best hope I never meet them in a dark alleyway. It is for all intents and purposes putting the cart before the horse, and the fastest road to /FAIL/ ever so far as web development is concerned.

That's NOT a template, it's a goofy picture. Sure, it's pretty, but what good is it? That anyone would pay money for that is just mind-blowing... but then there's a reason I consider websites like Template Bay, ThemeForest, etc, etc to be nothing more than scams and nube predation -- preying on the ignorance of those more impressed by flash than substance, and who think they can get sound technical advice from the pages of Forbes. Which is like getting financial advice from the pages of Popular Electronics!

 

@deathshaddow, what is really your problem? You are pissed off about the system?(template bay/themeforest/etc) I invite you to take care of them, NOT THROWING SOME RANDOM APPARENTLY SMART WORDS on any thread you join.

If you think you are helpful for your fellows, GET HELPFULL not a jurk!

 

I'm trying to be helpful, by warning people away from the broken half-assed practice of drawing a goofy picture that results in inaccessible poorly developed websites -- no matter how pretty the result, starting from a PSD is broken practice at best, nube predation at worst.

Starting out from pictures of a fixed width screen only layout is NOT a practice that should be advocated -- in fact it should be shot down whenever it crops up. It is at best ignorant, and at worst preying on the ignorance of people who haven't learned enough about websites to make a rational informed choice on how one should be built.

... and I will continue to drill that point home every time someone brings up the subject.

 

I have never understood why PSD is used. The only drawing should be the one a client shows so you know what they want where on page in regards to elements and navigation not one thta gets cut up to add pictures throughout a pages code. Seems like a barmy practise to me and ooh how people have argued a page begins with a PSD...

 

Hi all - just want to chime in quickly.

Everyone has their opinions. In my opinion, the benefit of a PSD when doing certain web designs is that you have the ability to play with something much quicker than you can have it coded. If I have client requesting a design with say a 10k budget, I'll always work with PSD's first (just because I have photoshop and a tiny bit of experience with it). Then I can more quickly bang out a rough design, start a screen share with my team or even the client and toggle some layers to get their opinions, play with things.

It's just quicker than coding it for the same purpose. After you're set on a design, I also find it nice to have something to refer to for minor details when doing the css. IE, border, text shadows, ect. Allows me to separate the creative thinking from the development a bit and optimize what I'm doing.

For others, they might just provide some ideas or a place to start instead of a blank white page. Slicing a psd or recreating it exactly with no consideration to useability would often be a mistake (as deathshadow so forcefully pointed out).

Your PSD looks great by the way and you obviously have some knowledge of responsive design and modern css elements, because I know I could recreate that entirely with css/js responsively and interactive. The header could be fixed on scroll, you could use css similar to a grid-style layout to adapt on screen widths. There is a lot of work that would go into building it from the PSD, but I do think it is well designed.

Shoot me a PM with your prices and more details if you're looking for some work.

Cheers,
Kris

 

I share these sentiments exactly.

If I was approached by a brand new client and was asked to undertake the design work as well as framework development, it's second nature for me to provide a PSD revision (or two) based on their requirements as to roughly how the website will look. Developing the website and then having a customer unhappy with the initial design is one hell of a time sink, preparation is key. This "idiotic trend" has saved me a lot of time in the past and results in a happy customer.

 

I guess I fail to see how dragging around and manipulating layers takes any more time than just changing one or two values in the CSS. Color change? Easy... width adjustment? Done. Switch the column order? Flip the floats (easier than layer adjustment)

Much less NOT being shoe-horned into a single fixed layout, you can show all the layouts in realtime. Even if I were to make a picture of a layout because I didn't want to reveal code, I'd use screencaps of the code instead of playing with font rendering that doesn't match what browsers actually do, measurements that don't match browser measurements (since you should be avoiding doing as much as possible in PX), etc, etc...

If anything, playing around in a paint program should be taking LONGER.

 

I'm willing to bet $100 that, given the SAME layout/design in both PSD and in html/css - I can rearrange the elements in photoshop way faster than you do in html/css. By this I mean, if someone other than you or me were the one giving instructions - so we'd have the same amount of time to work with - I'd be done long before you.

Calling photoshop obsolete? Yeah good luck creating your gif icons/vector icons in CSS man.

 

As in instructions like "change all the text to ____ font?" Probably got you beat on that one... "switch the columns left and right" -- changing columns is part of the CSS to begin with, particularly when one is designing responsive... change the padding... edit one number. Can you make this not go as wide? edit the max-width and since it's fluid everything just falls into place.... make the side column narrower... edit that one column and the empty padding to make room for it and the entire fluid layout adjusts into place. Colors? Gradients?

Not calling it obsolete, it's a great tool for working with IMAGES, particularly for print. It is NOT a particularly good tool for creating your layoutS (yes, plural, even when talking about just one page!) -- something it was never meant to do and does an absolutely dreadful job of doing!

It also wouldn't know optimized image saves from the hole in it's DVD, but that's another topic entirely...

 

lol @deathshadow. get the stick out of your ass.
Everyone knows that you make a mock-up before coding.
Asking an artist to sit down and write code is just stupid.
If you cant take a PSD and code it into a usable, flexible, fluid layout than you should not be programming websites.

You don't take the html/css output of photoshop and use it as a layout, you take the image of the website and use it as a reference to code it into a workable website.

An artist uses Photoshop, a programmer does not.
Go find something better to do with your time than rant about stuff you know nothing about.

 

The first one I would probably be faster than you, that is changing all text.

I mean, let's say you have a site with 5 number of elements/blocks, and you have the same font in all of them, but the font is in different sizes/weights. So you'd have to change 5 lines of css code in total. It probably would take you a few moments to find the css code, even if you ctrl+f for it. For me, I would just click the textarea and change the font in the 5 different places.

Anyway, this discussion is not going anywhere, but I can definitely see your point. As opposed to most people here, I agree with you.. a little.

If you're a really fast programmer/coder then chances are that you code up a mock-up design faster than you do in photoshop. But really it's all about personal preference, so you can't really say that those who do mock-ups in photoshop are doing something wrong.

EDIT: About the template. I think it's a little white, there's many details that is hard to see. Otherwise, it's a nice design!
EDIT2: Didn't see the price. If you get any sales I'll be impressed.

 

Photoshop came to be used like this because most coders suck at design and most designers suck at coding.
deathshadow knows both and i do too, i like to CSS my website live, but i can also understand the PDS templates frenzy.

On topic, i would't pay $250 for that template if it were the only one online. Not that's it's bad, it's just at least 10 times more expensive than its worth.

 

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