I'm curious what experiences others have had when you tried to use, or even just considered, website templates. Did it work? How much work did you have to put into putting into the template to make it work? I'm very interested in what you say.
I used to use website templates when I was not as experienced with programming to learn the various aspects of the design. However, I only paid for one template, realizing the code-base was horrible. Now I recommend the use of free templates specifically because you can't go wrong if you don't pay for it. However, I have had bad experiences with templates you pay for including non-unique identity.
free templates are fine as like above you dont pay you cant loose. but most need alot of work or for you to spend time tweaking the design (there free for a reason) as for paid templates just get a custom one made. your never dissapointed as you say what goes into it - Luke PS: if anyone needs any custom templates/designs made just drop me a PM (Portfolio site under construction)
Sometimes I'll use templates to get some code and play with it to customize things. Templates are a good way to learn code for noobs if you poke around with them. Gets you a bit more familiarized. But I never just plop up a template and leave it.