Making your own template/layouts.

Great question. Seems like frameworks and Templates are all the rage now.

Is this the new trend? Has WordPress made it more vogue to work from Templates? Seems like modifying an html template or Wordpress template is the quickest way to get a websiteup and going.? Is this what most people are doing? even for client work?

@James Barnett. Great, and thanks because i think that it what truely lets you brake free as a designer. Anyone can now a days go and download free templates or CSS layouts. I'm the type of person that likes to do everything from scratch. Knowing that I have the freedom to change anything to how ever i want it.

Thanks

@Summer And yes that is my main concern. Many times clients want layouts certain ways ect. I am not going to use a pre-made template even if it DOES fit their specifications.

I'm trying to avoid using things like Bootstrap for now, because I want to make sure I have a solid coding foundation first. I'm a "from the ground up" kind of guy though, and want to understand how everything works before I use it.

It can be very frustrating at times, but I'm hoping I'll better understand using something like Bootstrap when the time comes to learn it.

@adam I am not familiar with Bootstrap. Is that kind of like another source of premade templates?

@adam... nevermind just found out what it was with a nice google search, and although it seems pretty cool and handy for someone who is doing multipe jobs... i want to learn it from scratch like you...

I agree with Adam. Learning from the ground up will also allow you to be able to customize and use templates and move them away from that template look. Personally I focus on design first then coding. Learning to design elements and layouts for various customers or personal projects will put you in front of those who just dish out template sites.

I have nothing against templates as you will certainly come across customers who have already paid for a template or are looking to cut down cost. Even still, if you don't know enough about coding you won't get far in a template.

Webdesign is a flooded market. Find out what you want to do in the web world and tackle it!

@Kris So do you think that completing the courses in TreeHouse, and i mean really learning and completing these courses. Is enough to create a foundation to make your own templates?

@michael yes. IMO a template is just a website with dummy content that you would change according to your clients needs. Colors, images, and content. When you can make a full working website like a portfolio for yourself, you can copy that code and replace the text with dummy text(Lorim ipsum) and various color themes and you have a template. A short cut to cut down the time it takes to code a full site.

I would go through all the courses and then php which will also allow you to cut down coding time as well.

Go out and get yourself a free template and or pay for a cheap one and dissect it. See how much of the code you understand and give yourself an idea how they built it. Play with it and manipulate it. Your sure to get stuck if your not familiarized with all the code and CSS not to mention all the advanced JavaScript and such. This is the main reason many people pay to have their templates customized for them.

Good luck and have fun.

@michael yes. IMO a template is just a website with dummy content that you would change according to your clients needs. Colors, images, and content. When you can make a full working website like a portfolio for yourself, you can copy that code and replace the text with dummy text(Lorim ipsum) and various color themes and you have a template. A short cut to cut down the time it takes to code a full site.

I would go through all the courses and then php which will also allow you to cut down coding time as well.

Go out and get yourself a free template and or pay for a cheap one and dissect it. See how much of the code you understand and give yourself an idea how they built it. Play with it and manipulate it. Your sure to get stuck if your not familiarized with all the code and CSS not to mention all the advanced JavaScript and such. This is the main reason many people pay to have their templates customized for them.

Good luck and have fun.

Thanks for the reply. So does anybody recommend any good schools for this? I'm in the tri-state area. And from what I am hearing, someone who can create their own template excels much more than those who do not.