Use templates as a freelancer

[BigBrianC]

Hey y'all. After creating my landing page using a template powered by Bootstrap by Twitter, I was wondering about the ethics of doing freelance web design and using templates such as Bootstrap? These aren't WYSIWYG or drag and drop, but they are templates. Is this something commonly done and is okay, or is it something to avoid?

 

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[themaxx]

Hey y'all. After creating my landing page using a template powered by Bootstrap by Twitter, I was wondering about the ethics of doing freelance web design and using templates such as Bootstrap? These aren't WYSIWYG or drag and drop, but they are templates. Is this something commonly done and is okay, or is it something to avoid?

Not sure what the issue is? Would you insist a programmer write all his code in machine code? I can't see any issue in using a template to do your work more quickly.

 

[BigBrianC]

Well using a template v custom code of a website. But I suppose you are correct.

 

[D11FYY]

I dont see anything up with it. The customer has came to you for you to set it up for them so they "think" you are in the know therefore pay you and if you deem the template adequate why not?

 

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[DaRK9]

I openly use templates for web design. It increases turn-around and makes my competition look like they are slow.

 

[Digamma]

Would you want your doctor to discover medicine from scratch?

Bootstrap is not a template. It is a framework. The difference is substantial: a template is a complete design which is used as it is or customized, while a framework is a set of components/structure that allow you to build faster. It's like building a car using car pieces instead of raw metal and a forge.

Second, you need to understand that things are not built from scratch anymore. Ever. No professional will ever accept to do something like that because it makes no sense. The web is not designed to work like we use it today, it's designed to share simple pages with some text on it. This means that to adapt it to what we do now we work on a delicate structure of stuff built upon stuff built upon stuff ad libitum with ninja killers ready to stab you in the back as soon as you turn your guard down.
You might have noticed Bootstrap because it is overused and used wrong by most people (on this I agree), but no matter. If it's not Bootstrap is Foundation or Pure or Bourbon. If it's a modern professional website it's there.

But lets talk about templates. 99 times out of 100, you want your guy to use a pro template based on a popular framework (theme framework, not the kind of framework we were talking above) and customize it at will. Why? Quality. Compatibility. Support. And costs, lots of costs.
You know you are getting good stuff. A theme of that quality would cost you thousands from scratch.

 

[stashbooks]

Hi BigB! I will be making my website. I fabricate an item which I believe will sell at record speed. Don't know if I will have time to build website so busy fabricating. Any thoughts?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

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[BigBrianC]

Thanks guys. This gives me more confidence, as a web designer and programmer sometimes I put too much focus on making it from scratch.

 

[Dealdomains]

I don't feel there should be any problem using template as most of the webdesign do that same stuff.

 

[Gymjunkie]

Depends on how much you change them later on. Frameworks are great, if you change template a lot it's great, if you just copy/paste new text and don't do much else and you charge a lot for it, then it's kind of lame.

But in general, templates are good. Look at ThemeForest.net and how much it's thriving.

 

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[craig1928]

https://www.similartech.com/technologies/bootstrap

3,039,392 websites using bootstrap, nothing to worry about