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Tutorials, reviews, case studies and other tips to help website owners and website developers master the Joomla content management system.

How to choose a template

This is part 4 of a series on the steps to plan and build a Joomla powered website. 

Once you know what elements to include on the site, you need to choose a template or have one designed for you.

"Off-the-shelf" templates

Joomla's strongest draw card is the large availability of good quality templates (and extensions). There are some excellent free templates and commercial templates are generally very affordable. Here are some tips to consider before choosing your template:

  • If your site will include a logo, ensure that it will look sensible against the background of the template. Take a screen shot of the template and overlay your logo to check that it looks okay. The safest option is to choose a design that has a white or light colored background at the point the logo will appear.
  • Unless you have a simple site that is unlikely to change much, ensure that the template includes a drop-down menu. Adding this function to a template at a later stage can be a lot of work.
  • Have a look at the available module positions to ensure that your content will suit. For example, if you intend to run banners on your site, is there a template position available at the point where you wish to position your banners?

Custom templates

Developing your own template is a much more expensive option but it provides the most flexibility. Here are some sources for finding Joomla template developers:

The approach we have taken for this project is to use a commercial template as this best fits the budget and allows us to develop the site quickly. The most appropriate one we found is Kinetic by RocketTheme. The logo will work well, there is a blue theme available to match the logo and the module positions perfectly match the requirements.

Kinetic template by Rockttheme

Now of course the whole point of watching our tutorials is to learn how to do this yourself. However your project may require additional help such as programming. This is the case with our project and in next week's post, I will explain the process we went through to find and select a Joomla programmer.

Rate this blog entry:
How to find good developers
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Comments 2

Nancy Medina on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 02:45

Hi,

I would like to have access to the templates demos that you offer, specially the Events Templates.

Thank you,

Nancy Medina

0
Hi, I would like to have access to the templates demos that you offer, specially the Events Templates. Thank you, Nancy Medina
Richard Pearce on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 10:34

Hi Nancy - we do not supply templates. You can find suitable Joomla templates by:
1. Simply searching for "Joomla Templates" using a search engine
2. Looking for Joomla template providers at the Joomla Resources Directory
3. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free report containing our recommended suppliers

0
Hi Nancy - we do not supply templates. You can find suitable Joomla templates by: 1. Simply searching for "Joomla Templates" using a search engine 2. Looking for Joomla template providers at the [url=http://resources.joomla.org/directory/extension-providers/templates.html]Joomla Resources Directory[/url] 3. [url=http://www.buildajoomlawebsite.com/newsletter/news.html] Subscribe to our newsletter[/url] to receive a free report containing our recommended suppliers

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