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 graphic design section at the Joomla! Resources Directory
- The Joomla! group at oDesk
- JoomLancers
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.
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.