Using Website Templates
If you plan to design your own website, but don't have a lot of experience doing so, then you need to start with a template. Templates are basically pre-designed sites that allow you to modify and personalize them to suit your needs. Templates can range from bare bones, which require the most work, but also give you the most freedom, to fully designed with all images and graphic work done for you. Below are some free resources to get you started. Make sure to read any licensing requirements before using a template.
Fully Designed Templates
Blank Layouts (Bare Bones)
CSS Framesworks and Layout Generators
A CSS Framework packages a number of ready-made options for designing a web page into one library of CSS stylesheets to enable faster design and development of a website. Grid generators (or builders) are simply tools that make it easy to point-and-click to quickly generate a new design based upon the framework.
- Blueprint Framework | Blueprint Grid Generator
- 960 Grid System | 960 Grid Generator
- YUI Grids | YUI Grids Builder
WordPress Themes
If you choose to simply have a blog as your main site, you'll want to use a striking WordPress theme. There are tons of free WordPress themes available at the WordPress site, but the best themes are the premium themes. For a relatively low cost, you can get a design that is outstanding, and comes with features you generally won't find with a free theme. Here are some links to both the free themes and premium themes.
