Our startup can't afford designers at this point, and we decided to buy a Web Template so that we can use that design before we launch. However, we ran into several pitfalls:<p>1. A lot of "Website template" sites are, frankly, crap. A majority of it are just cleverly Search Engine Optimized and offer poor quality content.
2. Most of the templates are for companies who just want to plug in information. We don't want any fancy graphics or stock pictures demonstrating racial diversity. We just need a blank page with a sidebar and a top navigation bar which is well documented.<p>The best we found after hours of searching were the "Admin Templates" at ThemeForest:
http://themeforest.net/category/site-templates/admin-skins<p>I'm sure there are many well designed, well priced options out there. Any suggestions on where to find them will be greatly appreciated.
First I would say that using a template is a sure fire way to make your site look boilerplate and out of place, a designer doesn't really cost you that much. For a couple thousand dollars you can get someone to put together PSDs for you and then pay someone a couple hundred to cut them up into HTML/CSS... then the rest you can handle. You probably only need them to do 3-5 pages to cover most of your app.<p>That being said, I did find some admin specific ones back when I considered doing this (I didn't and paid for a designer) but here you go:<p><a href="http://www.admintasia.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.admintasia.com/</a><p><a href="http://www.adminizio.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.adminizio.com/</a><p><a href="http://themeforest.net/item/ninja-admin-/21190" rel="nofollow">http://themeforest.net/item/ninja-admin-/21190</a><p><a href="http://themeforest.net/item/profi-admin-administration-for-the-professionals/49058" rel="nofollow">http://themeforest.net/item/profi-admin-administration-for-t...</a><p><a href="http://themeforest.net/item/boxie-admin/full_screen_preview/74076" rel="nofollow">http://themeforest.net/item/boxie-admin/full_screen_preview/...</a>
Here's a simple web app theme, similar to Basecamp's design, that should work until you can design something yourself: <a href="http://github.com/pilu/web-app-theme" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/pilu/web-app-theme</a><p>There are a lot of different styles to choose from as well.
I use a ThemeForest admin template for a web app I developed for non-technical small business owners. (<a href="http://themeforest.net/item/simpla-admin-flexible-user-friendly-admin-skin/46073" rel="nofollow">http://themeforest.net/item/simpla-admin-flexible-user-frien...</a>)<p>I don't claim to have the most amazing admin panel ever, but it saved me lots of time and money, and allowed me to deploy my app quickly and start making money. My clients are happy with it.
Atleast one person in your startup should be design savvy. Desining thinking makes great companies. If you outsource the design work it will part you from a important aspect of your user experience.
I recommend <a href="http://www.gooeytemplates.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gooeytemplates.com/</a><p>They are simple and cheap. A good starting point. They even have a free one I think.
With all the time you spend looking for and putting a template in place you could be looking for a decent and affordable designer. Cutting up the design into HTML/CSS usually cost between $150-$300 depending on what you need done.<p>If you go the template route you might find it surprising how much time you spend hooking everything up in the frontend.. So like I said you might as well spend that time implementing the actual design you want.
I have heard from a few people that <a href="http://codemyconcept.com" rel="nofollow">http://codemyconcept.com</a> is great for cutting HTML/CSS<p>Just an FYI
There is a couple of not too bad looking admin skins listed in this article : <a href="http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/top-50-web-graphics-admin-skins-and-scripts-to-accelerate-development/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+nettuts+(NETTUTS)" rel="nofollow">http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/top-50-web-gra...</a>
I wish I could tell you. I also found the "Admin Templates" but not much else. Most of the templates appeared to be geared to blogs or company web sites, and not web applications.<p>I'm getting ready to bite the bullet and go with a designer if I can get the price to an acceptable level.