Imelda Marcos and the Templates of Doom

I collect blog themes and web site templates and store them in mass quantities, convinced you can never have too many options.

Of course, every time I need a theme, I go out there shopping again, stocking up on everything that glistens for future generations of clients and my personal projects. I'm the Imelda Marcos of templates.

I've paid for templates only once -- a package deal for the Revolution family of themes from Brian Gardner. If you want one a la carte, it'll run about $80 last time I checked his site.

Check out this simple site/blog that I just put together using Brian's Revolution Business: HandsFreeInfo.com

HandsFreeInfo.com tracks the latest laws and legislation related to driving and cell phones. It also offers up some cell phone safety advice for drivers, as well as tips on buying hands-free devices.

Rev Biz is among the least ambitious of Brian's themes, most of which are built for people who want their blogs to look/act like web sites. The typical customer needs to wrangle a good amount of news- or magazine-style content. I didn't change much on the HandsFreeInfo template, but even the simplest of these jobs require some knowledge of xhtml and CSS. Brian and his forum moderators are quite helpful, usually.

Brian also has some free templates, including Vertigo, which I still like for my blog featuring online video news, Download Movies 101. Vertigo became overexposed back in its day, just as the Revolution themes seem to be everywhere these days. There's a reason for that -- they're among the best templates out there. Solution: customize like crazy. Check out the multiple-use templates package.

I also like the work of Andreas Viklund, a 28-year old web designer from Jokkmokk, Sweden. His templates are free and he asks only for a link back. Andreas' templates are super easy to work with if you know some basic CSS. (Or learn from using the templates, why wait.) Check out this template, andreas00, in action on the web site for Sherman Oaks area chiropractor George Kosmides.

Andreas has been quite active in past months. Just today he bowed Daleri Structure, a specialty item. I just discovered another designer from that part of the world; will report back after I've worked with his designs.

I've had templates on the brain because I'm about to go up with my long-promised psychedelic music site, which you can preview as I build it. (Nothing much there today but a cool video.)

Also, ProBlogger just asked its web-savvy readers for their picks for top WordPress designs. I trolled that that long comments thread and just had to pick up a theme or two -- or three or four or ... well, hell, I grabbed them all.

(Advanced readers will note that I've used the links in this post to support some of my ongoing interests, using targeted keywords and an affil link. Didn't write the post to do that, not at all, it just comes second-nature these days.)