What, exactly, is a template?

I get a kick out of new web designers who advertise that they "don't use templates", especially when they use the term "cookie cutter template".  The reason is that most people don't even know what a template is. All web designs, even those custom created from scratch are called "templates" at some stage of their development. A template is simply a master copy of something which is replicated over and over again. For instance, let's say you hire a designer to create a custom web design for you. You want your website to look like nothing else on the web. That is how it should be. Your site should exude uniqueness. Here is what the web designer does.

He creates graphics and a layout for your website. He then assembles the elements to create the first page of your website. This first page is the master page. It is also called...guess what? The "template". From that template he will copy it over and over again for each page of your website, but add the unique content for each page if it is an HTML coded site. (in other words, the Home page, About Us page, Contact page, etc.)

The completed site with all the web pages is then uploaded to the web server where is available on the Internet.

Most websites these days use content management systems. In these systems, only one page is uploaded to the server with one or more folders containing the graphics and layout codes for the page. The actual page itself is usually blank except for perhaps one line of code for the color. There are actually only enough graphics and layout code to make one page of the website. When someone visits your site that one page is "served" to the visitor. The content for a particular page resides on the server in the database and other folders. When the visitor clicks on a link to go to another page, that same blank page is served again, but other content is sent to be assembled. which is unique for that second page. In other words, the pages are actually assembled only when they are called for by the visitor's computer. This is called "assembly on the fly". The actual web pages do not really exist until they are called for and assembled by the visitor's browser. This is different from ordinary HTML websites where there is an actual page for each page of the website.

Because this one page is used over and over again, but assembled in different ways, it is called a "template" since by definition, a template is a master copy which is used repeatedly. That is also why content management systems are called "templating systems".

What is a Cookie Cutter Design?

When most poeple say, "I don't want a template or a cookie cutter design, what they mean is they don't want a design which looks like anyone else's. They mean they don't want their web designer to purchase a design from the web and then place their content on it. I agree. Your design should be unique. However, the truth of the matter is that many of the websites on the web today started out as a purchased template, especially if the owner did not have thousands of dollars to pay for web development. Many designers today, will purchase a design for their customer and then strip out the graphics and replace them with their own graphics. They usually use the original layout code or modify it slightly. This method saves a lot of time which would otherwise be spent creating code files to make the design work with the content management system. And time is money.

If You Use a Purchased Template...

If you have a web designer who cannot take a pre-made template and customize it to look like nothing else on the web, you need to find yourself another designer. No designer worthy of the name uses a purchased template as it is, unless the customer wants that. Even by just customizing the header and placing your unique content and graphics on the pages, your site can look different than any other website on the Internet.

Creating Unique Web Designs...How Do We Do It?

In the last few years, software has been developed which allows web designers to create custom web designs for content management systems within a much quicker time frame. Custom designing from the ground up is now affordable for most individuals and businesses.  Whether for an HTML code based website or a website for use in a content management system, software will be used. Hand coding will often be used at some point in the development of the site, but most work will be done with code generating software. So if a web designer tells you they will create your site by "hand coding", rest assured they will be using software somewhere along the line. That is unless you're General Motors and have deep pockets to pay thousands of dollars for a design.