How to create a web site using Design Templates

Creating a website can be an enjoyable task with the many design options available today. Design templates are currently very popular and in demand. When creating a website, one of the first things you will include is your “background” slide. The default mode gives you a plain white background. If you use pre-designed templates, you can choose from many backgrounds, and all you have to do is pick one. You can create your own background slides if you are even a little bit creative and computer skilled.

Using design templates is similar to the old photographic 35mm slide formats, where the creator of the slide would select a background for the master slide and then make a separate high contrast (Kodalith) slide with text. The photographer would then combine the two into yet a third slide by reshooting the first two with a double exposure, hence the name “burn in”. There was a lot of work involved in making the text boards to shoot, and doing the actual photography and processing. Using the computer to make slide shows made that whole process so much easier!

On the computer, once you have selected a design template, you just need to insert images or text into the design boxes provided, and the whole slide show comes together like magic. Similar to 35mm slide shows, on the computer you can program into your slide show various special effects for slide changes and add audio or sound effects. You can import charts and graphs to the slides, or photographs.

Today, website owners can go beyond the ordinary with flash design templates. These use computer technology at its best to create mini-movies, animated action on their websites. It can be just a simple opening slide with minimum animation to full blown animation where you incorporate flowing cursor trails and slide shows and mini-movies right on the slide. Of course, you can add your own text onto these and create a trendy showcase for your company or product.

Designing templates

Flash animation design templates are in demand and are priced accordingly. You can purchase a stock flash design template for tens of dollars, or you can purchase a custom flash design template for thousands of dollars. There are a lot of variations in between those prices. Think of a creative design template as a package plan. You receive the basic background and as many bells and whistles as you want to pay for. The backgrounds can be combined with any number of layouts, graphics and text inserts to create a coordinated program that flows and matches together into a finished masterpiece.

Making changes to design templates is equally easy. Certain content boxes can be made universal to all slides within a program. If you make a change in one, that box, which is carried in an identical spot on every slide, is changed on all at one time. Most content boxes are individual to a page or slide, and you can use different layout schemes for each slide if you wish. There may be content for one slide that will require a full page box layout, while another slide needs to have two or three columns, or a box on the top half with two columns underneath, and so on.

Audio can be added to the design templates, either as simple sound effects or movie tracks and music. That varies with cost of the templates, and may or may not be included in the template purchase. There is such a great opportunity for creative efforts when you use design templates, it is amazing when they are not used!