TechAsh's Blog

Just a small warning before I begin; this post may seem at times to be a bit like a rant, and in some ways it is... but I'll try and keep the ranting to a minimum.

As some of you may have noticed I am using Joomla to manage this site (Something I'll probably be writing about soon). Joomla allows for the use of templates to change the appearance and layout of the site and I have been searching everywhere for a good template for this site. Now maybe I'm being picky, but I can just use the first template I see, as it'll probably turn out to be completely unsuitable. So how to I go about choosing a template? There are many things to consider when choosing a theme, and I always seem to have criteria that no template matches. Which is why this site is still (At the time of writing) using the default Joomla theme, with a couple of modifications.

Here are some of the things I consider when selecting a template:

• Width, the template needs to be wide enough for all the content, I prefer a fluid width template, but there don't seem to be that many around.
• Colours, do they match the content? For example this is a technology blog, so bright pinks etc. won't look right, plus I'm a guy...
• Customisation, can I make modifications easily? I need to be able to add a logo (Once I have got a good one).
• Layout, does the template allow for a logically laid out site with good spacing. For example the header does not take up half the page.

If I find a template that matches all my needs I will then test it out on my site and see if it looks right when filled with site content. Another advantage of using Joomla, you can try out loads of templates quickly and easily from the Administration Panel.

There are many sources of templates, some paid-for some free (Personally I go for free), and some sites have a huge selection, which can make finding templates a long process. Part of the reason I haven't found one yet. But I haven't given up, or gotten desperate enough to try designing one myself!

Now my method of finding a template may not be how you would do it, but I hope that this will help someone at least...