In the previous chapter, we discussed some overall features of Artisteer. So far, you have learned what the software is for and have acquired a little experience with its interface and work style.
Now we are going to prepare a template together. I will lead you through all the steps, from the beginning to the end. At the end of this chapter, you will have a complete template that you can directly implement for your website or modify to fulfill your needs. This will be a template for a static web page.
Before we can begin with creating a template, we have to define what exactly is a template.
A template is a set of common elements of the website. And you may then ask, what is a website? A website is a set of logically connected web pages, concerning one particular subject. When we talk about a company website, the subject will be the company. In case of a private website, the subject will be the person who the website is about, and so on.
You could, of course, design all the subpages individually with a different design for each of them. While this is possible, such a solution would have several serious disadvantages. They are listed as follows:
- If the pages don't have a consistent design and layout, visitors may get the impression that they have been redirected to another website and may feel lost
- If each page has a different, individual menu, located in different places, navigating between the pages would be difficult, and the visitor would have to focus on how to navigate instead of on the content
- The website will not look uniform throughout
To avoid such disadvantages (and to not leave the visitors confused), we have to make all the subpages look similar. This is achieved by the use of the same graphics elements (for example, the company logo on each subpage) and the same (or different, but consistent in some way) layout.
But it would be too little to say that the only element that should be common to all subpages is the company logo (in the case of a company website, of course). There are many elements that you can distinguish as a common part of a website. The combination of all of them together is a template.
Note
You may be under the impression that using a template restricts the creativity of the designer and reduces the individuality of particular subpages. While this is true, remember that the goal is to create a good website, not a single subpage. And the challenge for a designer is to create a good, individual template. You can compare it with cars: all cars have much in common. Cars have four wheels, a room for the driver and the passengers, an engine, a trunk, and so on. But do they all look the same? Certainly not. And now think of the different models of Porsche. Do they look similar enough to let everybody know it is a Porsche? I think so. Does it make a Porsche an ugly, unattractive car? Well, I wouldn't mind driving one!