Isn’t this devaluing the work that most of your visitors do? ie, surely there are many design freelancers trying to encourage their clients to use anything but templates.

Is this not devaluing what we do as designers?

I would be careful of using template monster templates, one of my clients brought one and some of the images in the template turned out to be owned by Corbis, they had a legal bill for £2000+ for the use of the image from Corbis!

Well yea,

You will get that bill if that designer didn’t used extended license on the photo. That’s the problem with any template site. They go to fotolia or any other stock site, buy an image for a buck and sell you the template for $50-$70. You think wow, what a great deal and then you’re f*cked. with legal problems.

Extended license on each photo are from $3-$70+. So you can do the math on that part.

Hrvoje

The Template biz is killing our Business and now come and put a template page here!

Maybe you guys should start a freelance service yourselves on Freelanceswitch

I agree. I always discourage the use of templates from the stock companies…and I would also agree that using templates from a site like Template Monster seems to be counter productive to freelancers…I would recommend not supporting it.

Thanks for being open to discussion FS…

It’s one thing to view the site for inspiration - but how could a legitimate graphic designer support them financially? They ripoff existing sites, they ripoff photographers by not paying for their images and they hide from it all by operating from overseas.

I agree with Bob that this devalues the work of the designers here.

My first thought when I read this news was one of disappointment. I understand you need to support Freelanceswitch, but offering pre-packaged templates for sale seems a conflict of interest when your site is about promoting independent freelancers.

I don’t understand the logic behind this decision…

I am sure many here are familiar with L*g*w*rks and the many times their designs have ripped others out there, including a very famous imaging company. There was a huge thread about it one time. In fact, the imaging company’s logo was actually sold to a designer. However, it was later retracted by the seller as having been a mistake.

I can see how template monster can be useful, especially for small business who need to have “something”. But in time, it can diminish their perceived value if their competitor ever decided to use the same template (I’ve seen this happen before). At that point, one can see how a business would need to either suck it up or update their site. They would then need to hire a Web designer and programmer to build a custom site. In the end, they pay more via money and time in having to do it over again.

Sometimes, spending less can cost you more.

I made one of my lunch time comics about this at:
http://www.cafecomics.biz/forumcafe2/viewtopic.php?t=59

…sip…

Collis, I think this is a great resource, but perhaps not how it was intended. Upon coming in and seeing the template options, I thought some of the web layouts, logos, etc. were pretty inspiring. I’ll don’t really download anything like this and use it straight out of the box, but it great to get ideas from.

I have seen too many sites with so many types of media templates in one place. I’d be interested to see how this project evolves.

TM certainly has a market … for customers that want a website on the cheap, is technically saavy enough to modify the design and doesn’t care if another business uses the same design. I generally prefer not to work with those types of clients, because they generally don’t value professional web design service.

Also, some freelancers may use the service for visual inspiration, as passive income (affiliate sites) or to provide ‘template modification’ services, in additonal to custom web design services.

The problem with TM, from a “designers” perspective is that 1. you didn’t create the design, 2. poorly designed/coded templates creates a market that devalues designers/coders and values “looks” over quality, not to mention the SEO issues and 3. unless the customer accepts the design ‘out of the box’ … the coding is so poor that any modification essentially requires a redesign.

So what started as a basic template site, with a few simple modifications … turns into a custom web design project … with a slim possibility that you can retain the overall structure of the site. I’ve actually had several clients buy their own templates, try to modify the templates themselves, get stuck, frustrated, then hire a professional (me) for “cleanup duty”. The coding is the absolute worst.

Hey, I have some free templats on my site. Click my name for the link.

I have never used a MT template so I can’t speak about the quality of the code. However, the quality of the visual design is relatively high for the price.

They have managed to provide affordable website design (visually at least) to a huge population of people. Their model, of designing something once, and selling it repeatedly is used in lots of other markets. When it’s applied to an aesthetic medium such as design, designers get scared. Myself included.

I think the biggest reason that MT causes such a reaction in the design community is because it threatens our value. But isn’t competition and fare market the name of the game?

Doesn’t the fact that MT can do what you do for $300 bucks force us to go out and differentiate ourselves? Improve our skills and better communicate to our clients why we are a smarter alternative? If that is truly the case.

Just because it scares us, should we banish it from town with our pitchforks?

You guys rock, thanks for listening. For all of us who complained (or didn’t) we have to realize this site is a business first. So just like us, they need to make $$$ to keep going. I only read one suggestion to this problem.

Here’s mine: I, for one, think this site is destined to grow by leaps and bounds over the next coming months/years, thus attracting more individuals and companies *looking* for freelancers. Why not charge a *small* subscription fee to access the freelance job boards?

Personally, I would not mind paying to tap into what I think would be a vast well of clients that already have an idea of a good working relationship (just by reading the blog).

If you don’t want to pay, don’t. Enjoy the site as you always have.

I don’t see many other sites actively focused on the Freelance Artists/Writers/Photographers etc. and I’d like to help one of the few that are.

I agree with DesignSource. Last week I posted a freelance opening on the job board, and got a flood of responses from some great designers.

Subsequently, I’ve found someone great to work with. If I had to do it again, I’d definitely pay good money for a listing.

I agree with the point that freelance designers are scared too much to see how TM decreases their value. However, I prefer to see the issue from another perspective.

1. I get a lot of job from existing TM customers. TM does VERY GOOD JOB by attracting large quantity of small businesses and individuals to the Web. They have great marketing staff and they bring a lot of fresh meat to the industry. After some time, people who bought their templates understand the fact - that they need an unique identity and start to look for a freelancer. I myself completed around 70 jobs for $800-$1700 to create a professional look and feel for those clients.
2. There is good opportunity for freelancers to use TM as a basis to identify customer’s needs. I know a guy from Boston, who had printed TM’s catalog divided into different categories and walks to the potential client’s offices and shows them these templates as premade solutions, explains that this way they can save a lot of money on the whole project and completes websites for $750 in 3 days. I think the idea is brilliant and I’m gonna try to do the same in my place.
3. TM raised the average quality of web design worldwide. People started to know what is a good design and what is bad. This way - they have kicked low quality amateur “designers” from the market and opened the space for real professionals.

These are my 3 cents to the topic. I don’t think FS had done the right step. The competition in FS business it very strong and to win the competition FS should work to provide the customers the choice of only talented professional freelancers, who are not afraid of competition in low-budget sector. If there will be a bunch of students here charging $300 per site with much lower quality than TM provides for $60 - then FS is going to be just another Elance clone and this is not, what I wish to be happen.

Contest?! Whoa…

[url]www.no-spec.com[/url]

’nuff said.

Hi,

This is now July 2007, and I believe I was treated unfairly by MonsterTemplate. I bought a template that was supposed to be compatible with Dreamweaver and when I realized it wasn’t and wanted a refund, they refused. It was within one day of buying the template. Their chat line was totallly COLD and UNCARING! I don’t understand how they keep their business going. There is no way to talk to them live, just via chat.

When I tried to ask them questions, SEAN of template monster would answer half of the question then disconnect without telling me. When I tried to get back on the chat line, they said there were no operators available (even though then advertise 24/7 support). I felt they were purposely doing that because they didn’t want to talk with me, I went in anonymously through another way to their chat line and suddenly SEAN answered. When I asked the question again, he again half answered it.

When I asked for the refund, Paul Krokowsky refused it.

I will never deal with this company again!!!