Website Construction Sites

I'm considering redoing my website for a more elegant and smoother look and feel and was wondering.....

 

How many here construct their sites from templates found on the web? (such as smugmug, flicker, etc) Or

do most contract it out to a web designer? Is one way better than the other?

 

Thanks

if you have a Mac, there is the iWeb site builder tool built into OS X (At least in Os X10.4.x)

http://www.kirktuck.com uses it well.

 

other people I know and respect successfully use http://www.livebooks.com

or even.... http://www.realmacsoftware.com

 

They have an application called Rapidweaver that is VERY easy to use, only $35 and has an excellent community built around it.

Thanks Ellis and Jay.

 

I do have a Mac and iweb. I was unsure about using iweb. But after seeing some site built

with iweb, I'm pretty impressed. Livebooks is way, way, way too expensive for me, though

they have some incredible sites.

 

I also checked out realmacsoftware and stumbled across a showcased site of a

photographer. It really looks great. I'm going to look at that a bit more seriously.

 

Thanks

I used a flash template from Winklet Web Designs (www.winklet.com), and I've been very happy with it. Very professional, and easy to maintain. Plus it was less than $100, which is a plus.

I use www.ifp3.com nice if your on a budget but want a professional looking site that can handle tons of galleries.

I use Photostore by KTools. My clients love it, they say it loads fast and it not to flashy. I love it because its easy to work with and my print sale have more than doubled. You can find it at http://www.ktools.net/

Hi Marc,

I am designing my own site (since i'm also a graphic artist) becasue i want to have complete artistic freedom and the ability to do anything "any" way i want it...i'm then paying a programmer to hook it up for me....in flash....i sometime think i should of just went with something like Blu Domain (like so many photogs do). They have awesome templates and imo they are awesome and you can even tweek colors and things to make them unique to you...they range between 200-800 and i think very worth the price considering all the features...now w/ hiring a programmer i get to do "whatever" i can design and whatever i can afford - and on that note i'm paying twice the price because i have to cover my programmers's time...and i'm lucky i'm the designer or i would of had to pay for that to...anyway...this demonstrates the different avenues you can go down...and one last thing....for now i'm using smug mug a mock site as some sorts to show people my work.... (check out www.megreul.com) most people that go here would never know this really isn't a web site...so this is another option you can do...you just need to tweek the css and html a bit and i added my domain instead....it's a cool resource!

Meg, Jamie, Jonathan, Jason, Jay and Ellis,

 

Thanks for the info. I'm checking into all of the ones mentioned. I'm thinking about using

the site for advertising and using my Smug Mug pro account for posting the pictures since

you can post an unlimited number.

 

Regards