Newbie design question

[Air-Tech]

After looking about the Actinic site & their client examples, It looked to me that the pages using Catalog were graphical & navgationaly far better than in their baseline offer, Express.

I have downloaded a trial of Catalog, but the inbuilt styles / templates don't really appeal to me & the custom editing features seem to require some pretty decent knowledge of what you are doing to be of much use.

Should I soldier on with trying to do something myself or should I consider the services of an Actinic designer to get graphics/layouts done?

I am not computer illiterate by any means, but have no experience with web design!

What would be a ball park figure for this sort of work & can anyone recommend any designers that won't break the bank?


Thanks.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I am assuming you have downloaded a V9 trial.
V10 is due out very shortly (currently in Beta testing) and contains three new themes which might be more to your liking.
You can download a copy of the V10 beta here.

The three new themes are called 'Minimal, 'Silver' and 'Bobcat' and are an improvement on many of the previous Actinic built in themes.

If you can afford it paying for a designer will give you a far better looking site than and out of the box look.

[Mark H]

From what you're saying, I think the view of most designers on this forum would be that you should pay a few thousand to get your site sorted ASAP and start making money. You could say that they would say that, but in this instance, and with the benefit of experience, I think they would be right. I have seen too many people spend literally one or two years learning how to use actinic, become adept at SEO, great at design, only to produce one website, when they should have been concentrating on running a business.

PS We don't offer design services so I'm impartial.......

[Rich Brady]

There are some nicer themes in V10, so take a look at them first.

However, if you do want a unique looking site you have 2 options:

1. Hire a designer
2. Use the forum and advanced user guides

One will cost you time the other money, only you can judge which is the better option.

There are quite a few of us designers on the forum, all will wlecome an email. Why don't you look at this thread and the see which of the designs you like and by which designer.

[Air-Tech]

Thank for your input Gents, it's appreciated.

[Quantum]

I used a template initially and a year later had a complete redesign done by Lee @websitedesigned.co.uk

I wish I'd spent the money earlier as we effectively lost a year of positive SEO as the initial design template used was awful for SEO. Some of the new ones are probably a lot better at it now though.

If you believe in your business then spend the money on a design and get on with it. The right designer can add features that take Actinic to the edge of its capablity.