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dariuszgrzywacz
10,770 Points[Wordpress] [Site building] A quick question regarding themes
Hey there,
Say, you are a front-end dev and you make websites for businesses. As far as my knownledge goes, it's pretty much best nowadays to make those on WP, as it's easy to manage, create, make new content and so on.
When you make new sites for your clients do you create a new brand-new Wordpress template by yourself each time? Or do you use a mega-theme, like the one I use (Themetrust Create) that you simply customise?
I would like to know best practises on this. Is making websites based on such a mega-theme "ethically okay" for the customer? Or should I create a new theme each time?
Thank you for any insights!
3 Answers
Aurelian Spodarec
10,801 PointsNot sure, but if you buy a ready made theme and sell it under their copyright, that might be fraud and illegal.
But that's what I think.
You can buy a template HTML and CSS, and then make WordPress into it. WP is easy once you know it, at least the basics.
Giuseppe Elia Brandi
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 69,630 PointsHi Darius, I am not sure I have fully understood your inquiry; however I will share my thoughts with you. Please keep in mind that I am not officially a web dev. So my answer is: It depends on you client's needs. If it is for example a website with a few pages with content, images and a blog, you can possibly build your own theme and use it over an over again. However if your client has requested a website with a CMS and wants all bells and whistles then it is probably better to be familiar with a few themes (WooThemes for example) which allow you to scale the project beyond your web developer expertise and receive ongoing support and updates. If you are going to use the same purchased theme you may need to check with Themetrust or Woothemes if there are restrictions with using the same theme for multiple sites. I have not purchase any so far but I have stepped into a situation where I had been asked for a simple 5 - 6 pages website with text, images and a blog and then I ended up building sort of a monster website where I pushed my coding skills to the limit. It was frustrating, it took too long to finish the project - By buying an existing theme suitable for a Property Management Company It would have been easier. I hope this helps
Jacob Mishkin
23,118 PointsIt depends on the scope and cost of the project, and the understanding of the client that a theme will be used, and not a custom theme. Using a pre-made theme is okay as long as the client is aware of you using it. If you say I'll build you a custom theme and you just show up with at theme from Themeforest with the content only changed, then I would say you would be in breach of contact and the client may sue you for their money back as you did not provide them a custom theme as stated in your contract. SO rule of thumb is, if you say I'll make you a custom theme, make them a custom theme, or say I'm going to use this them as a base.
Side Note: Using pre-made themes are generally a huge pain. They are bloated with unnecessary code, and from a frontend perspective, most of them are only styled in CSS not Sass, no build tools such as Gulp or Grunt.