Comments on: Making Money Designing Themes: What You Should Know

By: Jordan Dossett

Jordan Dossett — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 13:33:19 +0000

Saying if you build it they will come is a joke, it is the opposite of the entire premise of the web. If you build a website they do not come. So let’s be clear… misleading some base template designers who have pipe dreams of making it big or retiring on template design that if they make 100′s or dozens of templates they are set in life is a cruel joke.

A website, if built well must be marketed and then if you are lucky they will come. Then your templates must not only be good and visually sound, they may buy. There are so many template websites out there these days that it is hard-pressed to pay $50 bucks for a template. Also you are devaluing the work of professionals the $5000 crew which is also an undervalue. Our firm charges a base of $10,000 USD just for design, no development. Is that too much? Before you scream murder, that includes:

1) A demographic profile of the primary and secondary key stakeholders.
2) 3 initial design concepts, each is different.
3) 2 rounds of revisions and a final set of changes.
4) Usability Testing

We’re not just joking around. The people designing sites here are people with backgrounds in Psychology, Usability and Programming. Not… click, click, click here is your website from my nephew’s neighbor.

There is an old adage. You can have:

GOOD
FAST
CHEAP

But you can’t have all three. I wrote an article about this many years ago that touched on this in a very minimal way: http://bit.ly/fwK0Zz but even now wikipedia has this huge section dedicated to it, just google “good fast cheap”. Also it is important to know that companies and organizations will shy away if you are too cheap. They think bigger must be better. We try everyday to fight that misconception (my firm is only 5 people and 8 when we are fully staffed) but Goliath is big for a reason. People fed his ego and the theory of him for a long time.

Ok, don’t flame me too hard :)

Xo.

~ Jordan Dossett (@jordandossett)

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If given a journal with horizontal lines… turn it and write the other way.
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By: zourbuth

zourbuth — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:49:52 +0000

Wordpress theming makes happy…

By: Cherielis

Cherielis — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:09:16 +0000

Hi there,

Excellent info for all designers out there, trying to get by!! Thanks for sharing!!

By: Sacha

Sacha — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:54:30 +0000

@Raja I’m sure you’ll find lots of articles about wordpress on Six Revisions or NetTuts, I think wordpress development is one of the most covered topic on the net by now.

By: Raja

Raja — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:44:15 +0000

I know to design the site in photoshop and slice it and later developing it in HTML/CSS but the fun part i mean developing it in WordPress /Drupal/Blogger theme is not known to me. Can u guide me to learn WordPress?? Any tutorial or Books available???

By: Sacha

Sacha — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:01:27 +0000

Good customer service doesn’t mean that you need to agree to every request, but it does mean that you should always try to be polite and helpful no matter how bad the question.

Getting rid of people might feel good on the moment, but it doesn’t do you any good in the long run, it only generates negative publicity.

By: josh

josh — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 05:31:50 +0000

[we've got some queries where people screaming at us saying "I am making change in the design PSD but it does not reflect on my website immediately!"]

Why are you supporting this. A one line answer will suffice to get rid of them. This is not what customer service is and companies who offer “customer service” or “support” that solves this style of problem drag everyone else down because they then expect it everywhere.

By: Dustin P.

Dustin P. — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 02:36:09 +0000

Really great article! I am wanting to start having a more passive income to go with my normal design income. BTW, I featured this post in my Tweets of the Week! http://bit.ly/aP30Aa

By: Mo

Mo — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:25:57 +0000

I think for the theme (or any other item) only the good, aesthetic design, many features and so on isn’t enough. To sell well you need to attract buyers and first of all let them know that your item exist at all … I must admit I’m not quite successful at this either, but learning new tricks and ways every day will hopefully get me on the right track.

By: Mo

Mo — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:25:40 +0000

@Kriesi … very good view. Thinking ahead leads to the right success.