First a message from Colin, about customizing the look and feel of the website (graphics).

We understand that the template may not look exactly as you need it. Many of your are probably building the website for someone else! Your boss, a client. No matter as you still need that special look and feel for your website. Compared to having a graphic designer build you a custom website, a very cost effective solution is to modify a website template. Saving yourself hundreds or thousands of dollars over the custom website design.

You may or may not have the skills to do this yourself. Many of our web developers prefer to modify the graphics themselves by modifying the source graphic files (which we provide on request). In this case, think of the template as a head start, we've done most of the work, now you can polish it off with your own 'flair'.

Many of you will not have the software, time, or skills to modify the source graphics in the template. So we offer special design services to help you out.

Let's FIRST take a quick look at how we design the graphics for your website, so we can figure out the best options for modifying the look and feel or your website.

  • Our design team creates an image in a graphic editor. The image is also referred to as the 'artwork' or 'interface'.
  • We use a software program called Macromedia Fireworks 8 to design the artwork image.
  • We also use many different graphic 'filters' to get just the right blend or effects
  • We take that image, and turn it into little pieces called slices.
  • We then take the slices, and using a combination of CSS (cascading style sheets) and HTML coding we build a web page using the small sliced up images, to create one nice 'flexible' web page.
  • We design the web page in such a way that the images will stretch (repeat) so you can add as much information to your web page as you like, and the graphics on the web page will grow with your content!
  • To change the color of the website, we would need to modify the original art work, or ask our design team to do it for you.

For those of you whose heads are still spinning with all the new terminology, skip right to OPTION 2 below, and let us do it for you. We're not expensive, and we do it right the first time. If you're a designer looking for modify an existing project, OPTION 1 may be for you ( if you want to save a bunch of time, then let us help, we know our graphics better that anyone else ).

So this really leaves us with two options available for modifying the look and feel (colors) of the website.

  • (OPTION 1): You can request the original artwork in the form of a Macromedia Fireworks PNG (pre-sliced, just edit the image, and re-export the slices) and do it yourself (recommended for Advanced users or Macromedia Fireworks only)
  • (OPTION 2): Contact our design team with your request. We offer several levels of service, including the $99 exclusive!

Additional information if you wish to edit the source files yourself:

  • You will need Macromedia Fireworks MX2004 or 8
  • We DO provide all the source PNG files on request only
  • We DO NOT provide the source files in PSD format for Adobe PHOTOSHOP
  • You CAN download the 30 day trial of Macromedia Fireworks 8. If you're familiar with PHOTOSHOP, Fireworks will be quite familiar to you.
  • We do provide a 'pre-sliced' PNG file ready for editing and export. We do not provide support or tutorials on how to edit these files, or how to use Macromedia Fireworks.
  • You may need to install specific 'image' filters such as AlienSkin EyeCandy 4 in order to render the PNG correctly in Fireworks

Look and Feel FAQs