A theme is basically a set of files and graphics that act as the guts of a website. We buy these blank-slate themes from developers at a fraction of what it would cost (thousands of dollars) to develop a custom theme from scratch. We take the theme and customize it to fit your needs. This includes adding your logo, branding, colors, content, graphics, etc. Think of it like custom ordering a Mercedes-Benz. When you buy a custom Benz they don’t custom build the chassis, motor, and drive chain. They merely build in the features you want and strip out what you don’t. That’s how our themes work. We don’t try to reinvent the wheel which saves you a ton of money. However, if you feel you need to pay big money for a reinvented wheel, we can point you in the right direction with no hard feelings.

As of 2009 there were 20,340,000,000 web pages indexed. In 2008, Google announced that it had discovered one trillion unique URLs. The point is that the World Wide Web is incomprehensibly huge, and the chances of one of your customers/readers/viewers seeing another site that uses the same basic structure as yours is infinitesimally small. Remember, once we select a theme we customize it with your logo, colors, structure, and content. It’s effectively one-of-a-kind.Let’s stick with the car analogy. Let’s say you and Bob just bought new cars. His car has four doors, while you went with the 2 door coupe. His car has black cloth seats with wood trim accents, but yours has tan leather with stainless controls and a nifty iPod input. His car smells, handles, and rides differently, but both cars have the same engine and suspension. Would you say that your car is just a copy of his? Although they share the same framework, the details are totally different. It’s the same with template web design. We take the same motor (theme) that some other people have and build your car (website) around that. This allows you to have incredible functionality at a fraction of the cost.

Sometimes total customization is necessary, most of the time it’s not. It all depends on your needs. However, custom is always more expensive. We’ve found a way to deliver your web experience in a way that upsets the Good/Fast/Cheap analogy. When talking customer’s through the design process and managing their expectations, I would often use this analogy. You can have it GOOD and FAST but it won’t be CHEAP. You can have it CHEAP and FAST but it won’t be GOOD, or you can have it GOOD and CHEAP but it won’t be FAST. We’ve found that using our template/CMS process delivers a comparatively inexpensive product, much quicker than a “from scratch” effort, while still delivering industry leading features and services. Essentially, we found a way to beat the cliché and save everyone involved money and heartburn.