Hi,

I want to buy annual membership to a template site, but I have no idea which one to choose... These I've have reviewed and all have plenty of templates and annual membership:

http://www.templatesresource.com
* cheapy and 2000+ templates
* looks ok but I'm doubfull

http://www.boxedart.com/
* plenty of templates
* Looks good to me
* Requires a lot of template customization to use for customer projects (will do that anyway, so it's not problem (?)

http://www.templatesbox.com
* This one I've been considering...
* Most pro-looking templates
* Licence is good for working with customers

http://www.aplustemplates.com/
* cheapy and the site itself doesn't impress me...

http://www.dreamtemplate.com/
* Very tempting, has lot's of other templates as well
* but looks a bit reseller site...(is it bad thing?)

http://www.templateworld.com
* Dunno, looks okay but...
* Licence is good for working with customers

Most of those suffer from the same problem - tables-based layouts, which is sooo 1997 I don't care how good they look. A few of those big template places are offering CSS-based layouts. The biggest problem is that they all LOOK like templates and everybody knows that when they see them.

I'd go with free, open-source, web standards compliant templates any day. You'll be glad you did when it comes time for site maintenance !

I've scanned through lots of free and open-source template sites as well, but what bothers me is that finding what I'm looking for is pretty tedious. Many free templates look so amateur and it takes lot's of time to find that jewel-template I'm looking for. With commercial template sites it's easier and less time consuming. Mostly a template is a tool for me, well, just a template to begin with. I'm going to customize the template anyway so the "template-look" is not the problem.

I haven't had any problems maintaining even rather heavy table-sites, but I do get your point.

Probably after a year or so I have a template library of my own to work with, but now I'm in need of professionally designed library of templates.

Boxedart has css templates as well, but I feel the templates are too full of everything. Looks very messy and distracting. I like simple style with a catch, not a template with everything in it...

Quick edit: dreamtemplate has also lots of css templates, and the templates look ok too

Well certainly take LadynRed's advice about tables - they are old fashioned, they are hard to edit if you ever need to and they are terrible when it comes to accessibility.

You might want to look into getting someone to develop a template specially for your site if the costs permit.

Originally Posted by whym

You might want to look into getting someone to develop a template specially for your site if the costs permit.

Yeah, I'm going to be that developer ;D for plenty of sites if my plans come true and css-design is put under consideration. Something new to learn. I still would like to pay for commercial site since I cannot seem to find what I'm looking for from open-source. And it's my company that pays, not me personally. The sites are going to be very light and easy to maintain: simple but nice looking website for small companies.

To wrap it up, I have 3 alternatives with css templates: boxedart, Dreamtemplate and templateworld.com

I dislike boxedart templates, but those other two has nice templates. I have to sleep over before spending my money Thanks for your comments.

have you looked at templatemonster.com???

Templatemonster doesn't offer annual membership, but you have to buy each template individually, that's why I turned it out in the first place.

But I eventually turned to look Free CSS templates and some CSS freebies of paid template-sites. I have taken a bit of knowledge here and there and built my own templates (still building really...I haven't had much time to complete this task yet...)