Hello,

I'm having some trouble deciding the best route to take here. I want my website, forums, blog, and shopping cart to share the same design so that my entire site looks like its the same place. The problem is that I don't know enough about designing a forum, blog, or cart style to even attempt it and even if it was just a matter of css I don't think I know enough about it to make all the different styles.

What I've been doing in the past is hacking up the different styles and trying to get them all to look the same. The problem is I spend months trying to learn how to edit the styles for each page of the site and if I get them to all look the same I'm stuck with 3 different peoples copy right links all over my site.

Other than that it works and it gets me the look I want across the site but it feels wrong. My site is not about design at all and I'm not trying to display anything I created but I can't shake that wrong feeling I get from using someone else's stuff and I feel like it makes your site look like a joke if you have someone else's copy rights posted all over it.

What are your thoughts on it?

Is it important for a site to have a clear design all the way across or is it cool to have 4 different designs on the same site?

Should I even feel like its wrong to use someone elses design? I know that's why people design and sell their work but I guess I have a strong part of me that wants it to be my own work. I don't know where I get it from but I think it has a lot to do with sites like monster templates or template warehouse that have thousands of sites. Yea some of them are great and much better than anything I could do but everyone who see it will know I didn't do it yourself.

What do you do to get one design across you site?

I really hate the thought of trying to learn phpbb3, wordpress, and zencart software to a level that I can create styles for them.

Originally Posted by Snot

I really hate the thought of trying to learn phpbb3, wordpress, and zencart software to a level that I can create styles for them.

So........You want your own exclusive theme without a designer's tag on it yet you don't want to put in the time and effort to learn how to do it?

If you can, you might as well hire a designer to specifically customise your website so that way, they don't tag it and you have your own copyright across the website.

Otherwise you need to pull your sleeves up and get cracking on the raw templates provided with zencart/phpBB/wordpress.

Best thing to do is start on Wordpress, customise that and then move onto phpBB and match the wordpress theme and then leave the most difficult one to last, zencart.

Customising phpBB is real simple - you just need to change the colours using the WYSISWG editor and then edit the header template with your own banner and that's pretty much it.

As for copyright tag; if you're referring to the "wordpress/phpbb/zencart" copyrights then this is fine - I don't see what the big deal is with this. People don't hunt for copyrights unless they're in the industry. If you're referring to the copyright tag by template designers then this is why you should hire a freelancer for yourself otherwise learn the system.

Also, don't have 3 different themes across your website - you really should have it all look as if it were one big site and bridge the registration so people don't have to register for different things. Make the user experience pleasant and not a hassle.

Thanks so much for the advice! That's what I've been having trouble deciding on and you helped me get a starting point for making the styles.

Cheers