How do clients like themes created by Artisteer?

[karunnt]

Do Artisteer themes look like templates? I thought they looks pretty good but someone told me recently that they look like templates.

I understand they are not really fancy and don't look like the super custom made sites with rollovers, css graphics etc. But I thought they did not make it seem that there would be a hundred other similar sites.

What is your opinion of Artisteer?

[p2y]

If you're working on a basic site I think they'e fine. But if you're trying to do a "corporate" type site then I don't think it can compete with a custom created layout.

[karunnt]

Is it acceptable for a small business site like a 4-person electrical contractor or hair salon?

I don't think these sites require complex designs and usually look better with a simple, clean layout.

I can usually recognize an Artisteer site and my concern is that it will look like the business went the cheap route making it look cheap as well.

I've tried to find different textures to generate unique themes and I think I may design other custom elements as well just for originality.

[thunderbird]

Artisteer does allow for quickly creating a design, and the wysiwyg makes it easy to work with, so it offers advantages for quickly putting together a design without necessarily knowing css or wordpress coding. Unless the latest update is different, the Artisteer menu bar is difficult to manually customize. Again, if you want to add categories to the menu bar, you'll have a Rubik's cube in front of you to tackle. Apart from that it is good for quickly designing a website. However, many sites have pages and categories in two different levels, so that is not necessarily an issue. I created this site with Artisteer, then manually added menu bars for the categories, as well as creating a home.php with style.css for divs:
AdvantageMp3Players.com.

As for corporate websites, it really depends on what is required for any given website. Artisteer does have some photos you may use on the header, but nothing that you have the rights to resell, so you'll have to craft that yourself, or outsource the job.

Artisteer-generated templates don't offer a range of different page templates to choose from, so if that was required for a site, one would have to do that oneself. If, say, wanted to have a page without sidebars for a forum, you'd need to create that page template (not hard to do, of course), If you want clickable logos in the header of an Artisteer-generated website, you'll have to add it manually.

I'm much more impressed with something like themehybrid, which is vastly more functional than an Artisteer site, but it wouldn't be easy to customize for someone who wants to stay away from css. That said, themehybrid support for providing answers to css questions is the best I've ever come across (ie Justin Tadlock, the theme's creator. Does that guy sleep?).

For WP beginners who want to create their own designs, or developers able to add desired functionality to a theme, Artisteer is good. For someone who wants a template that offers more functionality and a choice of page templates for site layout, themehybrid is far superior to Artisteer, but probably harder to work with for a beginner.

[Lisa Gergets]

With websites, less is usually more. I create the themes for No-Brainer Niche Blogs with Artisteer and my members love them. I keep them very simple, very clean and create attractive headers.

I think Artisteer works very well for niche blogging/marketing.

[whateverpedia]

Originally Posted by TinkerAndPo

With websites, less is usually more. I create the themes for No-Brainer Niche Blogs with Artisteer and my members love them. I keep them very simple, very clean and create attractive headers.

I think Artisteer works very well for niche blogging/marketing.

K.I.S.S. - still the best policy

I use it for all my adsense blogs. Also perfect for traffic generator sites (ie no monetization).

Looking around at places other than WF, just about all the "PLR themes" on offer are artisteer made.

It'll never win any design awards, but it makes creating a decent theme extremely easy.

[Neil Kieren]

The simplest solution is always the best solution.

[thunderbird]

What's simple to one person may be complicated to another.

[karunnt]

Sometime I see a site that looks interesting and I try to see if I can recreate it in Artisteer. I can usually get pretty close until I have to edit the HTML. So it is pretty good at testing new designs and experimenting.

And I agree that if you need to create simple sites it is very good.

[timmykins]

I create all my offline clients sites with artisteer, and have had many comments from clients about how clean the designs look. Personnally I create custom headers and do a little bit of code hacking too, but in general offline clients are more than happy with the look of artisteer generated websites.

Regards

Tim

[SusanneUK]

Originally Posted by karunnt

Is it acceptable for a small business site like a 4-person electrical contractor or hair salon?

Well can't add anything to what the others have said, agree with all of that but I can give an answer to the above because I made this site for a customer in my local town, a hair salon, using Artisteer:

Hairotic: About Hairotic Hairdressers of Ammanford

My clients love it, so hope that helps somewhat.

Sue

[Richelo Killian]

This was done 100% using Artisteer: Demo Blog

Don't think it looks like a normal Artisteer theme.

As with any software, sometimes you just need to think outside the box.

[thunderbird]

Richelo, your site looks pretty good on Firefox and IE, but is completely awry on the Google chrome browser (at least on my computer).

[Richelo Killian]

Originally Posted by thunderbird

Richelo, your site looks pretty good on Firefox and IE, but is completely awry on the Google chrome browser (at least on my computer).

Wow, that's strange! Never looked at it in Chrome before. Just did, and yes, looks totally messed up! Wonder what's up with that!

Time to contact Artisteer support!

[thunderbird]

Originally Posted by SusanneUK

Well can't add anything to what the others have said, agree with all of that but I can give an answer to the above because I made this site for a customer in my local town, a hair salon, using Artisteer:

Hairotic: About Hairotic Hairdressers of Ammanford

My clients love it, so hope that helps somewhat.

Sue

Would you be willing to share how much you paid for it?

[SusanneUK]

Originally Posted by thunderbird

Would you be willing to share how much you paid for it?

Sorry, paid for what? Artisteer?

[thunderbird]

Sorry, typo. Would you be willing to share how much you *were* paid for it (making the client's website)?

[SusanneUK]

Originally Posted by thunderbird

Sorry, typo. Would you be willing to share how much you *were* paid for it (making the client's website)?

Sorry, not happy to do that on a public forum as I do still work with these clients.

Sorry
Sue

[Pat Ordenes]

NIce stuff Sue..
I'll be testing the Mac version this week...

[SusanneUK]

Thanks Pat

Sue

[Curt7]

Most small businesses aren't selling anything near the category of luxury yachts or six carat diamonds. Customers can even be "put off" by overly flashy sites. Artisteer should be just fine for most offline businesses.

As far as Thesis goes, it's nice. But, I'd bet that those who have used both Thesis and Flexsqueeze would opt for Flexsqueeze in a moment.

[maggie2]

I can't speak about clients as I don't have any that I made sites for with Artisteer but I really enjoy working with it for my own blogs and things.

[Charann Miller]

Originally Posted by SusanneUK

Well can't add anything to what the others have said, agree with all of that but I can give an answer to the above because I made this site for a customer in my local town, a hair salon, using Artisteer:

Hairotic: About Hairotic Hairdressers of Ammanford

My clients love it, so hope that helps somewhat.

Sue

That is very slick and professional looking I can see why they were happy with it, I would have been too.

So Artisteer is just a WYSIWYG html editor with pre-made templates for editing?

Very nice, looks simple to use too. Might be worth looking into.

[Paul_Kuhn]

Originally Posted by SusanneUK

Sorry, not happy to do that on a public forum as I do still work with these clients.

Sorry
Sue

You made it public Susanne - everyone can follow the links on the website!
The hairdresser pays you 77 bucks a month.
Great deal!

Originally Posted by tchashow

...i cant figure out how to get their name from
where it says "theme created by Artisteer" I noticed that you did.

I am not Susanne, but will give you the answer: you have to open footer.php
with notepad or something like that (NOT Word nor any other word-like software!).
Then scroll down till line #23. There you may change the text.
(Sorry, I am not allowed to post the code here, don't know why)

Ahoi!
Sorry for my bad english!

[AmyBrown]

Originally Posted by tchashow

@SusanneUK. sorry if this is a little off topic but i recently made an artisteer theme and i cant figure out how to get their name from where it says "theme created by Artisteer" I noticed that you did.

Would you be willing to tell me how u did this?sorry if this is an obvious answer question. im a newbie

For a new theme, click Export > Options > Footnote and deselect Include CMS and Artistseer backlinks

For an existing site you'll need to edit the footer.php either through Appearance > Editor > footer.php or with a text editor and remove the links. Delete <p class="art-page-footer">Powered by <a href="http://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a> and <a href="http://www.artisteer.com/?p=wordpress_themes">WordPress Theme</a> created with Artisteer.</p>

[Michelle Adams]

I love Artisteer. I've sold a few sites using it and also made themes for my own blogs and for free giveaways. Below are a few links to see how much you can vary each design. (I do my own header graphics which are easily integrated through the program during the design phase).
Halloween Demo
Xmas Demo
TweetChatter
Renewable Energy

[thunderbird]

Originally Posted by SusanneUK

Sorry, not happy to do that on a public forum as I do still work with these clients.

Sorry
Sue

I respect that.

All the Best,
Adam

[J smith]

Imo, nice, simple clean design is much better than most of the offline sites out there where the owners have no idea wth they want from that site and try to cram every technology they can into it. Ie. half the people off line want a site done in flash (at least untill you talk to them)

Anyway, I'd say that for a vast majority of off line clients artisteer can create a good template. Might be some things here and there that you'll have to edit yourself, but it's pretty good out of the box as well.

[thunderbird]

For simple sites, Artisteer is certainly a viable option, though I would suggest users to refrain from the temptation of using all have bells and whistles it offers, and stick to features relevant to a given project. Artisteer can be a good starting point for more elaborate sites, such as ones with different page templates within them.

There are a number of premium themes that offer a great range of functionality as well as versatility in design, and include page templates within them. This premium theme created by a fellow warrior looks like it may be an example of that:
http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...iors-only.html

[Jay Sullivan]

Artisteer themes are pretty cool, especially considering you are actually making the themes yourself...it makes it more rewarding! The css isn't the best in the world, but i'm not complaining...it brings me a fair income in every week.

[Pat Ordenes]

update...

couldnt even get it to work on my mac!
Just crashes at the start!

[Bob Monie]

Artisteer is amazing. I hate website design because I suck at it but Artisteer almost makes it fun. When it comes to creating wordpress blog themes, it doesnt have many limitations, pretty much just your creative skills.

Jeez, that just sound like a fake testimonial from one of those late night infomercials, haha.

Seriously though, if you have little time, lacking php css skills, develop niche blog networks with hundereds of domains like myself. Give it a burn.

Karunnt - Dont really understand what you mean by template. Artisteer is for creating custom website themes for different blog platforms. All websites are based around a type of hidden template, not sure what the problem is?

If your worried that people will think its of poor quality and made by Artisteer, pay someone with the design skills to satisfy you with a custom theme.

If you take away the made with Artisteer in the footer of the site, 99.999% of people will have no idea it was made with it.

[LynnM]

Originally Posted by Richelo Killian

This was done 100% using Artisteer: Demo Blog

Don't think it looks like a normal Artisteer theme.

As with any software, sometimes you just need to think outside the box.

How did you get the picture above the header border?

[thunderbird]

That would be part of the header image having the same color as the background:
http://www.inspiredwordpressthemes.c...ges/Header.jpg

Definitely attractive work, but his sites still get mangled in the Google chrome browser.

[Paul_Kuhn]

Originally Posted by LynnM

How did you get the picture above the header border?

Which border do you mean? There is no border, only a looks-like-a-border.
This is the header picture:
ww.inspiredwordpressthemes.com/demo/wp-content/themes/Credit%20Millionaire/images/Header.jpg

Sorry, I am not yet allowed to post pictures

Ahoi!

[Sonomacats]

I got Artisteer a couple of months ago and I love it. Although I got it so I could design unique sites for offline business clients, I've started using it for my blog/Adsense sites and absolutely love it.

Not only is it fun to use, but I've been able to match my HTML sites to make that transition transparent. But I'm also getting a completely unique theme for each of my sites. I've also set the footer to go to my local biz website, so anyone who likes the theme can come to me for theirs.

I had been using the themes from WordPress plus a few premium themes, but they weren't all that unique, even though I changed out the header images and sometimes tweaked the colors. So Artisteer has been a real blessing - especially since I didn't have to learn how to do the coding. I've learned all the code I want to and now I just want something that will give me the result I want so I can concentrate on actually making money.

The best part of Artisteer is that you can have it suggest ideas and then tweak something that's close to make it what you really want. And you get to try it for free to see if it's right for you.

If you're even reasonably creative, it won't look like a over-used template.

[rhj12345]

I use Artisteer to create quick blogs and then drip feed content and post backlinks to my money sites. Works great.

Here are some examples.

Mustang Parts For Sale

Boulder Autobody

Denver Auto Repair

I do have success with this method.

Hope this helps.

Rob

[Sonomacats]

It's a great idea and I was very impressed initially. However, when I checked out the blogs on the first site, I noticed that a number of them were completely unrelated to Mustang Parts. I'm thinking you've got a bad setting somewhere you might want to check. Otherwise, like I said - great idea and they look great.

[rhj12345]

Originally Posted by Sonomacats

It's a great idea and I was very impressed initially. However, when I checked out the blogs on the first site, I noticed that a number of them were completely unrelated to Mustang Parts. I'm thinking you've got a bad setting somewhere you might want to check. Otherwise, like I said - great idea and they look great.

I use Content Boss and this can be a problem, but these blogs are mostly for backlinks. But thanks for the heads up, I need to look at making some adjustments to my post robot.

[xlfutur1]

I like Artisteer and have used it for some auto blogs in the past. I think the key is to make custom headers and footers along with good WP plugins to make the site not look like a template. This is one of mine done with Artisteer: Pontiac Directory

[towels]

Originally Posted by xlfutur1

I like Artisteer and have used it for some auto blogs in the past. I think the key is to make custom headers and footers along with good WP plugins to make the site not look like a template. This is one of mine done with Artisteer: <removed for posting rules>

I've been experimenting with Artisteer for blogs/sites now just for a few days and I'm loving it. Your site though is one of the best I've seen, really good job man. It's given me a lot more confidence that it was the right way to go for the rest of the sites I'm working on getting live - just need to get into some of the features more.

[andresmfiallos]

I think a good tip is to hide the space at the top and the bottom of an artisteer template, and instead make the background look like just two very thick bars on both sides.

[Dennis Gaskill]

Originally Posted by Richelo Killian

Wow, that's strange! Never looked at it in Chrome before. Just did, and yes, looks totally messed up! Wonder what's up with that!

Time to contact Artisteer support!

Since it works fine in two browser and not in one, I'd be more inclined to think it's a Chrome problem rather than Artisteer.

[DancingWithEagles]

I think that Artisteer works great for niche sites such as one I did recently about boats. The reason this one works great for small niche sites such as the one I did is that it quickly leads potential buyers to the money page without the interference of outgoing links. When using your own graphics for the header, an Artisteer designed site takes on a much more unique appearance. I wish I could show you the site but this is my first post.

[stevendbrady]

Not really much to add that hasn't already been said.

I use Artisteer. I love it. I recommend it.

And my clients love it. Right now I only have four (I've been using it about a month) but they're all thrilled that I can make decent quality websites for the pricepoint.

BTW, my customers are restaurants.

[thunderbird]

Artisteer code is overly complicated. I'll just have to wait for Bud of The Templateer: Home to figure it out the puzzle and have an addon ready to fix up Artisteer v3 when it comes out (anyone who uses Artisteer should get The Templateer, otherwise don't bother buying Artisteer),honestly).