I would love to know the same thing. My design skills aren't there for the most part, so outsourcing is the best option, but I would like to be able to do it if I need to or at least know that I can. The best, easiest option would be appreciated from those who know.

Thanks

I used to use flexsqueeze ($299) which is very flexible and easy to set up. Then I recently moved over to headway theme ($164) because I wanted to be able to have even more flexibility.

I set up this site of mine with flexsqeeze: Dr. Dan is The Real Love Guru! | Dr. Dan is The Real Love Guru

This one I set up with headway: Blog | The UnSchoolers (I am still working on this one for my wife)

Their are plenty of samples of sites and video tutorials for headway here: Showcase | Headway Premium WordPress Theme

Both themes you can just upload the header with a couple clicks of your mouse. But headway has the visual editor that rocks! You can see what you are changing as you do it. Most other themes you have to save the changes and then go back to see the effect.

Headway rocks!

The best thing to do is find a super powerful and flexible theme and use it for all your sites. Customize the header image, change layouts, etc. It makes designing, especially when managing a team of designers, a breeze.

There are a few well known WP themes that work well, namely thesis and flexx. I would recommend looking at something like that for your offline design service.

I just got headway yesterday, but haven't worked on it yet. I've heard only great things about Headway.

Also Artisteer is probably the easiest to use, with 1000s of options, but limited layouts... only 1 column, 2 column or 3 column layouts with no way of combining them together :-(
If they could modernize their layout styles, Artisteer would be untouchable!


Thomas

PS. To add about artisteer. You can change the designs from wordpress to Blogger, drupal, Joomla or html with a click of the button

I use very basic themes and work them from the ground OR I just create them from scratch.

But the easiest way is to use a simple theme like K2 and change header + background.

WordPress › Atahualpa « Free WordPress Themes is a pretty versatile theme for free.

I've used that on numerous occasions when building sites for clients.

iThemes : Business WordPress Themes Since 2008 has a lot of really nice themes that are perfect for small businesses as well.

Dennis

OK, thanks everyone! Lots of options here to choose from.

I use artisteer as I can basically copy already established html sites and make new ones.

Quentin

Hi,

I have used several different WP themes and have formal design/development training (however my design skills are not that great) but I do understand the technical side of the web including html/css, SEO, wordpress and joomla (how they work)

So with that being said, I noticed that someone in this thread recommended the Headway theme to you. Frankly, that is the only theme that I would use.

I've used it to build many different sites from but cannot post any links here because of being new to the forum.

But seriously, I've tried flexx theme and various other themes including thesis (which I really don't understand why everyone raves over) and Headway theme is the best.

That being said, I'm not sure how far along you are in your WP knowledge but if you want to learn the basics check out wordpress 101 dot com

Hope this helps.

To Your Success,

Matt Fraser

[DELETED]

Hi,

Sorry, you may also want to check out builder from ithemes dot com.

Matt

I just found out about Elegant themes and they look pretty impressive. You get unlimited themes for only $39. I am playing with a few of them on new clients sites to try it out.

Premium Wordpress Themes | Elegant Themes

thanks for the heads up on that Dennis.

I've been looking at Headway and Ithemes Builder to add to the toolkit - yetto decide which one. Anyone got experience with both and offer out the pros n cons?

It looks good thing, but I did not yet try to place WP templates on my sites.

As mentioned already, Elegant themes offers a ton of great themes at an incredible price and I've also used a few themes from Theme Forest which even at $30 - $40 per theme is affordable.

While I haven't used them, Woothemes of course has a great collection of themes and a rather nice developers price tag too.

If you want a nice free theme, prior to the WP 3.0 release I used Mandigo on a number of sites and it's super easy to customize from within wordpress, but now I have to say I love the default 2010 theme that comes with wordpress.

With just a background and header graphic change (both easy to do from within the admin panel) you can really make a unique looking site with the 2010 theme, and in just two minutes you can locate the CSS to change the default nav bar color to whatever you like.

I also just found this free theme 2010 weaver that gives you a bunch of options to tweak your theme from within the control panel and you may want to install and try that one out as well.

HTH,

Steve

Check out expand2web.com...Don Campbell has a SmallBiz theme that is outstanding for almost any business...If you follow on FB, there is also lots of solid training..worth a browse. Good luck.

Wayne

I recommend iThemes Flexx or Builder. Lot's of flexibility and a good number of decent looking child themes. Plus, iThemes has very good support. They have full time folks that answer questions in the forums. Most other providers make you rely on the other forum members to get your questions answered.