Free Website Templates - Royalty Free - CSS HTML ASP.NET - Stock Photos

Question

The more web projects that I do, the more I realize that I'm not nearly as fast at trying to design how a website or web application will look and feel as I am getting the functional areas up and running.

My question is, what are the best locations and/or free website templates that can be used by companies royalty free? I know that there will not be one correct answer for this and would really like a great listing, I've marked this question as a community wiki.

In addition to royalty free, I'm assuming that even giving credit to the original author can cause some heartburn for fortune 500 managers. So with that said, it'd be great if the recommendations identify if you must give credit to the original designer.

For the most part, the development my team does is ASP.NET webforms and we are in the process of starting to utilize the ASP.NET MVC framework. We have not entered the CMS world and probably will not anytime in the near future.

I know, in the ideal world, my team would have one heck of a UI designer. Someone that we could count on full time to do all kinds of great designs. Let's fast forward to 2009 now when additional resources do not exist and you must work with what you have. The projects that I am referencing are mainly internal applications that do not face anyone but internal employees. I as a developer and business analyst would not want to use a template that has been used by someone else on the Internet for a customer facing system, lets chalk that up to common sense?

Answer 1

What sort of templates are you after? There isn't much point recommending Joomla templates if you're using SiteCore, for example.

Answer 2

Word Press templates are my first choice for fast, simple & professional templates.

Answer 3

There are many free online template sites. Some of the best-known free sites are FreeCSSTemplates, OpenWebDesign, and OpenSourceWebDesign (somewhat dated). Most are entirely royalty free, the authors simply ask that you notify them that you are using the template.

While it is true many of the great designs require you to credit the original author, many of them are good for simply getting general layout ideas. You can take a look at many and use them for inspiration in laying out your own website. Most often other web applications are the best places to look for inspiration. Also keep in mind that you do not need fancy images and animations to have a professional web application (in fact in most cases they make it quite unprofessional). A good layout and a simple color scheme will do wonders for the appeal of your application.

Take a look at sites you use every day, what do you like about them? What do you not like about them? Of course, you will need a thorough understanding of html/css to properly design the html of the site, but I'm going to assume you have this when you are developing an interface to a web application.

Wufoo is also a great place to look for help on form design and user interface guidelines.

Answer 4

I agree with Kumar. Word Press would be far easier and speedier choice. The webiste doesn't have to be a blog, it can be any type of website. In most cases you just have to make little changes in the Admin area, you don't even need to make any code adjustments. :)

Answer 5

For some decent, simple solutions, there's always Free CSS Templates. Templates are great if you're looking for something simple to slap on a 'trivial' project... but if you're serious about the project, you need something unique (whether you end up heavily customising a template, or hiring a designer).

Answer 6

Others have pointed to some good resources to free templates. I'd like to offer you a different perspective -

On the templates idea:

1. 99% of all free templates require you to credit the original designer with a link. Especially the really good ones.

2. Well designed (and thus popular) templates will be used by many other websites. I doubt if a fortune 500 company is going to be happy about that.

What you should really be doing:

1. Hire a good graphic designer. (Knowing HTML doesn't make anyone a 'designer').
2. For web applications, start by designing the interface first (wireframes, mockups will do) and then move on to coding the application.

Answer 7

I didn't see the ASP.Net MVC Gallery mentioned yet. It doesn't have the variety of some of the other sites mentioned, but it makes up for that by being in ASP.Net MVC formats.

Answer 8

http://www.styleshout.com/free-templates.php

Answer 9

I use themes from free web templates