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Contact UsCustom Website Design vs. Pre-Built Website Design
By Ricky | September 1st, 2010 | No comments yet
Hello again, dear Linkshape fan! Today we (sort of) interrupt your normally scheduled series on the Art of Linkshaping to discuss a important, but related website design topic. That’s because I began this very article with every intention of talking about our next topic, wireframing and prototyping in custom website design.
Notice that I made a point to say “custom” website designs. Before we can effectively talk about website design wireframing, we needed to talk about two very broad design classifications. In writing this article about that topic, I realized that I was nearing the invisible limits I consider a good article length without actually having started to write on-topic yet. And so I have rededicated this article to our new topic:
Custom and pre-built website designs
When it comes to the planning and executing the design of a website or Online Business, there are really two ways of going about it. On one side, you have custom website designs and on the other, you have pre-built website designs.
1. Custom website designs
When we say “custom” website designs, we’re referring to designs that are conceptualized, designed, and built from the ground up, specifically for a particular website or Online Business. These “one off” designs are only used for that single company, product, or service and you won’t see the same design being used by any other website. These website designs have not be pre-built by a design company for use by several clients or resold by any template retailers.
Linkshape is proud to offer custom website designs, specially crafted by our website design artisans specifically for your unique brand.
2. Pre-built website designs
There are hundreds of high-quality pre-built website designs that can offer significant cost savings over custom website design.
In contrast to custom website designs, pre-built website designs have been built either:
- For no single product/service/company – The pre-built design has been built to be used by several websites or Online Businesses.
- For a single website non-exclusively – Although the website designer created the website design for a particular client, the design was created to be reused for appropriate future clients as well.
Website designers and website design companies will typically customize the pre-built design for the client’s unique brand and purposes. This includes things like inserting the client’s logo and perhaps modifying the designs color scheme to match. These are sometimes referred to as “customized” designs, so it’s important to be aware of the difference between “custom” and “customized”.
Linkshape also provides pre-built designs, customized to your brand.
The many meanings of website design “template”
Pre-built website designs are often referred to as “templates”, although that term is also used in elsewhere in the website design & development industry to refer to the design of a website that is built using a Content Management System or other website platform. For such websites, the design is separated from the actual page contents, and the empty website design is referred to as a “template”.
This becomes confusing because some websites which are platform-based may have a unique template that is a completely custom design. Thus, “template” in a general sense, may or may not refer to a pre-built website design.
Which is best, custom or pre-built website design?
Deciding between custom or pre-built website design usually comes down to the best fit, based on your chosen dimensions of quality.
There are plenty of debates on which is better, and I am personally a bit biased, but we’re going to try to stick to the facts and let you form your own opinion on the subject. Each process has it’s own pros and cons and at Linkshape, we believe these need to be carefully weighed for each client to determine the best solution. Thus, we provide both custom and pre-built website designs to our clients.
To determine if a website design should be custom or pre-built, we consider the following dimensions of quality:
Branding
As website design is a part of Internet marketing and marketing in general, branding is an important facet of your efforts. Your brand includes a visual vocabulary: symbols, colors, and fonts which can all be utilized in the shaping of your custom website design. For branding purposes, a custom website design allows a greater opportunity to present and reinforce your brand.
Cost
The process of conceptualizing, planning, and creating a custom website design is generally more complex than using a pre-built design, even if the pre-built design is customized for your purposes. The complexity of custom website design demands a higher cost. So from a purely cost-based perspective, using a pre-built website design will almost always be the better choice.
Time
The complexity of custom website design also demands more time than the process of customizing a pre-built design. If you’re looking for the quickest turnaround to launch, you’ll want to consider using a pre-built design.
Flexibility
Using a pre-built template is a bit like buying and moving into a house. You’re confined to the dimensions and layout of that design and you may find that you’re working fill that space, rather than building a space around your content and features. If you have to make some radical customizations to that pre-built website design in order to make it work for your website or Online Business, the costs of those customizations might become an issue.
In general, if flexibility of the layout and design are what you’re focused on, you’re probably better off with a custom design.
So what’s the point?
How heavily you weigh the dimensions of quality I list above will determine what type of website design you should choose for your website or Online Business. It’s also important to know that these dimensions are in a constant state of push and pull. Recall that heavily customizing a pre-built design can increase the costs, but it will also have an effect on the project turnaround (time). So take the time to discuss your website design options when the time comes.
Looking ahead, the reason why we are making the distinction between custom and pre-built website designs is that our next topic on wireframes and the following topic on mock-ups are part of custom website design. Now you’re fully prepared for the context of our continued look into the Art of Linkshaping. See you again next week!
