There’s always room for improving. I think that’s the beauty of web design field. The technology aspect keeps driving us forward, while the art/design aspect makes us reflect on the past. There’s never a dull moment.

Design, and web design in particular is a continuous learning curve. Not only is it constantly evolving rapidly, but it encapsulates so much and reaches so many people all over the world, all the time.

The only way to reach your highest potential is to work hard, constantly learn, accept and aim to improve on criticism, look at yourself and your work from all angles and it takes a good knocking down every now and again to make you step back and realise that no matter how far you may have come, there’s still so much farther to go.

my story is very similar to urs and I also came down to the same conclusion only my degree in advertising helped to understand it … still I m lazy guy and had not fixed my own site yet http://www.creativetushar.com

This might help to put things into perspective for her.

Thanks Jin.

@Jason, thanks. Best luck with your web design career. It’s fun!

Too many times, however, it becomes impossible to justify budgeting tens of hours for design when the client says “I can go on the Internet and get a template for fifty bucks!” There is no use in talking about emotions and branding, when you see the client crunching numbers in their heads.

This is a common scenario. Often, clients only see money saved upfront, as opposed to return on investment(ROI). We need to stress to them the importance of branding. Show them their successful competitors’ sites.

However in reality, as you said, some clients may just want to stick with a template, no matter what. In which case, you have two choices.

1) Turn down the project. If the client is the type that cuts corners, chances are he’s not willing to pay you much for the project anyways. You have to weigh if the minimal amount of money he’s paying is worth your reputation as a designer.

2) Choose a template that’s best suited for the client. There are some nicely designed templates out there. Find one that’s best matching your client’s branding. This is not something I’d recommend though, as I stated in my article. The main reason is, when you’re using a template, you’re not really designing. You’ll just be a production monkey. It won’t add anything to your portfolio. Also, the client won’t get a quality site.

Just my $0.02. I’d like to hear what others think on this topic too. Thanks Antti for bringing it up.

In the days of template websites and “speed is the key,” I am glad you brought up the point of trying to capture the emotions and branding in each design.

In the beginning of “web work” pretty much every design was made from scratch for each client. Although not every design was a piece of art, at least design was an integral phase of the project, and clients also understood that it would take time.

Fortunately there still are clients who have a vision of what their presence on the web should look and feel like – something that’s almost impossible to achieve with out of the box templates – and they’re also ready to pay to achieve it.

Too many times, however, it becomes impossible to justify budgeting tens of hours for design when the client says “I can go on the Internet and get a template for fifty bucks!” There is no use in talking about emotions and branding, when you see the client crunching numbers in their heads.

It’s not just design that this “template” approach has discounted, its effect is much more deep-rooted than that. In my opinion, it has discounted the appreciation for web work in general. Clients expect to get increasingly complex sites with less money – quicker.

Some have the luxury of simply not dealing with such clients – most of us don’t. So how do we solve the problem of trying to come up with meaningful designs, quality work, while staying within a reasonable budget and maintaining our sanity?