Using templates?

I'm not particularly artistic or good at design so I asked my brother if he would design my website as a screen-shot for me to code later because he used to do graphic design and he's quite good at it. I don't really think he can be bothered to do it and he told me to just use a free template. A template would probably work for the smaller one of my projects but it's not possible to use one for my main website which is a social networking website. I'm a bit reluctant to use one on even my smaller website because I don't want people to see the same design elsewhere. What are your opinions on using a template. Would I be better off with a fairly poorly designed website than a free template or should I just modify the template a little bit to make it look slightly different?


Thanks

Templates can often be customized very effectively if you're comfortable with a bit of design work. If not, it's a simple choice:

1. learn to code it yourself
2. hire someone
3. deal with a template in it's stock form

my experience is that no template, no matter the cost, will ultimately work out of the box. You're gonna need to tweak it. Dive in man...learning to perform basic tweaks on websites is not that hard if you have some time and the inclination to learn a bit. If time is pressed, hiring someone who knows what the heck they're doing is always a preferred option.

Thanks for the advice, but I don't think I worded my question very well. I'm slowly but surely learning to code but its the actual design that I'm not very good at. I don't have a particularly artistic eye so I'm not very good at create something which is aesthetically pleasing. What I was asking was, is it ok to use templates on websites or should they be avoided encase somebody sees the template on other websites and thinks it looks pretty unprofessional?

"Imitation is the sincerest of flattery" so using templates would be totaly acceptable. Of course, you will modify to suit your tastes e.g. color, fonts, etc.

I've used a template for all my sites. Why reinvent the wheel? Start with something you like and dive in

exactly - but also templates can look very professional and like you are the authority in your niche and like you just dropped 10,000$ when really u just dropped 50bucks.


but you have to learn how to edit flash sites to really make them look good and not spend an arm and a leg getting them tweeked for your likings.

In my long experience I have learned the hard way that in business it is usually better to start sooner with a less than ideal solution than to spend a lot of time striving for the ideal solution and losing opportunities in the meantime.

So, Paul my advice would be to use a template and get going a.s.a.p.
Once your site starts making you money you can let someone design something nicer for you.