Giving away information on free graphic or web design templates seems to be counter-intuitive, but we believe that when you come across a useful tip, one should pass it on.

Through the years, we have observed with interest, new websites that popped up offering free logo designs, free layout templates and free packaging designs for example. Most are not of very high quality and are targeted at non-professionals. Today, there are possibly just a handful that would be worth investigating further.

While we have never used any of these services, they can be very useful for non-profit organisations or non-commercial projects.

One such service would be the free flash website templates found on wix.com. (Website templates are pre-designed web pages that allow you to add your own personal content and jump start your own website in a very short span of time.)

As the introduction to the free flash website templates on wix.com claims: “Get some help getting started and use one of our stunning free Flash templates. We’ve created lots of galleries so you have lots of diverse web design options to choose from. Whether you want to create a free website for the music world, art world, business world or photography world you can create something unique and personal that will give you that extra edge over the competition. The Wix free website builder is easy to work with, intuitive and fun. It allows you to work with sophisticated Flash features without touching the code, using a simple drag and drop of the mouse. Take less than two minutes to register for a free account and you’ll be publishing your own Flash website creation in no time.”

Do note that while flash sites are visually attractive, they have several disadvantages:

• Slower download time (Which is something most users find annoying. This increases bounce rates.)
• The contents are not search friendly. (This is a major issue, if you want people to find your company easily online)
• The text appears as image and not html (Text in normal font sizes tends to be blurred and hard to read)
• Simple text changes can be time consuming to make and new videos or photos cannot be embedded easily
• Some browsers are set not to play Flash, in order to avoid flash based advertising (This means your website won’t even appear in some cases)

Another free service is www.stocklayouts.com which offers free layout templates on its site. Apparently, the templates are print production ready and you can open them in a variety of desktop publishing software to edit and customise. We have never used the service either, so we won’t be able to comment more than that.

The downside of such services is that you won’t have a template that is uniquely yours and this is an issue for corporations who spend millions on copyrights and trademarks. While the layout templates are certainly professional looking, they won’t be uniquely yours.

For more information, please contact Manifesto