Choosing a Squarespace template for your website

So you have planned for your website by creating a brief, sitemap and wireframes as part of our Squarespace online training course and are now ready to jump in and pick a template from Squarespace.com?

If you don’t yet know of our Squarespace Course for designers and small business owners (PixelHaze Academy Masterclass), I would recommend that you head over to the Masterclass page and check it out.

Our planning module provides a comprehensive video guide, taking you through all of the important steps before you get to this stage.

Here’s your Squarespace template guide to get you up and running...

Tip 1: Take a look to see if Squarespace already has a category aligned to your industry

Squarespace has made the process of selecting one of the many templates a little easier by grouping them to categories. So if you are looking to launch a photography studio website or an online store, there is a growing list of categories including Online Stores, Portfolios, Business, Professional Services. Community & Non-Profits, Blogs, Restaurants, Events, Weddings, Photography, Music & Entertainment, Health & Fitness, Travel & Tourism and Personal & CV.

Tip 2: Consider your website assets

Let the assets that you have available to work with shape your decision when choosing a starting template. For example, if you are struggling to get hold of professional photography and instead you are relying on your own images that were taken using a smartphone, maybe a narrow or fixed-width design will be a more suitable option. By reducing the size of the photo on the webpage, we can avoid highlighting any imperfections in the image.

For many projects, website assets could include the logo, font selection, colour scheme, content, photography and illustration. The assets are combined to form the final website, hence why it is so important to consider their collective impact on the design at this stage.

Tip 3: Use the information you gathered for your brief, sitemap and wireframe to influence your choice of Squarespace template

Use applicable sections from the planning module to influence your template. What are your usp's? Who are your audience? What are your competitors doing and why? Finally (and most importantly), which Squarespace template is the best fit with your wireframe layouts.

For our first example, I have chosen a photography studio and here are our key points from the brief.

Tip 4: Need a little helping hand? I recommend starting out with the Brine Family of Squarespace templates if unsure

Squarespace templates can often be grouped into “families”. If you are looking for the most flexible allrounder, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Brine Family. As with all other Squarespace template families, the structure uses responsive web design (RWD, mobile friendly) and is fully customisable, and offers the parallax scrolling effect. I have used the Brine Family Here’s what Squarespace has to say about it:

With templates in the Brine family, you can create a professional web presence for any brand or company. Customize the headers, footer, content inset, and mobile styles to make your site stand out. Add full-bleed banners to any page, or stack them in the Index. Optional parallax scrolling moves banners more slowly than the page content, creating an illusion of depth and immersion.

The Brine family includes (as of May 2019):

Aria, Basil, Blend, Brine, Burke, Cacao, Clay, Ethan, Fairfield, Feed, Foster, Greenwich, Hatch, Heights, Hunter, Hyde, Impact, Jaunt, Juke, Keene, Kin, Maple, Margot, Marta, Mentor, Mercer, Miller, Mojave, Moksha, Motto, Nueva, Pedro, Polaris, Pursuit, Rally, Rover, Royce, Sofia, Sonny, Sonora, Stella, Thorne, Vow, Wav, West

Yes, that is quite a list!

Tip 5: If at first you don’t succeed, switch templates

If you end up selecting the wrong template, don’t panic, this isn’t a one-way trip. Sensibly, Squarespace will allow you to change your chosen template at any point during the project, even after go-live. A little advice though, Once you have changed the template, all style options in the design tab will be reset meaning that you will need to go through that process again.

Once you have selected your template, follow the initial steps requiring you to enter your company name and you can press ahead with clearing out the demo content. Coincidentally, we have a chapter covering that as part of our Masterclass (launching May 2019)!