Drupal Themes get snatched up by a Monster!!!

April 14, 2008

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Template Monster that is. Template monster has decided to offer Drupal templates.

I am glad to see this happen. I have said many times in the Drupal IRC channel that Drupal needs to get more CSS'ers involved. Or, get more freelancer themers involved, like those from Joomla and Wordpress.

It is my belief that WordPress became so popular so fast was due to it's themers, cranking out themes day and night. Now those themes are a commodity on SitePoint. You can't find Drupal themes there, mostly WordPress and sometimes Joomla themes.

My only concern about Template Monster stepping in, will they output some great themes that show the robust of Drupal? And continue to keep that standard up? I guess that falls into the hands of their designers and CSS coders. What ever the case may be I am glad to see design related companies to notice Drupal.

Congrats to the Template Monster team for taking the leap of providing services for Drupal.

StephTheGeek

04.14.2008

I was wondering when they'd get around to Drupal themes! Although what's funny is that many of the screenshots show Joomla/Mambo/Wordpress :)

elvis

04.14.2008

@StephTheGeek, my guess is they are converting some of the older themes to Drupal themes. The "unique price" is what through the first flag on that.

notamonster

04.14.2008

Have you ever wondered about Template Monster's business model? Their templates often feature high quality stock photos and graphics worth thousands of dollars -- provided that the designer buys the proper template licence. Then they sell these templates for $50-$60, and, according to the download count, never sell more than a couple of licences.

A designer at Freelanceswitch reported a case when a client who used a TM template got a $2000 bill from the photo agency Corbis. Surprise, surprise...

elvis

04.14.2008

@notamonster, do you have a link to that report? I would like to read about it. Template Monster is in business to make money, as most of us are. I have nothing against them for that. If the report is true, then Template Monster needs to have a mention in their policies that other costs might be involved, if it is not there already.

I would disagree with your "high quality" part of the comment. Much of the images used is owned by TM or it's sister companies (affiliates). Many of those images are reused throughout different templates. That was my concern with TM and Drupal themes. Really, this is all in the hands of the designers and their administrators. Hopefully they are listening / watching :)

notamonster

04.14.2008

http://freelanceswitch.com/general/templates-on-freelanceswitch/

Actually, now I read again the comments and the Corbis bill was reported to be GBP2,000, not USD2,000.

How do you know that they own the images?

elvis

04.14.2008

I only see one mention of that, and it is a he said she said thing. I wouldn't be too concerned over it. But, if I were to get a legal bill, I would be sending it to TM.

I don't know that TM owns those design images/icons/bullets etc. I do know that the owner of TM owns other sites that work hand in hand with TM. If you do a whois on TM and some of the affiliate sites you will see they are owned by the same owner.

I was informed this once, a while back when I bought a template and had it customized by an affiliate of TM. Turned out to be an easy service to use online but the code sucked and was not IE proof. They didn't finish the job. In the end they offered me a discount, which they should have. All the phone calls and chats lead me to ask a lot of questions and in the end I found out the above.

The reason why I think TM is good for Drupal? Because some may have never heard of Drupal and will visit TM and see "Drupal themes". Leading them to Drupal. TM drives a lot of traffic. That is one reason. The other, maybe other coders will feel challenged, knowing they can provide better templates than TM, getting them involved in Drupal. Drupal needs themers like coke needs sugar.

StephTheGeek

04.14.2008

I, too, remember going down the road reading about the issues with TM and stock images after I had pondered using one of their OSCommerce templates (which I'm not sure how they have the gall to call OSC templates: http://forums.oscommerce.com/lofiversion/index.php?t253152.html).

Corbis Settles with TemplateMonster: http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1...

That being said, this is good news... anything that improves the themes available for Drupal is great in my book. Hopefully they're good under the hood though...

sDaniel

04.15.2008

I am sure the guys at TM will apriciate that you link with the link text "Drupal templates" over to them ;)

Cheers
Sebastian

Drupal Themes Garden

04.15.2008

As I know, in drupal's world there is no "templates".
It's called theme.

And what about GPL ?

elvis

04.15.2008

@Drupal Themes Garden, GPL, that is a very good point! I hesitated to mention this from the start. I would like to see TM talk about this.

You can still provide services for theming and offer a product under GPL. That is the way they should go. I assumed they did/would, that is why I said "taking the leap of providing services for Drupal".