Template Modeling

When it comes to creating a website and creating the template that your site will use, you have several choices. You can design your own, use and modify an existing one, or buy one from a company. As designers, buying a template is out of the question, you are a digital Leonardo Da Vinci, and  Leonardo Da Vinci never bought a painting and called it his. He used Francesco del Giocondo's wife for the inspiration for the Mona Lisa, and just like the great artist before us, we all should use inspiration. 

Stealing Spree

There are so many sites that use have the potential for inspiration. I have found that the best way to use sites for inspiration is to consolidate everything that you like in order to create what you are attracted to. 

Es Developed has a 2 giant orange slices on the front of their home page. While we are creating a site for a restaurant, this seems like the perfect choice for a home page. A paragraph about some food can be summed up in 1 photo. Every time I look at the oranges it makes me want one. You get an A+ in your subliminal stimuli class!

I enjoy the sleekness and simplicity of Vignette Brand Communications. The color treatment and layout of the navigation makes it seem so easy when in actuality there are 11 links. The inset makes the background feel like the main image and everything else is secondary. 

Yogy has a simplicity to it that seems childish, and it works perfectly. With 2 colors, and some variants of the in between  they have accomplished a design that works magic for your eyes. The only issue is the navigation gets lost once inside of the pages. The aesthetics are what are amazing here. 

Resources?

You got em! The best place to learn about templates are straight from wordpress. The community that is behind WordPress is so large and helpful, you will have a hard time trying not to find help with creating templates. 

One can find numerous free templates online for Wordpress as well. 

CMS for The Future Projects

After lengthy research, I have found, without much surprise, the top three CMS's are WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. these are the most widely used and most common content management systems. These top three are consistent no matter where you look on the internet, WebDevNews, WebDesignerDepot, and NetTuts all agree on the top three.
There are definitely more out there, and many comparison charts to help you choose, but when it comes down to it, WordPress seems to be the most widely known and with that, the easiest to get into.
WordPress

If you haven't heard of a content management system before, you still have probably have heard the name WordPress, there is reasoning behind this, and it is because the ease is what has made is so popular.
Now, I personally do not like a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor because it creates bloated code isn't the cleanest way to do things, (think using a hose to mop the kitchen floor, it will get done, but probably with lots of excess water)

This is the hard coder who will save you from the WYSIWYG flood

For most people this will not be an issue, mostly because they don't even have to look at the source code, but as designers, our world revolves around it.
Perks of WordPress
WordPress has many features like Plugins and Themes.
The community behind Wordpress is impressive to say the least, with forums and the contributions to make everything simple, such as the plugins page, it seems effortless to find what you are looking for.
The themes page as well has lists of featured themes, popular themes, and newest themes, as a designer, these are all starting points to tweak and modify, but for a basic client, or one who is doing this on their own, this is the perfect solution.
My Choice is Made

And it is a choice of a new generation

WordPress takes the cake with ease for the simple fact of ease and popularity. This may not be the case for everybody, I consider myself more of a graphic designer than a script and code writer. For a starting point in the content management system world, WordPress should be your base as you stretch out into the wild hills that are made up of TextPattern, Contao, Umbraco, or Concrete5. So go out and enjoy it all.

The Tale Of The Tape!
As Bruce Buffer calls the contenders down to the octagon, it is clear that this will be a good match up. Get Simple is coming off of some good wins against worthy opponents, and Website Baker has been putting some heat in the kitchen! Cheesy? Yes, but the point is there! This is a battle of utter greatness!

Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Live!

The Weigh In
This is the first time I have gotten the chance to work with a CMS, and it seemed a bit confusing at first. Well, it still is to a certain extent. A CMS (content management system) is used for site maintenance for ease. Some are flat file CMS's and some are database driven. These are two perfect examples of each.

Technically, they would be lightweights.

Get Simple

Get Simple is a flat file CMS with no database requirement. It uses XML files to store data. The installation is rather easy and simple, one could possibly make that conclusion from the name itself. I used a lot of trouble shooting and found that Get Simple has a great community behind it that is willing to help the rookies out.
Website Baker

Website Baker is a database driven CMS that uses databases (obviously) to store data, it all falls into one single database file. The set up was not too complicated, but a bit more than Get Simple. Those who use WYSIWYG editors would enjoy the option with this one. WB also has droplets that are easily downloaded and installed. This helps out and helps to customize with ease.
The New Champion!

I would say that I am not proficient with a CMS yet, but I enjoyed both of the CMSs. Website Baker was a bit more complicated, but it lets you do more. If I were to start a new project today, I would use GetSimple, for the shear fact of how simple it is. Website Baker will stay for the long run and I will try it and use it at a later, more comfortable date.
Honestly, there is no clear winner. It seems like the age old (digital age) battle of Macintosh and Windows. One is simple and easy to use, but holds back, the other is a bit more complicated and gives you more freedom.