Tempting Templates

Tempting Templates

Are you the type person who likes to bake from scratch?  Do you have flour, sugar and baking soda and eggs readily stocked in your cabinet?  Or are you the type who follows the recipe on the back of a Betty Crocker box of cookies or cake? 

Scratch or template?

Rather than start with a blank white page, I find I like templates. Templates are pre-designed documents which include themes, styles, and layouts.  They contain placeholders and text boxes so all you have to do is insert your own content.  Generally, they’re designed by professional graphic designers.  The use of fonts, alignments, layouts and images are balanced and clean. 

I don’t hesitate to use templates for a jump-off point.  And if I come up with a nice design, I save it as a template.  Manuals, documentations, newsletters, brochures and programs can be generated from templates.  It’s especially helpful if you want to develop a consistent look-and-feel to your documents.

Templates come in many software applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). They contain several ingredients:

• Themes
• Styles
•  Layout

The key to templates is that it is best used for repeat business.  I created a series of documentation manuals and every single design was identical – from the footers, to the fonts, to the styles and themes.  So, once you create a document whether the starting point is a pre-designed template or a template you design, the benefits are common and consistent design. 

If you want to know more about Templates, click here.