A few years ago, if a web developer was asked to name some content management systems, then there would have been a few on their lips that were hardly known or had any strength in how the web worked. This was because of the inexperience of the user and complications of the CMS’s which led to it being very difficult to customise or modify the CMS. That was then.
These days, the hard working teams behind many of the popular open source CMS’ have led to it being very easy and simple to customise the packages to the pixel. This said, there are many good designers who still find it difficult to say you can customise anything other than WordPress in fine detail. I aim to show you that WordPress isn’t the only solution which offers good flexibility (I agree it’s the friendliest however, with a bit more work, you can easily become just as good on many other platforms).
I have chosen 5 popular content management systems and for each of these, have chosen 5 stunning designs to show you that you can just as well achieve similar results as if you were using WordPress:
- Drupal
- Joomla
- Magento
- Expression Engine
- Prestashop
Drupal
A very popular content Management system.
Joomla
Another Popular CMS. There is generally a debate about which CMS is better; Joomla or Drupal?
Magento
Enterprise level eCommerce shopping cart.
Expression Engine
A CMS which has lots of functionality and has its advantages above other.
PrestaShop
Another eCommerce platform to use if Magento is not for you.
Conclusion
To build a stunning site like any of the above, there are a few requirements:
- Creativivity
- Design Skill
- Time
- Development Experience. (Just a little will do…)
About the author
This article is written by Faz who is the founder of GameCom, a popular video game forum.
Actually development skills are highly in demand for all of these platforms to create something different than a standard 3-column design. Knowledge of XML (Magento), Smarty (PrestaShop) and genuine PHP (Drupal) are not for the entry level designers or developers.
Although Drupal and Joomla are very popular you should also try and find other CMS platforms that are doing an amazing job and are very easy to style. A good example is the PHP Fusion 7 which has been brought from the darkness of tables to the div-based broad daylight. And styling it is incredibly easy thanks to the special structure of the theme itself.
Overall I love the designs that you showed us here and keep up the good work!
Good call!
AWESOME post! Design flexibility is (understandably) one of the first concerns of any design-led agency (or freelancer). This article is living proof that web design and CMS can play well together.
Thanks!
In the past, it used to get quite difficult to implement a design to the CMS perfectly and that moved people away from using them! That was then, this is now!!
Thanks for the comment!
it’s too hard to make a new CMS that worth … even if you got the idea it’s difficult to make it right and spread the word
i made for example a CMS to make it easy on the designer and the developer to build a site
but i don’t know how to spread the word
i hope it get famous sometime
http://vunsy.wordpress.com
i want you guys to download and etst it for me and contact me on
blaz_boy[at]hotmail[dot]com
It is indeed very difficult to put together a new CMS due to the amount of work involved. You will notice that all the top CMS’s around have a very large dedicated team behind them.
When I get the chance, I’ll check your out! Thanks for the comment!
I think your links for http://www.blossomcart.com and http://www.notesprecieuses.com are switched.
All of the sites look very good, very fresh. Thank you for sharing.
Ooops! I have corrected this now.
Well done for spotting and thanks a lot!
A fully functional open source CMS, built by a small team, and now being used to run more than 60 sites – http://www.refinerycms.com.
Nice. When I get a chance, I’ll take a better look!
Check ModX CMS…best around…better than the 5 presented here…for designers or developers…doesn’t matter but I see it from a designer perspective…it’s so easy to implement in your designs…you don’t believe it until you did it the first time =)!
Sounds too good to be true! Will check it out soon.
Thanks!
We entered to a software as Bayilik Franchise Software. This post gave help us for develop our program. We will send our software for your ideas.
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