Since starting out as a Web Designer I have made use of the latest templates that are available on the Internet. My favorite is Boilerplate. It’s the world’s most popular front-end template and it’s easy to understand why. It’s packed full of goodies and offers the best technology on the market.

However I found myself modifying the theme to suit my needs and style of coding every single time I downloaded it. I’m not saying my code is better than anyone else’s, but if you’re after a front-end HTML5/CSS3 template which is neat and tidy, packed full of goodies and will save you tons of time, take a look at my Base Template.

First and foremost this template is NEAT. I can’t stand code that is untidy and difficult to follow. I’m a strong believer of making everything I create look great whether someone can see it or not. If I were a joiner I would sand the back of every drawer perfectly.

“If you’re after a front-end HTML5/CSS3 template which is neat and tidy, packed full of goodies and will save you tons of time, take a look at the Base Template”

I’ve included many of the features that are included in Boilerplate including a wide range of their CSS, Modernizr, and the latest jQuery library.

I have also included some personal touches of my own. Some examples are listed below.

• Ready made HTML/CSS styles for Typography, headers, blockquotes forms and buttons.
• CSS3 example styles.
• Basic grid examples and information.
• Boilerplate, grids and main CSS files (I would minify and consolidate the css files into a single file for deployment to ensure faster page loading.)
• iPad & iPhone media queries.
• High resolution device queries
• Inclusion of ready made meta tags. Just add data.
• Tweaks to the meta viewport tag
• Inclusion of favicon icon and <link> in header
• Simple and neat folder structure.
• Style.css top level folder to collaborate with WordPress
• Neat CSS with contents listings
• Example font stack

The most appealing thing for me is that the base template will never be complete. It will be an ongoing project where I need to keep on top of the latest technologies, tools and essentials for front-end development.

The download site isn’t too shabby either. I’ve employed some parallax scrolling, WordPress build with a download counter plugin and it’s also fully responsive. Fonts are Freight sans pro from Typekit and wisdom script from Lost Type. The icons are from the amazing Tim Boelaars. Everything else was made with my bare hands.

I’ve really enjoyed conducting the research, planning and then making the Base template. I would love to hear any feedback, opinions or thoughts that any of you may have.

http://base.webknit.co.uk/

Cheers for reading

Shane

• CSS
• HTML
• Personal
• Web Design
• WebKnit