dating site layout

[dogfishcat]

Does anyone know how to go about making a web layout for a dating site? Would like some help Please.
Thanks

[sillyboy]

Any layout can be used for any site you want ...

[kanaku]

First, check out the competition by googling "dating site".

That should give you loads of ideas on how it's done. Most likely, you'll be needing photos of real people (unless you can draw from scratch or already have some graphics in mind) so you can search free stock photo sites for using "love" or "date" or "people" keywords. Be sure to check with the artist/photographer first if you can use their photo on your site...

The actual layout (columns? tabs? menu placement? etc) will depend on you. But you can try smashingmagazine for their showcase of design inspiration.

Other things you might want to plan are color schemes and JS effects for a more 'interactive' site design. From experience, web-geeks might shun the 'uselessness' of too much JS effects but 'the masses' love them --- so unless that's a geeky-dating site...

[migcosta]

Well,
what platform are you using for your dating site?

I only know osDate and some 3rd party extension for joomla =>(http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=299066)

In both cases you will have to build a template for them. Both platform’s have online tutorials to teach how to build a template..

You can also buy one template and install it…

[Jen0608]

there are a lot of templates available on the web. try using template monster and you can see a lot of templates there.

[seanansari]

Firstly you should stay away from watching all your competitors sites ....Give yourself some time to think How exactly you want the site to look like ...do some work from scratch ...

at the later stages you could afford to google for some good dating designs , And my sincere advice is dnt stop by the first page results ...digg through the later pages as you can come across some good ideas

[superchris]

Hi there,

I design sites by first considering what you already have; an interface problem that needs to be solved. For example, you need somewhere for your users to log in, and there are two clear groups of people that use dating sites; your potential customers (who haven't signed up yet and want to be persuaded) and people who are already signed up. How do you cater to these groups of people? Perhaps by separating your home page down the middle, one bit for each group?

My point is that your design should flow naturally out of identifying and responding to your customers' needs. It's not so much "I can put this here to make it look nice", than "I can put this here to cater to this group of people".

Of course, brand identity also needs to be conveyed from the interface, and so you have more questions to consider; my rule of thumb is that everything you add to your design should say something to the user, no exceptions. For example, "my users want to feel a sense of community, I will solve this by adding in some people". By using a customer-led approach to design, you should never be out of ideas, because there will always be problems to solve for your customers.

Just my thoughts :)