Best free website design tools?
 

Just wondering,

what are some really good free web design tools?

Even if they are fairly basic, I would still like to see them.

Looking for specialized stuff for logo's and graphics, as well as complete page building.

Any helpful tips would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks guys!

Have you tried artisteer?

If not, pre-made templates might be your thing : templatemonster.com, themeforest.net, etc.

Will check out Artisteer, thanks.

Not really looking for templates, unless they can be "click and drag" modified.

Just thought that with technology these days, there would be simpler ways to making really sharp looking little web 2.0 designs. Even if they weren't for free.

Perhaps Artisteer is just what I'm looking for, who knows.

Seems like a lot of people are making cool sites with Wordpress, but I'm just now getting into wordpress, and have a lack of experience with them and personalizing coding.

I wonder if something like Artisteer would be good or bad for SEO.

But it's interesting, thanks again for the suggestion ;)

Headway has 'drag and drop'. I haven't used 3.0 yet, but it looks awesome.

http://hthemes.headwayorthesis.com

The new Thesis should be coming out later this month too..

http://diy.headwayorthesis.com

I saw this a while back but it was in beta so I never got a chance to try it out. May be useful. Http://www.divine-project.com/

This headway thingy looks really awesome actually, might be just what I need now :)

I had only used Thesis for a couple mainstream sites until this past week when I started building 3 adult sites. I'm still in the 'tinkering' phase, but I'm really enjoying the process. Shoot me an email and I'll send you an example of [email protected]

Definitely something I'm looking into now,

very good suggestions, both of them.

I love designers in all, but they are very expensive and sometimes it's extremely difficult relaying the look you want.. I figure with all the innovations these days, there has to be some way to build simple cool little web 2.0 sites without all the fuss.

Headway is awesome.

For those new to wordpress it might be an idea to play about with a basic wordpress install for a couple of hours beforehand to get a feel for the functionality that is already available.

Sound advice indeed,

I am a newbie to Wordpress.. and it looked a bit confusing at first glance. But not more so than Thesis.

I tried Thesis but did a 30 day refund that they offer, was very pleased with Headway(I am a drag and drop kinda guy and couldn't html my way out of a paper bag).

wix but you mine as well buy that shit. Well worth the money

Also sound advice,

just the kind of thing I need to know. For I am not a coder in any respect.

Will definitely lean my investigation towards Headway now.

gimp is a free graphics program

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to trying the new Headway.

As for basic free themes, here are a couple free themes that are based on ones that were origiginally designed by Thesis designer Chris Pearson. PressRow and Cutline used to be available for free on WP but they had a falling out. Here are the replacements..

Pilcrow replaced PressRow - My first site was on PressRow, which is likely why I'm somewhat partial to Thesis.
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/pilcrow

Coraline replaced Cutline - I use Coraline on several sites.
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/coraline

Also I've never used this one, but it's apparently still available for free.

http://www.pearsonified.com/theme/neoclassical/

I was about to suggest that, its like photoshop in manyways but free :)