The Best Squarespace Template - BRINE and why you should use it
Squarespace! I am a huge fan of Squarespace. No surprise here. Their templates are clean, modern and beautifully designed. Squarespace offers a variety of templates. Depending on what you are looking for, I am sure they have a template to start you off with. Today’s post is about a template that gives you a lot of functionality that you could ever need. Some templates have limitations but this one does not. Drum roll please….the template in question is the Brine Template. Read on and I will explain why?
Image - Squarespace
The designers behind Squarespace created many templates that do certain things. If you are a blogger, Squarespace offers templates geared only for blogging. If you own a restaurant and you need a website to showcase your expert cuisine, Squarespace has that too. All of their templates are simply gorgeous.
Having said that, there are some templates that do not have certain features embedded within the template. For example, some blog templates have sidebars, you know the section to the right that has the bloggers pic, bio and call to action like subscribe to my newsletter? Some templates do not. So when choosing your template, you want to have an idea of the basic things you want your website to be able to do. Then based on that, see what template gives you the most flexibility.
The Brine Template is my absolute favorite. As a web designer, I love to have many options in how I design my websites. With the Brine family (the family part means templates that share the underlying structure of Brine but looks different), the developers were very thoughtful in designing a template that lets you modify just about anything, adding a secondary menu, adding social media icons at the top level menu, changing the look and feel of your shopping cart just to name a few without having to plug in any special code. The list could go on and on.
Here is a link if you are interested in finding out more about the Brine family.
Brine Template Features
Parallax Scrolling
This special scrolling effect is created by stacking pages (Index pages) on top of each other to create the Illusion of movement in the background. I use this on my website.
Banners
These are full-page images that are displayed at the top of a page. You can have this design feature replicated on all pages and add a title within that banner. Others have used the banners to run video to add a layer of movement to their page.
Advanced commerce
Do you have products to sell, well you are in luck? This template gives you a quick view of your products. You can zoom in and out and create special effects over each product.
Multiple navigations
This is by far, the one thing I have enjoyed the most. In my current website, I have three Navigation areas. Two at the top and one at the footer. You can also position the content in your navigation to appear at the top corner, right corner or middle sections of that block. Each navigation area can be designed to look the way you want it to. Ah, designer’s paradise.
Customizable mobile controls
Why force your desktop design to look the same on a mobile device. With the Brine template, you can make changes that are just for your mobile devices. You can change the size and location of your logo, the background, locations of menus and icons. This will be a great way to make those changes without having to add any codes.
Blog page
I love the crisp look of the Brine template. It airy and very modern and clean. Unlike the traditional blog pages you are familiar with that have a sidebar, the Brine template does not. I debated over how important having a sidebar was to me. I do like the look of the sidebar but I also wanted to use the brine template because of all the reasons I stated above. My only option was to find a plugin to create a sidebar. I downloaded the Sqspthemes sidebar plugin and now I have a sidebar.
Having a sidebar or not is a matter of preference. Don’t discount the Brine Template only because it does not have a sidebar. There are options available out there to create one. Most are really straightforward to follow. I used a plugin that I purchased to create a sidebar as the Brine template does not come with one. You can see on the right of this post that my sidebar totally looks clean. If you are interested in this sidebar plugin, check out Sqspthemes who made this possible.
Here is a list of all the templates within the Brine family. As mentioned earlier, these templates share the same underlying features and can do the same things, but each is visually different. Hop on over to Squarespace to read up in more details the features and functionality of the Brine family templates.
If you are on the fence about using Squarespace or some other platform, take a look at my reasons for choosing Squarespace, I think you will find it very helpful.
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