Artisteer 2

The Red Ferret Product of the Year 2008 - Software - Artisteer

Last year was the year of the CMS. By that I mean, it was the year WordPress came out of its shell and proved to the world that it could become as much of a mainstay of the Web as say, Paypal or Google.

It’s for this reason that we’ve awarded Artisteer the software product of the year. This program, which lets you instantly create great looking CMS site themes, is not freeware, but the utility of the program is such that we simply couldn’t ignore the promise it holds. There were rivals for the spot of course. We love what Weather Watcher has to offer, with it’s excellent collection of weather tools for serious cloud watchers, and Joiku, the powerful tool to turn your mobile phone into a wireless WiFi hotspot is also a real attention grabber.

But at the end of the day, we think Artisteer has the capacity to dramatically transform the ease of use of creating websites based around WordPress and other CMS packages. The program takes web design to another level, by offering automated tools which even the most indolent would-be designer can use and understand. And more than that, it’s the fact that the end result actually works well that impresses us the most. Not only can you build great looking WordPress and generic HTML templates (and soon Joomla and Blogger) but they actually install properly and work as they should. Which is powerfully enabling for the graphically challenged.

It will never replace a quality designer of course, but that’s not the target market. We’re looking at the population of non-design coders, the mom and pop site builders, the young, the web loving guru in the developing world, all of whom should seriously take a look at this and see if it fits into their small business plans. Lovely program.


Artisteer is the first and only Web design automation product that instantly creates fantastic looking, unique Website templates and Blog themes…No need to learn Photoshop, CSS, HTML or other technologies…With Artisteer YOU immediately become a Web design expert, editing and slicing graphics, coding XHTML and CSS, and creating Web design templates and Wordpress themes - all in minutes, without Photoshop or Dreamweaver, and no technical skills.