Danny Studio has been remixed 72 times. Thank you to everyone who pulled it into their own project.

Rather than just post the number, here is the thing those remixes taught me: a template gets designed twice.

Once by me, when I build it. Once by the person who opens it and starts deleting things.

The second build is the one that decides whether the template is any good. It's also the one that's easiest to design against without noticing.

Three decisions that turned out to matter most.

Be opinionated about structure, quiet about surface. Layout, flow and pacing are the thing you are actually selling, so those should be decided. Colour, type and imagery are not yours to decide. Every choice I made too specifically became a choice somebody had to undo before they could start.

Build the CMS for someone else's volume, not the demo's. Danny Studio's home is an infinite loop of album covers. It has to hold up with six albums and with sixty. Designing to your own demo content is how a template breaks on first contact with a real client.

No paid plugins. A dependency you can't see is a dependency the person remixing you inherits. Keeping it native means the file behaves the same in their account as it does in mine.

The templates that get remixed most aren't the most finished ones. They're the ones with room left in them.

For anyone here publishing templates what's the first thing you find yourself deleting when you remix someone else's file?

Danny Studio has been remixed 72 times. Thank you to everyone who pulled it into their own project.

Rather than just post the number, here is the thing those remixes taught me: a template gets designed twice.

Once by me, when I build it. Once by the person who opens it and starts deleting things.

The second build is the one that decides whether the template is any good. It's also the one that's easiest to design against without noticing.

Three decisions that turned out to matter most.

Be opinionated about structure, quiet about surface. Layout, flow and pacing are the thing you are actually selling, so those should be decided. Colour, type and imagery are not yours to decide. Every choice I made too specifically became a choice somebody had to undo before they could start.

Build the CMS for someone else's volume, not the demo's. Danny Studio's home is an infinite loop of album covers. It has to hold up with six albums and with sixty. Designing to your own demo content is how a template breaks on first contact with a real client.

No paid plugins. A dependency you can't see is a dependency the person remixing you inherits. Keeping it native means the file behaves the same in their account as it does in mine.

The templates that get remixed most aren't the most finished ones. They're the ones with room left in them.

For anyone here publishing templates what's the first thing you find yourself deleting when you remix someone else's file?