It just doesn't look good enough..

Not sure if a lot of people go through this, but I have been finding it as of late, very difficult to be satisfied with a template design.. It seems as if everything I create, just doesn't appeal to me.. Guess it's not me that matters, but it's ease of access..

I need to snap out of this, phase if you want to call it.. I will design one thing, then the next day it looks like total shit. There just needs to be some appeal to make it stand out from the other sites..

I know deep down when it comes time to coding, that I will be saving my ass with a simple design. The sites I am making are shopping/educational/offer sites, all a mixture.. Hopefully I am not the only person going through this hair pulling ordeal..

Maybe I am touching swords with the wrong niches. Maybe I am just not satisfied with my work.

/rant off

I feel the same way, i stopped designing all together for the most part a few years ago. One of the best pieces of advice i got from a business owner many years ago was something along the lines of "know when to hire out". Time is money and know when to spend money to save time.

I'm torn between knowing that everything I design that's easy and fast is actually just shit and that I don't have time to make everything as good as I want it to be.

I try really hard to remember: I AM NOT MY TARGET CUSTOMER.

Mostly that doesn't help, but I'm trying to learn.

Yup. I feel your pain.

I'm too cheap to hire a designer.

My problem is my mentality is why pay someone to do something I can do myself.

Respectfully, isn't it more important that the design is well-liked by your website visitors and customers?

So, it might not really matter whether you liked it too much or not?

All you need to do is to create a design. Change 1 thing about it (e.g. the headline, or the background color etc.) and you have 2 versions of the design that you can use and test with. This way, your visitors and their "performance" of the most desired action on that webpage will tell you which design works better for you?

Just my 2 pennies .. Heh.

Cheerio