Lazy designer :)

I usually am too lazy to build a site from the ground up and put the graphic in as well. What I do is use site builders to create the site and put my own custom designs into it. Does anyone else do this? i use both squarespace and easywebcontent

Some people might do it this way, but I would never recommend that anyone do this as a 'serious" designer or developer.

The problem with hosted systems like you've mentioned is that they are not portable. You can't change hosting comapnies if they jack their prices up or their customer service goes downhill - you are tied to their service forever. Or at least until you develop a different website completely.

You also can't do data exports or backups of your site. Sure, they will do some sort of backup as part of their service, but what happens when their backups fail or are hacked and they can't get your site back up?

In addition, if you are going over their templates and doing a lot of customisations yourself, isn't it just as easy to set up your own site from a template and do the customisations on that? That way you have control over it, you can place it where you want to, and you don't have to worry that one day you'll wake up to find that they've gone bust and you've lost your site completely.

while you do have some valid points, I doubt square space or EasywebContent will go anywhere soon. I'm just saying while being a hardcore designer by coding from the ground up is the recommended path, there are other options.

Not many other people want that much of customizations either. Well my clients don't

typography, colors, navigation, layouts, and dummy text. Hopefully these tools can also help a lazy designer find the first small step into getting back into the designing routine.