Finding the right starting point
How the template catalog works, what the badges mean, and what happens when you pick one.
What a template is
A template is a complete, working website — pages, sections, photographs, and words already in place — designed in-house by our team. You don't start from a blank page. You start from a finished one and make it yours.
Every template runs on the same platform, so the difference between them isn't what they can do. It's how they're put together: which pages they include, how the home page is arranged, and the character of the type and color. That arrangement is the part worth choosing carefully — the words, images, and colors are all yours to change afterwards, in a few clicks.
Every template is included on every plan, at no extra charge. Choosing a more elaborate design never costs more than choosing a simple one.
Where to browse them
There are two places to look, and they show the same catalog:
- The Templates page on tropic-arts.com — open to anyone, no account needed. Filter by industry, sort by Featured or Newest, and open any template to click around it.
- Choose a template inside your account — the gallery you launch from. In the side navigation open Sites, then click the + button to add a site.
Both lists are drawn from the same place, so a design you spot on the public site will be waiting in the gallery when you sign in.
Reading a template card
Each card tells you five things at a glance:
- The preview — a live, scaled-down view of the template's own website. It's the real site, running, not a screenshot, so it's never out of date.
- The name, with a New tag if the template was published in the last couple of months.
- Industry tags — the kind of business the design was drawn for, like Restaurants & Food or Home Services. A template can carry more than one.
- Feature badges — the parts the template ships with already built, such as an online store or online booking.
- A short description — a line or two on what the template is for and what's in it.
What the feature badges mean
A badge means the template arrives with those pages and sections already designed:
- Online store — sell products with a shopping cart and checkout.
- Products page — a dedicated shop, catalog, or menu page for browsing what you sell.
- Online booking — take appointments, reservations, or quote requests online.
- Subscriptions — recurring plans, memberships, or subscription boxes.
- Real estate listings — pages for featuring individual homes.
- Journal — a blog or editorial section for stories and updates.
A badge is a head start, not a fence. The features belong to the platform rather than the design, so a template without the Online store badge can still switch its cart on later in Settings → Store. What the badge saves you is the building: the pages, sections, and layout are already made and styled to match.
Filtering by industry
The chips above the gallery narrow the list to one industry at a time, and All brings everything back. They're a shortcut to designs drawn with your kind of business in mind — a menu page for a restaurant, a services list for a trade, a gallery for a photographer.
Don't read them too strictly, though. The tag describes where a design came from, not who's allowed to use it. A photographer's template can make a beautiful site for a jeweler, and a restaurant layout with a menu page suits anyone with a printed list of things. If the shape fits, the label doesn't matter.
Previewing before you commit
Every card has a Preview button, and it opens that template's own live website in a new tab. Nothing is created and nothing is charged — it's just the site, running. Some things are worth doing while you're in there:
- Click through the pages in the navigation, not only the home page. Inside pages are where templates differ most.
- Read the sections as shapes rather than words — a row of three cards, a full-width photograph, a price table. Those shapes are what you'll be filling in.
- Open the same preview on your phone. Every template is built to reflow on small screens, and it's worth seeing how this one does it.
- Notice which pages you'd actually keep. Deleting a page you don't need takes a moment; inventing one that isn't there is more work.
Choosing well
Two templates can look alike and be built for quite different jobs. When you're torn between them, three things help:
Choose for structure, not color. Palette, fonts, logo, and photography are all yours to change afterwards. The arrangement of the pages is the thing you're really picking.
Choose for the work you'll actually do. A template with a journal is a promise to write; one with a booking page is a promise to keep a calendar. Take the one you'll keep up with.
Choose the closest fit, not the perfect one. There's no prize for finding an exact match — every template is meant to be pulled apart and rebuilt around your business.
Starting a site from a template
Once you've found the one:
- Click Use this template on its card.
- Give the site a name — usually your business name. It's used in browser tabs, search results, and the emails your site sends, and you can rename it later.
- Set the website address, or leave it blank and we'll build one from the name. Your site lives there under tropic-arts.com; if the address is already taken we add a number.
- Click Create site. The site is built from the template straight away.
- If the AI website builder is available on your account, you'll land there next — describe your business and it writes the words for you. Skipping it is perfectly fine; you'll get the template exactly as designed.
A new site starts as a draft, behind an Opening Soon screen, so nothing is public while you work on it. You lift that gate with Activate on your Sites list — which needs a paid plan. On the free trial you can build and preview as much as you like.
What comes across, and what doesn't
Your new site is a copy of the template's pages: the layout, the sections, the demo words and images — all of it yours to edit or delete. Three things are handled specially:
- A privacy policy and terms of use are created fresh for your site, with standard text you can edit, rather than copied from the template.
- Enquiry and booking forms are rewired to your own form, so what people send lands in your inbox and nowhere else.
- Your catalog starts empty. Products, posts, services, appointments, and customers belong to your site alone — so a shop or journal page will look bare until you add your own, and you're never left deleting someone else's demo data.
The demo copy is there to show you the shape of a finished page — how long a headline runs, how much text a section wants. Replace it as you go. It was never meant to be kept.
Changing your template later
The template is chosen once, when the site is created. There's no switch that swaps one design underneath your content, because on this platform the pages are the design.
In practice that matters less than it sounds. Most of what people want from a different template — a new color scheme, a different order on the home page, an extra page, a section swapped out — you can do in the editor on the site you already have.
If you do want to see yourself in a different design, add a second site from it. New sites are drafts, so nothing goes public, and you can hold the two up against each other before deciding.
There's a cap on how many free trial sites you can keep at once. If you hit it, upgrade the one you're keeping, or get in touch and we'll sort it out.
Frequently asked questions
No. Every template is included on every plan — any design, no extra charge. What your plan affects is what the site can do once it's live: selling online needs the Store plan, and going live at all needs a paid plan.
Not at all. The tags say what a design was drawn for, not who may use it. Plenty of people start from a template made for another trade because the structure suited them better. Choose the one whose pages match what you want to say.
Twice over. Preview opens the template's real website so you can click through every page, and creating a site from it costs nothing on the free trial — the site stays a private draft until you activate it.
There's no in-place switch — the pages themselves are the design, so swapping it would mean replacing your content too. Recolor, reorder, add, and remove sections on the site you have, or start a second draft site from the other template and compare. If you're stuck between the two, ask us and we'll talk it through.
Far less than you'd expect. Once your own words, photographs, logo, and colors are in, two sites from the same template rarely read as relatives — the copy and imagery carry most of the character.
Yes. Turn the shopping cart on in Settings → Store and a cart appears in your header; taking orders needs the Store plan. You'll be adding the shop pages yourself rather than getting them ready-made, which is the head start a template with the Online store badge gives you.
That the template was published recently — it stays for the first couple of months after a design goes into the catalog. It's a way to spot what's arrived since you last looked, nothing more.
Get in touch. We're a design studio before anything else, and if the catalog doesn't have what your business needs we'd rather hear about it than watch you settle.