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[knight01]

After looking through the templates I've settled on the fruity theme as offering the layout and flexibility I need. I'm working on a costume contest site. The contests will change throughout the year. Halloween Costume Contest, Valentines Day Costume Contest, St. Patricks Day, etc. I will want to change the theme to match the contest. I found existing themes for several holidays, but the layout of each is different. I am concerned the different layouts will confuse returning visitors. This is why I want to use the same layout with slight variations in color scheme.

What would need to be done is probably pretty simple. I want the color scheme to change along with a few seasonal graphics placed on the theme. For example, the Halloween theme would have an orange and black color scheme with a few witches and ghosts in the header. The Christmas theme would be red, green and white with pictures of st. nick and some elves. The Valentine theme would have red and white colors with hearts and cupids. Hopefully you understand what I mean.

I think I would need to start with about 5 variations of the fruity theme layout. Halloween being the most important, then Christmas, Valentines day, Easter, Independence Day (USA holiday). I don't know how much something like this would cost to have done since the theme has already been created. I would pay $5 to $20 for each variation, open to negotiation on the price.

The site is www.BestCostumeContest.com

[Joachim Müller]

I can not recommend to use fruity as a base, as it is driven by images, so even the small addaptions you plan to make will be time-consuming and therefore expensive. Instead I suggest using a theme with minimal usage of images, where all colors are being determined using the stylesheet. The designer you hire could then prepare all needed style sheets in advance and show you how to swap them, so you would only need the designer's services once and not constantly throughout the year.

Your best bet would be to use themes that already come in various different colors, e.g. Digital, Hermes, Hestia, I2theme, Morpheus, Pro, Serenity, X-Treme. Anyway, your users will hardly notice he difference, so you might consider as well doing this in a similar way Google does this and just swap the logo/banner for your site, adjusting that (the name of your site/company with a Leprechaun, a Pumpkin etc. - you get the idea).

I'm not sure where you looked, but I recommend reading the sticky  thread User-contributed themes first and then using the theme selector on the demo to browse through all available themes.

Joachim

P.S. This advise is free of charge. I'm not volunteering to do the job.

[knight01]

Thanks GauGau, I found a theme that will work. It should be simple enough to change colors and images through the css. Though I still like the fruity theme better, this will work.

Next up will be needing SEO help.

marking this thread solved.