Zimplit CMS Lets You Use Someone Else’s Web Design

By Geoff Spick (@Goffee71) Jul 23, 2009

4 comments

Use Another Site's Design for Your Own Site With Zimplit v3

In yet another rebranding-centric attempt, Simple CMS provider Zimplit (news, site) released its "borrow another site's design to create yours" feature.

By any stretch, this is a brave move by Zimplit. The new Zimplit v3.0 allows you to pick any favorite web site that you like the look of and use that as the basis for your own site's design.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

However, since it is those who borrow a site design and don't vary it enough that will be in trouble, perhaps there won't be an army of lawyers storming the boarding gates at JFK for the next flight to Tallinn (most flights are via Helsinki — a bit of trivia for you).

You do have to agree to the terms of service and privacy policy before using a site as the basis for your own, among which there is presumably some text that indemnifies the company.

Take a Web Test Drive

Re-using someone else's web design is as easy as typing the desired URL into the design bank field in Zimplit CMS, and the uploading of the styles is supposed to happen almost magically. In a quick test, "borrowed" sites don't appear completely as you would expect, losing a lot of CSS stylings, menu design and other elements. There may still be a lot of work to do, depending on your source of inspiration.

Among the other changes in the update are the addition of a new sidebar that splits up web design from settings functions to make creating and modifying sites easier. Additional improvements help make it quicker to change fonts and colors, and add feedback forms.

Try the online demo and you will see how rapidly text and image elements can be added to a page. You can also experiment with adding scripts, YouTube videos, Google Search links and other types of content.

Zimplit is available for free or for a nominal price if you take up the company's hosting offer. The company claims over 100,000 users. With content creation made this simple, it is hard to argue.