First submission to PSD Template Category - Guidelines?

Hi,

Recently i´ve got my PSD template rejected, and this is the rejection e-mail (i guess it is a rejection template email):

Usually, I’d be able to provide more specific feedback but I’m afraid that isn’t the case here. Every aspect of your design will need to be improved, significantly. Right now the template feels like a freebie and doesn’t offer the level of aesthetics necessary to be accepted under ThemeForest’s acceptance guidelines.

I strongly suggest that you take a fresh look at your theme, evaluate the basics and make improvements as necessary. You might consider taking a look at some of our most popular items to gain a better idea for what we’re looking for at this time.

Dissapointed (specially with the “freebie” part, that hurts!), i am asking you authors some help on this. As a responsable designer and author at GR, i have read every article of the Wiki, even the ones that the reviewer point me out: ThemeForest Wiki: http://wiki.envato.com/tag/themeforest-basics/ ThemeForest Common Rejection Factors: http://wiki.envato.com/selling/selling-rejections/themeforest-common-rejection-factors/ but i am unable to find a good one related to PSD Templates.

I am not “in love” of my design, so i am very open to suggestions on how to improve this theme. And if you think like Kailoon (the reviewer) that i have to improve every aspect of the design, please let me know it.

Thanks in advance.

Here are the preview images of the template

PS: Sorry for the ugly gallery at the samples page.

It seems to me a little boring because of grey colours and la?k of photos. But it’s very clean and professional. I like it! Maybe it’s not unique enough (this template has a standard layout) for a PSD category. Maybe You should try to code it and submit to Themeforest as a HTML template. I also advice you to add few colour shemes and photos to your demo. I’m not 100% sure, but I think HTML version has a good chance to be accepted.

Hi Irina,

Thank you for taking the time to answer and for your kindly advices.

I agree with the boring color part, but i´ve made this theme in a such easy way to edit, that the user just need to click on the color layer of the PSD , and choose the one he wants (all the styles remains the same without user intervention).

As for the images, i´ve set up a placeholder as an SmartObject, so the user just need to right-click the layer and select “replace content”. I was unable to find images suitable for distribution along the PSD file (due my lack of legal knowledge), but even with the images, i guess Kailoon was refering to something else

Regarding the layout, I have made more than 20 home page designs with the provided modules of the PSD , so (again) the user can choose any module to make their own.

Unfortunatelly, i have 0 coding skills for HTML , PHP, or any other coding language (i just do what i know, design). So, if you are interested in coding this theme, just send me a message at my profile page and i will be glad to talk about it with you.

Once again, thanks for the advices! All the best.

Unfortunately, we usually don’t code templates made by other designers. But maybe other themeforest authors will be interested in it.

Dream-Theme said
Unfortunately, we usually don’t code templates made by other designers. But maybe other themeforest authors will be interested in it.

No problem. I was just saying that because i will not code it; it was just a side note for the main guidelines question.

Thanks again!