SharePoint is NOT Ugly… You just need to BRAND it!

I’m sure you’ve heard that SharePoint has a boring interface.  I was even recently told the default SharePoint looks ugly.  Well, that is a matter of opinion, but if you have to look at it every day… I may begin to agree with you.  What I don’t agree with is that it is too hard to change the interface.  With master pages there are easy ways of changing it.  I’m not saying I think it’s easy to create a master page, but swapping one out and changing the overall look and feel can be easy with a few different master pages to choose from.  Essentially, one can download master pages from a variety of places, create your own.  The way to think about a SharePoint Master page is to think of changing the chrome and navigation.  It is essentially something that can change your overall design and contains the CSS for fonts and styles.  Another way to think about it is changing the brand for a site.

There are a few experts out there that I would point to on Branding.  If you’re an enterprise, you will likely either have branding people on staff or you’d hire it out.  In my experience, the branding people you have on staff wouldn’t want to touch SharePoint.  They are likely afraid of it.  It is something that takes some getting use to, and may indeed be a love hate relationship in the beginning and that’s emphasis on love to hate.   Read article