Squarespace Wells Template: Is It Right for Your Website? [Review & Guide]

Introduction

The Squarespace Wells template, often lauded as the “artist’s choice,” boasts a clean, minimalist design that prioritizes visual content. This makes it an attractive option for creative professionals like photographers, artists, designers, and architects seeking to showcase their portfolios. Wells utilizes a distinct sidebar navigation, which lends a unique touch and allows for consistent branding across your website. If you’re looking for squarespace wells template examples, you’ll find that many photographers and artists favor this template for its streamlined aesthetics.

This blog post will serve as your guide to understanding the wells squarespace template inside and out. We’ll explore its intricacies, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and provide you with a clear understanding of whether it aligns with your website goals.

Dissecting the Squarespace Wells Template

Before diving into the specific attributes of Wells, let’s clarify a crucial point about Squarespace 7.1.

All Squarespace 7.1 Templates Are the Same

In Squarespace 7.1, every template possesses the same core functionality. Any design element you encounter in one template can be replicated on another. This means your decision should be driven by aesthetics—choose a template whose visual style resonates with you.

Gone are the days of painstakingly searching for a template with the perfect combination of features and then feeling trapped by your choice. Squarespace 7.1 eliminates template switching entirely. Once you select a template, you have access to the entire spectrum of site styles and features, allowing you to freely experiment and refine your design. This is a crucial factor to consider when deciding if a squarespace wells template is right for you.

Wells Template Features

Let’s break down the key features of the Wells squarespace template:

Sidebar

The sidebar is the defining element of the Wells template, present on every page. It’s a key aspect to consider when looking at squarespace wells template examples to determine if it fits your style. Here’s a look at its core components:

Site Title/Logo: This is where your brand name or logo takes center stage.
Tagline: A concise phrase to encapsulate your brand essence.
Main/Secondary Navigation: Organize your site’s pages with clear and easy-to-navigate menus.
Content Area: A customizable space to add blocks like text, images, buttons, or forms. Note that this section is hidden in mobile view.
Social Icons: Seamlessly link your social media profiles.
Gallery Page Navigation: Navigate through your gallery pages directly from the sidebar.

Squarespace provides a wealth of customization options for the sidebar. You can modify:

Width: Fine-tune the sidebar’s width to create the perfect balance.
Position: Choose whether it sits on the left or right side of the page.
Text Alignment: Align the text within the sidebar to your preference.
Fixed/Scrolling Behavior: Decide whether you want the sidebar to remain fixed as users scroll or to scroll along with the page.

On blog pages, you’ll encounter a second sidebar specifically for blog-related content, adding another layer of customization.

Background

The Wells squarespace template allows you to customize your site’s background color, but it doesn’t support background images. You can easily modify the background color using the “Site background” tweak in the “Site wide options” section within site styles.

Blog Pages

Blog pages in Wells adopt a straightforward layout, presenting a vertical list of posts.

Key characteristics of blog pages include:

Promoted Blocks: Image, gallery, and video blocks marked as “Promoted” will always appear above the post title, regardless of their position within the post itself.
Metadata: Dates and categories are displayed beneath the post titles.
Featured Images: Posts featuring excerpts will display their featured images below the title, provided there’s no promoted block present.
Excerpts: If you use excerpts, a “Read more” link will encourage users to delve into the full post.
Full Post Content: For posts without excerpts, the full content will be displayed directly under the title.
Additional Information: Source URL, tags, comments, shares, and likes will appear below the post content.

Individual blog posts follow a similar structure, with promoted blocks, dates, categories, and post content prominently displayed.

Wells grants you flexibility over the blog’s second sidebar, which can be populated with various blocks. Notably, this sidebar is shared across all blogs on your site. You can manage the sidebar’s appearance through the “Blog options” section in site styles. Here you can:

Determine the sidebar’s position (left or right).
Choose to hide the sidebar entirely.
Control its width and padding.

Gallery Pages

Wells offers a visually engaging presentation for your gallery pages, initially showcasing images and videos as a slideshow. Users have the option to switch to a thumbnail view either by clicking “Show thumbnails” in the bottom-left corner or by clicking the upward arrow that appears when hovering over an image. Clicking a thumbnail will bring the slideshow back to focus on that specific image. This slideshow format is a signature feature in squarespace wells template examples, particularly for those showcasing visual work.

You have control over the gallery layout through the “Gallery options” tweaks:

Initial Gallery View: Set the default view (slideshow or thumbnails) for users landing on your gallery pages.
Homepage Gallery View: Configure a different layout specifically for gallery pages that serve as your homepage.
Enable Gallery Thumbnails: Choose whether to allow users to switch to the thumbnail view.
Gallery Style: Decide between “Fit” (resizing images to fit the browser height) or “Fill” (cropping images to fill all available space).
Thumbnail Aspect Ratio and Width: Control the size and shape of your thumbnails.

Image captions will appear in the main sidebar when the slideshow view is active. However, they are hidden when thumbnails are displayed. The caption’s styling is governed by the “Text” tweaks within the “Site wide options” section. For color specifically, image titles will follow the “Headings color” tweak, while descriptions will inherit the “Body text color” tweak.

Navigating through your gallery slideshow is made simple with controls appearing in the main sidebar. You can choose to display them as text, bullets, or hide them altogether. The appearance of these controls can be further customized using the “Gallery controls” tweaks.

Hovering your mouse over the sides of a slideshow image will transform the cursor into left and right arrows for easy scrolling. This feature is disabled if the gallery only contains a single image.

Footer

The Wells squarespace template lacks a built-in footer. If a footer is essential for your website, you might consider exploring other Squarespace templates.

Fonts

Wells allows you to customize your site’s fonts using the “Site wide options” tweaks in site styles. You can fine-tune the appearance of your text to match your brand identity.

Mobile Responsiveness

Squarespace takes care of mobile responsiveness automatically, ensuring your Wells website adapts seamlessly to smaller screens.

Here’s how Wells’ elements adjust for mobile:

Site Title/Logo: Use the “Mobile site title style: manual” tweak under “Site title / Logo options” to control the font and size of your site title. Adjust the logo size with the “Mobile logo image size” tweak.
Blog Sidebar: This sidebar shifts to appear below the page content, providing a clean mobile layout.
Navigation Sidebar: The entire navigation sidebar collapses behind a “Menu” link in the top-right corner, optimizing screen real estate.

The “Menu” link will be present even if your main and secondary navigation menus are empty. Dropdowns automatically expand to reveal nested links, and clicking a dropdown title will open the first nested page. The overlay background color is determined by the “Navigation (active) color” tweak within “Site navigation options.” Navigation links inherit the “Site background” color.

Is Wells the Right Template for You?

With its clean design and focus on visual storytelling, Wells shines as a portfolio-centric template. It’s crucial to weigh its strengths and weaknesses when deciding whether a squarespace wells template aligns with your website’s purpose.

Wells would be an ideal choice for:

Photographers: Showcase your stunning imagery in a captivating slideshow format.
Artists: Present your artwork with a minimalist backdrop that lets your creations shine.
Designers: Highlight your design projects with a template that emphasizes visual impact.
Architects: Create an online portfolio to exhibit your architectural masterpieces.

However, there are situations where Wells might not be the optimal choice:

Complex Blog Layouts: The simple, linear layout of Wells’ blog pages might not suit websites needing a more intricate blog design.
Websites Requiring a Footer: If a footer is crucial for showcasing additional information or calls to action, you’ll need to select a different template.

Troubleshooting Common Wells Issues

While the Wells template is generally user-friendly, you might encounter a few common issues. Let’s explore some troubleshooting tips:

Missing Navigation Sidebar on Mobile: Remember, the sidebar is replaced with a “Menu” link on mobile due to responsive design. This is intentional to provide a better mobile experience.
Dropdown Title Navigation Links Alignment: If a dropdown title is a single, long word, it might not center correctly on mobile. Try breaking long titles into multiple words for improved visual balance. Similarly, single-word links might appear cut off on desktops. Consider using multi-word links or shortening them.
Hidden Gallery Page Navigation Controls: This could be because you’ve enabled the “Gallery controls: hide” tweak or because there isn’t enough space in the sidebar. Ensure the tweak is disabled and adjust the sidebar width or content if necessary.
Out-of-Order Gallery Page Thumbnails: Using the “Thumbnail aspect ratio: Auto” setting can sometimes lead to thumbnails appearing out of order. Select a fixed aspect ratio to enforce a consistent thumbnail size and order.
Image Captions and Navigation Displaying on the Wrong Side: This is likely caused by the responsive design shifting these elements to an overlay on smaller screens. You can resolve this by widening your browser window, shortening titles and descriptions, reducing the number of navigation links, or opting for dropdowns.
Shrinking Logo or Site Title: The sidebar’s width can cause your logo or site title to shrink. You can increase the sidebar width using the appropriate tweak or adjust the logo/title size directly using the “Site title size” or “Logo image width” tweaks.
Sidebar Overlapping Gallery Image Captions: Several factors can contribute to this. Try adjusting the navigation link font size, gallery control size, removing sidebar blocks, or expanding your browser window.
Random Text Appearing on Social Media Shares: Content from the blog sidebar might appear in social media shares, even if it’s hidden on your website. Delete the demo content from the blog sidebar to prevent this.
Site Navigation Extending Below the Browser Window: Unchecking the “Sidebar fixed” option will allow the sidebar to scroll along with the page, solving this problem. If a fixed sidebar is essential, try reducing the number of navigation links, using dropdowns, or removing sidebar blocks to shorten its height.

FAQs

Can I add a custom footer to the Wells template?

Unfortunately, the Wells squarespace template doesn’t have a built-in footer, and there’s no option to add one.

Does Wells support parallax scrolling for background images?

No, the Wells squarespace template only supports a solid background color. Parallax scrolling for background images is not available.

Is it possible to change the sidebar’s background color separately from the main website background?

No, there’s no separate styling option for the sidebar’s background color. It inherits the main “Site background” color.

Conclusion

The Squarespace Wells template excels as a platform for showcasing visual work. If your website aims to captivate with stunning imagery or striking design, Wells provides a perfect canvas. While its simple blog layout and lack of a footer might pose limitations for some, its overall clarity and elegance make it a compelling choice for creative individuals and businesses. Before committing to a Wells squarespace template, explore its possibilities through Squarespace’s free trial to determine if it aligns with your website’s vision.