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IT Graphics Magazine
August 2001

Template for Global Success
by Aiden Ormond

Sydney design group Hot Chilli has just won the inaugural Yellow Pages E-Business Award with a handy cash prize of $50,000. It created Template Central, which is a do-it-yourself web site that provides thousands of professional design templates to add impact to virtually any form of publication, be it digital or print.

Hot Chilli Creative Director, Paul Wilson, a one-time computer apps teacher, founded Template Central in 2000 and has quickly built it into an international e-business success, attracting customers from as far a field as New York and London.

In fact, 92 per cent of the site's revenues come from outside Australia. Wilson added that Template Central has seen a 2000 percent increase in business in the last 12 months.

"Right from the beginning, I recognised that this business was ideally suited to the Internet since professional Web, presentation and other document templates could easily be made accessible to customers over the Web."

"The success of Template Central is largely due to its ability to enhance to almost every form of published communication, whether it's being developed by creative professionals, large or small business users, students, consultants or home users. This solution is ideal for anyone who wants their work to look professional," said Wilson.

According to Forrester Research, the downloadable software market is tipped to grow substantially over the next few years and Template Central is poised to take full advantage.

Only three per cent of current online sales consist of digitally downloadable products, but Forrester expects this figure to rocket to 22 per cent, with a value of US$2.9 billion, by 2004.

Template Central supports producst ranging from Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Outlook through to Dreamweaver, FrontPage and GoLive, and there are more than 3000 templates on the site at www.templatecentral.com.