In my years as a web designer I can’t remember how many times I’ve had to theme a back-end admin system for one reason or another. It seems to be a really common task so when we started ThemeForest a couple months ago I added an "Admin Skins" category for back-end admin themes and it’s turned out to be the most popular category on the whole site. It makes sense because a client admin area often just needs to look neat, tidy and professional, so spending ten or fifteen dollars on an HTML skin is a pretty economical way to make the job look nice and slick, especially if design isn’t your primary skill set. The themes generally have a range of styles for things like tables, lists and even calendars, so they are pretty flexible and can be moulded to fit most little applications.
Here are 7 of the best admin skins, note that because they are via ThemeForest, they are paid themes. But hey in my extremely biased opinion they are worth it :-)
1. eManager 1.0
Features: Three level menu (nav, subnav, tabs), stylish form fields and table, and a neat web 2.0 look.
2. ProAdmin Template
Features: Tons of navigation options, calendar, jQuery drop downs, and clean, crisp styling.
3. Splash Manager
Features: Three colour schemes, jQuery drop downs, sharp looking layout.
4. Admin Nano
Features: Four colour schemes, calendar, two level nav, alert/error messages.
5. Blank Web Application Theme
Features: Super flexible layout, three colour schemes, whole bunch of themed pages.
6. Simple CSS Admin Theme
Features: Simple, clean, 2-column layout
7. Ninja Admin
Features: Super simple, clean layout.
And you can find plenty more themes like these in the Admin Skins category on ThemeForest.
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I’m going to be controversial and say that I’m not a big fan of wordpress admin skins. I’ve often though (even with apps such as WinAmp) that custom skins are never as user-friendly and/or pretty as the original. WordPress, for example, now has a great admin section (even better things to come in 2.7), and so I’d prefer to leave things as they are.
That’s just me though – I’m sure everybody else will disagree. I guess one ‘cheeky’ element is that people customising software such as wordpress admin/comments validation page (go back and fill in email, etc.) can remove the wordpress logo and claim the work as their own :)
who said these were for wordpress?
These are great. I am currently building an admin theme of my own and and it is a good thing to see what else is out there. Thanks for the post Collis.
This is awesome, thank you. Often the admin section is the hardest of any part of the site to get looking good. It has to be very clean, useable, professional, and it always has hundreds of editable form elements.
Design nightmare.
Good stuff. I like seeing admin themes more then normal web design, admin themes imo are much harder, and these examples help a lot. Thanks.
#6 and #4 are my favorites!
#2 (ProAdmin Template) is a definite NO NO! It looks quite nice but looking at the source code almost made me fall off my chair!!! :(
eManager looks very promising for a CMS
I really enjoy the Tutorial content on the TUTS websites . . . but lately there has been a lot less Tutorial content and more “This is really just a big advertisement for someone or something we work with” content.
I agree that some of those themes look pretty—not worth paying for, in my opinion, but pretty nonetheless.
For those of us who often design web app interfaces I think this is a great post! More inspiration in back-end interfaces is always helpful.
@MK Owens Sure it features content on another site in the Envato network, but it is still a resourceful post. The idea behind a site like NETTUTS is to open readers up to more techniques and ideas for their web development needs. This post does exactly that. Next time you are short on time in a back-end development project you can flip through this post for some inspiration, or just purchase one of these. No matter how you look at it, it’s a resourceful post.
Cross promotion of content is normal. I would say that Envato was foolish if they didn’t do it.
These are some really awesome themes! Too bad you have to pay for them…
A nice collection here, but where’s yours, Collis? :)
hmm. are those for wordpress? or simply css layout? are they meant to be used with any existing CMS??
How do you use these? Do they come with the software needed to work or do you have to build that yourself? I currently just use Cushy CSM.
It’s really a good collection.
#1,#2,#5, and #7 are my favorites. definetely going to look into using one of them.
Nice! :D
This is rather shameless plugging… this site is informational and I’m sure themeforrest would have had little success without the TUTs sites. I realise that you have to make money but this one felt like to much of a sell. Just a heads up.
Andrew
hehe, yeah it is shameless :-) I try to keep these posts vaguely on-topic though, but yes this is definitely to push NETTUTS readers over to ThemeForest!
That’s part of why we try to open pairs of marketplace and TUTS sites together actually. Helps underwrite the cost of the tutorials and to traffic the marketplaces, so everyone wins!
These templates are nice and well designed. But not all of them are awesome. Some of them have looks that are pretty common nowadays.
wow, this is cool themes. i must have this.
@bob – I assumed it was for WordPress, since that’s one of the tools for which ThemeForest caters. I also recognised some of the admin panels as wordpress.
Collis – am I wrong – are they not for wordpress?
Cool themes. I really like eManager. Thanks Collis.
Great post. The design of the admin area is so important, I think these are awesome examples of great admin design.
@Shane – Many of them are static templates.
The Admin skins area of ThemeForest is easily my favourite – as a non-designer myself they come in so handy! I think I have at least 3 of the ones in your post here downloaded simply for ‘if-and-when’ use :)!
These could easily be used for intranet web apps. I’ve been looking for some skins for a long time but all are web site focused rather than web app focused. Are there any other good places for web app specific css based templates?
a couple google searches led me to:
http://www.getadevbox.com/
http://www.gooeytemplates.com/
There was also a discussion on Joel on Software:
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.632032.12
I liked the eManager and the Simple admin very much.
Being the beginner in CSS, I never realised admin does have a special need for some different looks.
The articles sweet, but thats cause I like to see stylish admin interfaces for projects as it gives me inspiration.
but instead of just this one about admin interfaces how about a whole article on different admin interfaces from different websites, showcasing the best admin interfaces on the net.
Please create an article on what I’m talking about, pretty please!
I use Admin Nano and Collis’ Quik Admin. I bought them to motivate me to learn new things, I got Quik to learn PHP and build a CMS then Nano to learn Rails and make a few apps.
@Shane, none of them are for WordPress, they are all just HTML.
@Jeffrey, @Simon – ah, thanks for clearing that one up. I obviously got the wrong end of the stick.
@Jeffrey – couldn’t agree more about your other comment about what makes you chuckle.
Personally i also like the Quik v1 admin skin from.. ta da..: Collis.. :o)
My personal faves are eManager and Quik..
Nice article..
anyone here use these to skin a cakePHP driven admin? haven’t opened these up yet but i just need something that i can use quickly and without thinking too much…
this will come in quite handy for a new project proposal at work.
Thanks so much for sharing.
All are Nice Design, Thank you for sharing
I love number 7
how bout an article on how to integrate it into expression engine?
Very Nice!
i think that #6 is a rip from the AIGA admin theme
here you can take a look of a screen
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/4775/aigacmsdashboardhj1.png
and here you can download all the screens
http://www.sendspace.com/file/idqn9d
i dont remember the name of the guy who did it, but come on, look at the website of the #6 theme… its horrible and he did a cool admin theme??
nice themes. I’m currently building a CMS and this is great inspiration.
E-Manager is excellent. :)
Personally i think that the 1st and 7th ones were the best
I’m really loving the eManager and Ninja templates…very simple and effective yet easy on the eye. Good stuff.
Most comments have similar taste! That’s a good thing right? :)
Nice themes, I think I will use some of them! :)
Like You said i cant remember how many times i had to design admin zone in past 7 years of my web business :(
And this is GREAT idea!!!
I think it would be great if there will be same themes with other AJAX platforms.
Anyway… good luck, great idea ;)
A timely post for me, about to start a new application so I’ll try some of these for sure!
wow its nice stuff
Wow thanks, but supposingly this theme for WP only? am i right?!
this is wonderful tutorial i will put acopy of this lesson on
my site here
http://www.as7ap4you.com
Love the e-manager template. Bought that one myself for an application I’m trying to build.