The thing about design and design is that one is created with the tools and fads of the day to make something that looks nice and the other is created with specific form, objective, and purpose.

People were blown away when a video appeared recreating ios7 in Microsoft Word. Pretty cool, huh? The tools don't matter. The colors don't matter. The fonts don't matter. If it get's it's job done successfully, then it is good design. If it looks good while doing it, even better. In reality, things that look good just make it more likely that people will receive your message or be able to use your product. It enhances your ability to reach your objectives, if the objectives are there in the first place. The function should always come first.

A kid with a Wordpress theme is decorating. He's taking a template that someone else made. The objective of the original designer was to provide a broad-spectrum solution to typical web goals to sell to kids like him. Then the kid changes the colors, fonts, copy, and calls it a day. Neither of these people took into consideration that true design would be created for the client based on their particular goals and objectives.

Let's say you have a flyer. This flyer is supposed to let local people know that you are opening a new business and you are having a grand opening next Saturday. What's the difference between a "good" and "bad" flyer?

It's not because one is ugly. Ugly is subjective. Badly designed flyers are badly designed because they don't tell the audience what the audience should know. We get so caught up in the details that we often forget the original goals. A flyer that says,

             "NEW COFFEE SHOP ON MAIN AND 5TH STREET. GRAND OPENING SATURDAY." 

in 72pt font would be a successful flyer. It tells people that you have a shop, its location, and the fact that there is a grand opening.

Now, if the goal is to get people to come to the grand opening, you have to give them a reason to come.

               "NEW COFFEE SHOP ON MAIN AND 5TH STREET. GRAND OPENING SATURDAY. FREE COFFEE ALL DAY."

Now you have everyone who wants a free coffee and has nothing better to do in your coffee shop on main and 5th street on Saturday. But what about those people who only like coffee shops for their wifi? What about the people who only drink coffee before or during work? What about those who care more about the price than the coffee? What about people who love decaf coffee? What about those who only want to be seen in a cool coffee shop that matches their style?

               "NEW COFFEE SHOP ON MAIN AND 5TH STREET. GRAND OPENING SATURDAY. FREE COFFEE ALL DAY. FREE WIFI. ALSO, FREE COFFEE FRIDAY MORNING FOR YOU PEOPLE WITH JOBS. SMALL COFFEE $2.00. MEDIUM COFFEE $3.00. LARGE COFFEE $4.00. REFILLS ONLY $1.00. DECAF COFFEE ALSO AVAILABLE. [PHOTO OF HIP PLACE][ANOTHER PHOTO]"

Suddenly your flyer has too much information to easily digest and you've lost all of your audiences.

One way designers combat this is through hierarchy. You typically do this through contrast - contrast of size, color, shape etc. The first thing you want someone to know is largest, the second thing is smaller, etc. You guide them through the information and have a better chance that 80% of people will know you have a new coffee shop. 70% will know the location. 60% will know about the grand opening. And so on.

How does this all apply to the difference between Wordpress kids and designers? Well, a Wordpress kid would take a flyer off of Google, change the colors to match your store, add the information in the set places, and it would be beautiful. But would it accomplish its goal? Maybe. If you are lucky. Whenever you are using someone else's pre-defined placement, navigation, and hierarchy, chances are it's not going to do its job. You have to add an extra sentence here. You have to add another button there. You have to change the colors. Now you've lost the contrast. Now you've lost the sizes. Now you have 5 sentences where there used to be 10. Or 5 sentences where there used to be 1.

90% of the time I spend designing is talking to clients, figuring out their objectives, and doing wireframes to perfect the hierarchy. I can put pretty colors and fonts on a page in about 10 minutes. I can write the HTML/CSS/JS for a site in 8 hours. But the site will never be good if I just sit down and code it in 8 hours. I have to spend 80 figuring out exactly what it's supposed to do and the best way to do it. Add another 80 when the client changes their mind and another 80 if you want it tested and to work on all devices and ie8.