The Brine family are still the best 7.0 Squarespace templates

People always want to know how to pick a Squarespace template, or which is the best template.

While it does depend on what features you actually want to have on your website (whether you want a side bar, pre-footer, full-width banners, buttons & content on your banner images, etc.), my go-to for 7.0 is still the Brine family of templates.

Want my thoughts on the new 7.1? Keep reading.

Why Brine is still the best Squarespace 7.0 template family

The Brine template family actually has nearly 50 different template design options.

ALL of those Brine family templates have the exact same design/style options, capabilities & functionality, but they are designed a little differently using those features/options/capabilities. You just choose the design closest to the style you’re going for, and it gets you to the end result faster.

Which templates are in the Brine family?

Here’s the list straight from Squarespace’s site:

  1. Aria

  2. Basil

  3. Blend

  4. Brine

  5. Burke

  6. Cacao

  7. Clay

  8. Ethan

  9. Fairfield

  10. Feed

  11. Foster

  12. Greenwich

  13. Hatch

  14. Heights

  15. Hunter

  16. Hyde

  17. Impact

    • (what I used for my site before I migrated to 7.1)

  18. Jaunt

  19. Juke

  20. Keene

  21. Kin

  22. Maple

  23. Margot

  24. Marta

  25. Mentor

  26. Mercer

  27. Miller

  28. Mojave

  29. Moksha

  30. Motto

  31. Nueva

  32. Pedro

  33. Polaris

  34. Pursuit

  35. Rally

  36. Rover

  37. Royce

  38. Sofia

  39. Sonny

  40. Sonora

  41. Stella

  42. Thorne

  43. Vow

  44. Wav

  45. West

 

Features I love

Supported page types:

  • Album Pages

  • Blog Pages (Advanced options)

  • Cover Pages

  • Events Pages

  • Gallery Pages

  • Index Pages

  • Layout Pages

  • Products Pages (Advanced options)

Header options:

  • Primary & Secondary navigation

    • lots of placement options: Top Left, Top Center, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Center, Bottom Right

    • can style each separately

  • built-in options for:

    • social media icons

    • search

    • cart

    • sign-in/my account

Banner options:

  • Add customized-per-page text, buttons & other blocks on top of a page’s banner image.

  • the banner image becomes the background for bottom-level headers

  • full bleed images (full width, except when constrained layout option is selected)

  • works with Parallax, which scrolls the page and the background image at different speeds

Footer options:

  • columns layout (includes top & bottom area, and 3 columns in the middle)

  • stacked layout (top, middle & bottom areas with links & business information areas too)

Index navigation:

  • built-in ways to allow for easy navigation in long-scroll, index pages

    • scroll-down indicator (line or arrow, with or without ‘scroll’ text, or none)

    • None, Radio, Filled Dots, Faded Dots, Horizontal Lines, Vertical Lines, Expanding Horizontal Lines 

Blog options:

  • blog home layout in either a grid or an ongoing list

  • choose how much data shows in the blog home (meta data, title, date, excerpt, etc.)

  • separator styling, between posts in the listed layout

  • read more link

  • blog pagination

    • blog navigation options (previous/next + arrow & appropriate blog title)

  • share icons

    • above/below post content

  • blog-specific content styling

Extras:

  • site-wide border options

  • customized share buttons for collection pages (blogs, albums, events, products, etc.)

  • extra options for shop page

  • mobile navigation options

  • choose the weight or size of many of the icons

    • search

    • scroll indicator

    • index page navigation

    • social icon sizes

  • Gallery/slideshow banners with styling specific to this layout option

 

No sidebars

There’s a decent case to be made for AND against using sidebars on websites.

PROS & CONS

The argument for having a sidebar on your website suggests it’s a useful place to put information that may be useful to the reader.

The argument against says having a sidebar on your website is that it's ultimately just a distraction from the content and it could encourage them to leave the page sooner than you want them to.

If you would like to have a sidebar in strategic places though, such as your contact page or blog post, you can use this tutorial to easily create a fake sidebar wherever you need it.

Since the Brine family doesn’t support sidebars as a built-in structural element, this actually gives you more freedom to change things up.

For example, if you want a sidebar in all of your blog posts, you can do this by creating a blank template page with all the structural layout elements you intend to use in each post, then layout your sidebar in that draft/template. Whenever you go to post a new blog, start with that template Draft, duplicate it then edit the duplicate; save or publish that when you’re ready.

This would let you change up freebies/opt-ins in your sidebar as it relates to your specific post, or display new offers, remind readers of opportunities to book with you, share links to popular posts, show Blog categories, a brief bit about you & a photo –whatever you like! It would appear the same in each post, because you started with the same layout and of course you completely control the content & layout.

PRO TIP:
Mobile versions of the older 7.0 version of Squarespace websites automatically display content responsively, from top to bottom, left to right. So if you place your fake sidebar on the left, it will display on mobile BEFORE your content. If you add your fake sidebar on the right side of the desktop layout, it will display AFTER the content on mobile.

 

7.0 vs 7.1: Should I switch, or start with 7.1?

Squarespace still supports versions of websites prior to 7.0, so do whatever you feel most comfortable with, based on what you need your website to do for your business. That said,…

While you don’t need to switch from 7.0 to 7.1, at this point (several years post 7.1’s launch) I’d definitely encourage you to make the jump and migrate your site from the old to the new.

The new version was rolled out in 2019 or so. It started out fairly limited at that stage, while they were still developing & tweaking, but now it has way more features than 7.0, it’s predecessor.

New features are not always available on the older version 7.0, so the longer you stay on the old version, the more functionalities you’re missing out on! Including things like:

  • stores on 7.1 can have up to 10,000 products (rather than 7.0’s limit of 200)

  • index pages are handled much differently & way better

  • saved sections (templated layouts that are reusable across your website)

  • Fluid Engine (the new design editor)

  • making mobile-specific changes to your design layouts

  • Portfolio Collection and Video Collection page types

  • Color Themes, and more paragraph styles

  • among many other perks!

My opinion: Squarespace is NOT actively focusing on adding new features to 7.0 anymore. They are still doing bug fixes & that kind of thing, and of course, they still support users on 7.0 and likely will for years to come. Ultimately, whether you migrate to the new version will depend on several factors:

  • what features do you need on your website right now?

  • do you want access to new features, like Fluid Engine (or the others listed above)?

  • can you afford to pay someone to help you move your website from version 7.0 to version 7.1?

Unfortunately, you can’t just “switch” your template from the old version to the new. So you will want to either hire someone to move that content over FOR you, or copy/paste it all into a new 7.1 site yourself.

READ MORE: 3 key steps you can’t miss if you’re rebranding, switching domains & changing your Google branded email!

I should note that while it’s smart at this point to make the leap & migrate to v7.1, if you’re on the old version and you can’t afford or don’t have time to move over just yet, Squarespace will still support version 7.0 for a long time to come.

If you’re brand new to Squarespace, then you’ll be starting with a 7.1 template by default.

 

Not sure which template your Squarespace website is using?

Watch this video to find out!

 
Katelyn Dekle

This article was written by me, Katelyn Dekle, the owner & designer behind Launch the Damn Thing®!

I love coffee & chai, curse like a sailor, make meticulous plans, am very detail-oriented, and love designing websites on Squarespace. As a Web Designer & Educator with nearly 20 years of professional design experience, I’m still passionate about helping & teaching others how to finally 'launch the damn thing' –and have fun in the process!

https://www.launchthedamnthing.com
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