Ian Shere
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As far as the client - I'd dump him! One's like that will always cause trouble long term and you're better ditching him now. If it's not Artisteer he's whining about it'll be some other perceived fault. Do yourself a favor, get rid of him. He had no justifiable reason for his outburst from your post.
I see nothing wrong with using Artisteer as your only creation tool, though, long term, you should be learning at least some basic tweaks to move away from a pure Artisteer generated look. By the looks of your post you already do that. Kudos!
So, bottom line is he MAY be able to create a good template with Artisteer (that's assuming he knows how to use it and has design and color sense) or he may not. What it seems that he doesn't have is any ability to tweak the template once created.
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Don
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He is probably not even someone that could even set up Wordpress site even with Fantastico. He will try it once and then come running back to you. Charge him 25% more when he does.
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Abland
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Hi,
A number of years past I did plumbing for a living. What you describe would be like a customer yelling at me when I finished installing their kitchen sink because I used a power saw. 
I agree with Ian Shere. This client sounds like high maintenance. I have an hourly rate on which I base my quotes and with most of my clients I earn that full amount. But the odd one that I've stopped doing work for cut deep into that baseline rate with all the emails, calls, and hand holding. If I stayed with them I'd be lucky to clear minimum wage for the time I put into them.
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Homer
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I wouldn't do business with such crappy clients.
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SVRichard
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Two things come to mind.
1. If he was truly happy with your work, then what's the big deal for him? It should not be an issue even if you'd be using your granny's washing machine... if it did the job good...!
2. One has to wonder where's its coming from... him realizing from another web designer saying its not fair or its a cheap way to do a website? Not much you can do there other then agree and reminding him Artisteer is indeed part of your web tools to make it all come together for him and at a fair market price.
3. ...and of course, plan "B"; Let him prove himself wrong he can do it as good etc.
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Tuomas Leppänen
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Quote SVRichard:
Two things come to mind.
1. If he was truly happy with your work, then what's the big deal for him? It should not be an issue even if you'd be using your granny's washing machine... if it did the job good...!
2. One has to wonder where's its coming from... him realizing from another web designer saying its not fair or its a cheap way to do a website? Not much you can do there other then agree and reminding him Artisteer is indeed part of your web tools to make it all come together for him and at a fair market price.
3. ...and of course, plan "B"; Let him prove himself wrong he can do it as good etc.
Currently plan B. I switched to hourly rate which indeed is going to be huge boost in income. And I already got another order from him as he needs photo gallery system done, which, oddly artisteer couldnt do. Compared to old situation Im earning double income, and he was the one who wanted me to have hourly rate instead of paid by gig.
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SVRichard
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Quote :Compared to old situation I'm earning double income, and he was the one who wanted me to have hourly rate instead of paid by gig.
lol! Good for you and all the best with your endeavors! .got to like it when the client is wrong once in a while. 
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Hunter gatherer
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Tools are tools.
If you're client wanted you to fix his car and the latest tools made it easier for you and did a better job, should they stop you?
On the other hand, let the client get the same tools and when they don't know how to use them they'll be back. Artisteer has a learning curve.
HG
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David J
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@ Tuomas Leppänen
Tuomas, some people will whine about nearly everything... some of the most interesting art I have seen came from a famous artist he just slung paint on the canvas with cups, spoons, sometimes small buckets, used his hands and sometimes filled his mouth with paint and spit it on the canvas... they were unique and very valuable to many, many, people...
Lesson learned; You don't have to tell everything and you can still be honest!
My wife is Swedish/Finnish born and raised outside of Goteborg, she had a problem with that when we first got married... she thought she had to tell everything to be honest...it is not dishonest to withhold information at times...somethings are better keep to oneself.
It appears your desire to please your client backfired on you!
He sounds like a bully ( someone who wants to push people around) make them feel powerful or something. Yelling at you, was a small minded approach for him to take.
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Chuck
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Been using Artisteer for about 6 months now and have done about 10 different sites in this time and although an idiot could use Artisteer to create the drupal template... How about going from the barebones drupal site to something that can be used.
Even with a template generated sites, i still spend a few hours tweaking the files to get the layout 100% where i like and then i spend a whole heap of hours playing with modules, views and other configurations within Drupal.
My Opionion is - if you think you can do a better job go ahead... You employed me for a reason, so if you want to bitch and moan, go ahead... You need me alot more than than i need you.
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Joe
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Tuomas,
Don't be discouraged, consider this situation a learning experience and move on. The sooner you drop this control freak the sooner you'll find a new client/s that appreciate your work. They always want full control of every aspect of their business, and that's why they can't collaborate and grow beyond where they are at. Basically they just don't trust anybody else to do the work and they have a narrow perspective of others.
Using Artisteer creates an efficiency that makes you more productive and integrates with your existing skills to allow you to make more income. Basically you can do more quicker.
In the future you'll learn to avoid these types of individuals, and unless you have to work on premises don't let them see behind the curtain.
Cheers,
Joe
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MikeC
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Hence why I remove any reference to Artisteer before I integrate a template. 
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Mark C
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I presume he was also as indignant when he found out that you used Drupal/Wordpress/Joomla as a CMS instead of creating a custom one from scratch - just for him (as you do for all of your other clients). Imagine what he'd have to pay for that.
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Brett Bumeter
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That's the beauty of working as a contractor/consultant instead of working as an employee. You can fire people when they are stupid. 
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Ardoris
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Most obvious sign of Artisteer used site is footer.
So, change little bit for the footer and rename "art" from all files :D
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Tom
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My response would have been:
It doesn't matter what tool I'm using to create your website. You are primarily paying me a consultation fee for my knowledge and ability to get the job done correctly and efficiently.
The investment I have made for tools that accomplish a given task is beside the point. I have made substantial investments in these tools.
If you think you can login to your hosting account and click the button for the one click Joomla setup and configure everything, purchase Artisteer to create a template to upload, get everything working correctly the way you want it to, and track down bugs because it doesn't look right, go ahead - be my guest.
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Paul
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Let me make it clear from the start: I do agree with most of what was said here, but let’s consider this from a different angle:
If I was sold an art work as a professional piece and then found out that it was made from a coloring book I would be very irate to say the least. Artisteer is like a coloring book and more because it even adds color automatically. Bottom line as I see it is representation or misrepresentation. Also a factor is the amount charged for services rendered.
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tim
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Paul
Why does it matter what too he used? Is photo shop cheating because its better that Paint? When you pay for a service why do you care how its done and why should i tell you how i do it ? If you don't like the outcome complain.
if you know how t set up and configure a CMS why bother me anyway? If i give the product that you asked for and on time the price we agreed upon is fair if you; cant do it you pay for it.
There is a lot more to the templates than color and most people cant get that right anyway. The CSS is the same know matter how it got there ts webeditor will ad color so anything but wordpad+ is a no go for you?
why is that better than my way? because it takes longer? beside I don't reinvent the wheel every time i reuse most of the PHP and CSS
from the first theme i built and just change the COLOR or footer and menu . only my very first customer got a totally custom theme
If you think it is that easy you should have looked into the situation before you signed off in the project not complain after the fact.
the amount is not a factor it was agreed upon before work started
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Paul
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Tim,
As mentioned previously I do agree with most posts about difficult customers.
Let’s separate for the moment the two areas: visual design (look and feel or templates) and development (installation and setup of applications).
Firstly, Photoshop is a professional program and correct me if I’m wrong, the program doesn’t generate pictures; you actually have to take pictures yourself, and so I don’t get the comparison to Artisteer. From the original post I get that the customer complained about the fact that Atisteer was used to generate the template, not the implementation side which clearly he has no clue.
My point is representation and misrepresentation of skills and qualifications. I don’t have any problem with using a template generator like Artisteer (essentially a coloring book), but I would never misrepresent and call it a work of art. I would also charge accordingly.
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Tom
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Dreamweaver is also a WYSIWYG Design Editor that most professional web developers use - in visual mode. Artisteer is no different in that aspect. And You still have the ability to go into the css and php to tweak the code. So I believe that argument is invalid.
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Paul
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Quote Tom:
So I believe that argument is invalid.
What argument?
If you think that Dreanweaver and Artisteer are the same it just informs me of your level of understanding and sophistication or lack thereof. If you think they are the same then there is nothing more to say.
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Tom
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Very cute, Paul. I didn't say they were the same, did I? You know exactly what I'm saying. You have the visual editor to assist in the design and can use frick'n notepad to enhance the css and html after that if you wish.
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tim
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Paul
I'm sorry I over reacted :) but using Photo Shop or Gimp (it's free) is the same thing for pictures just a big coloring book you just click to take a picture its what you do with it after that is important. The way you are saying it I should charge more to use different programs that others.
Artisteer is a template generator basically it generates placeholders for widgets and extensions and your coloring book borders, shadows, and such.
The ART pictures, video, audio ext are in Gimp, Avid Media center ,Adobe Flash. are the art in a template.
They see what i have done and have a price i tweak it till its what they want or if i can't deliver we can move on.
using Artisteer is not misrepresentation if you deliver what you sold there is no misrepresentation I don't have to say i use Gimp or I use Photo Shop or Paint so why Artisteer?
There is no (art) in CSS or PHP sorry programmers not an insult its just a background for My pictures and media.
As far as the customer I don't tell them how to run their business and I'm not told how to run mine. I'm not that bull headed and don't give them a reason to be unhappy either. if what they saw isn't what they want i assume they would not have contacted me to do work for them.Y9WU1
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Tom
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He just needs to step off his high horse. I have been creating web and desktop database applications for many years, as an employee and consultant, and you what? I use whatever tool makes my life easiest. Plain and simple.
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Doyle
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I know this post has received many responses but I just felt like chiming-in. I have ONLY used Artisteer for a very short time period. And, I consider it a tool in my toolbox of little gadgets. For years, I worked with (and still do) Dreamweaver and some of the other Adobe products (Macromedia before that). Anyway, these are the tools we use. And each of these tools help us perform segments of an overall operation to produce a product.
For me, Artisteer has and will become my main contractor of foundation building when it comes to building web sites based on a Wordpress platform. I will do this to save time and not totally recreate the wheel so to speak. Further, I do not see this as a shortcut to diminish site quality - quite the other way around.
I also would drop any client who fell short of understanding that we use the tools of the trade. Heck, Wordpress alone is a huge tool. Anyway, those were my thoughts.
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Robbi Drake
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Got a question for you. I'm using the 2.3 version of artisteer. Anything that I render using it isn't visible below the header and menu in chrome. Is this a z-order issue? It appears to be but I'm not quite sure how to amend it so that it does show and I'm not seeing anything on the forums about it.
as far as your clients being ticked about you using artisteer. I've done it multiple ways, Artisteer is faster, its easier so just tell your client that if you had been doing it by hand, it would have cost him three times as much. You use artisteer to spit your code out after you build graphics by hand and the reality is that it saves you time so that you can give him cost effective prices. and then.. if he doesn't like it.. LOL I agree. dump him.
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Jo
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Congratulations Tuomas
Your client appears to be mildly retarded and unable to give a coherent response. I feel for you.
Loads of information that deals with coding and building websites is available to everyone for free. If they choose to pay for a service that "they can do themselves", it's their own choice which never can be your fault. No one would criticize a cleaner who offered vacuum-cleaning as a service when the client discovers that he can do that himself.
In the end, all that matters is getting the job done in time. If the result is great, it doesn't matter how it was done as long as it's ethical and legal. Using a program for simplifying tasks is smart, but also costs money! I am getting really tired of people who make up imaginary rules just because they are against "new" inventions such as WYSIWYG and user-friendly interfaces. Artisteer is great for creating a "base".
Those who criticize new inventions and the effectiveness it brings, do you also live in caves? Time to grow up and realize that you just lost the game.
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GraafG
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Wich basic tweaks do you guys use for the 2.4 version i removed the text description tags for the postheadericon image and add a favicon and remove the table layout from the css.
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Bingo
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As a I client, I pay for the results.
Either I am happy or unhappy with the results.
The means to the end should be irrelevant.
If I ask a carpenter to build me a table, I don't
question him about what kind of hammers he
owns !
Incidentally, I think it's a good idea though to remove
any Artisteer references from your template.
It's unnecessary and potentially just leads
to wasted time with idiot clients like this one.
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don
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I am upfront with clients, stating I offer high value based on the toolkit and processes I have developed over the years and numerous projects. I don't go into the details of listing specific products, just state my method embraces various commercial and custom tools and methods.
The benefit to them is they get higher quality product faster and cheaper than most others who do not have an efficient and proven methodology.
I've never had anyone question beyond that or encountered anyone like you have. I suspect many of the potential clients I have decided not to do business with were of the kind you had to deal with. Good luck.
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