Clay

What Clay is

Clay is one of Ghost Plugins' Paper templates: a 20 page Squarespace 7.1 Fluid Engine starter kit that ships as a clean, non-branded slate with placeholder copy, or as a Branded version with preset colours and styling applied. It is not an artist portfolio. The old listing on this page described Clay as a template for artists and designers with galleries; the demo is a general purpose business site with two home page options, five inner page layouts, three blog layouts, a store and three contact layouts, so I have rewritten this from the vendor page and the live demo.

What it does

The 20 pre-designed pages are Home 01 and 02, Page 01 to 05 (general inner page layouts for services, about, pricing and similar), Blog 01 to 03, Store, Contact 01 to 03, a 404 page, FAQs, Schedule, Coming Soon, Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You keep the layouts you need, delete the rest and drop in your own content inside the normal Squarespace editor. The design uses a small amount of CSS for finishing touches and Ghost include a template guide that explains those tweaks. Choosing the Paper version gives you a neutral base to apply your own brand; the Branded version is the same structure already styled.

Who it suits

Small businesses, consultants, freelancers and designers who want a well structured multi-page site fast and are happy to bring their own brand. Designers building client sites will like that the licence allows client use and that Ghost's Pro Access membership unlocks the whole template library. If you need a portfolio or gallery heavy site, this is not the right kit.

One honest caveat

Clay is deliberately generic. Every page is lorem ipsum and the Paper version has no personality until you add one, so the result depends entirely on your typography, colour and imagery choices. Twenty pages is also more than most small sites need; expect to spend the first hour deleting. And the template is installed by Ghost into a new trial site, so an existing site needs their paid Concierge Install upgrade.

Setup

After purchase Ghost install the template in a new Squarespace trial site and send you access via site permissions within 24 hours. If you want it on an existing site, add the Concierge Install option. The package includes an extended 12 month Squarespace trial, a discount on an annual Squarespace plan and a licence covering personal and client use. It is also available through Ghost's Pro Access membership instead of a one-off purchase.

Related guide

Clay sits with the other general purpose kits in my Squarespace templates for small businesses collection and the full Squarespace templates list. Before you buy a starter kit, read how to choose the right Squarespace template.