Squarespace Wells Template: Is It Right for Your Website? [Review & Guide]

Squarespace Wells Template: A Complete Guide for Creatives

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The Squarespace platform has long been a favorite for artists, photographers, designers, and architects, thanks to its clean aesthetics and portfolio-centric features. Among its classic designs, one name often comes up in conversations about minimalist, elegant portfolio sites: the squarespace wells template. Renowned for its distinctive sidebar navigation and grid-based layouts, Wells became a go-to choice for creatives wanting to put their work front and center.

But if you’re looking for it today, you might have some questions. Is it still available? How does it compare to modern Squarespace 7.1 sites? This comprehensive guide will explore the legacy of the wells template, its defining features, and how you can achieve a similar, powerful look on the latest version of Squarespace.

Table of Contents

What Was the Squarespace Wells Template?

The wells squarespace template was a popular template in the Squarespace 7.0 family. Its signature feature was a static, always-visible sidebar that housed the site’s logo, navigation links, and social media icons. This unique website sidebar design set it apart from more traditional top-navigation layouts, creating a focused and immersive browsing experience.

Here’s what made the wells template squarespace a standout choice:

  • Fixed Sidebar Navigation: The persistent sidebar meant that navigation was always accessible without intruding on the main content area. This made it a fantastic squarespace template with sidebar navigation.
  • Grid-Based Galleries: The wells template excelled at displaying portfolio work. Its gallery pages automatically arranged images into a clean, structured grid, making it an ideal squarespace art gallery template.
  • Minimalist Aesthetic: With a strong focus on typography and white space, the design was inherently clean, allowing the visual work to be the star. This is why it was often considered the best squarespace template for architects and other visual professionals. Many squarespace wells template examples showcase this powerful, minimalist approach.

For these reasons, creatives flocked to the squarespace template wells for its portfolio-first approach, and it remains a benchmark for clean, sidebar-based designs.

The Shift from Squarespace 7.0 to 7.1

It’s crucial to understand that squarespace wells is a Squarespace 7.0 template. Around 2019, Squarespace launched version 7.1, which fundamentally changed how templates work.

In Squarespace 7.0, each template (like Wells, Brine, or the weigh in template) had a unique underlying structure and features. Switching templates in squarespace 7.0 meant moving your content to a completely different framework, which could be a complex process.

Squarespace 7.1 streamlined this. All 7.1 sites share the same core template and feature set. The "templates" you see in the squarespace template gallery today are simply starting points—professionally designed style configurations that can be fully customized. This makes switching templates in squarespace 7.1 a thing of the past; instead, you can now change your site’s entire look without migrating to a new template. If you are considering switching from squarespace 7.0 to 7.1, it’s a manual rebuilding process, but it offers far more design flexibility in the long run. Our squarespace 7.1 review is overwhelmingly positive for this reason, as it gives users unparalleled control.

How to Recreate the Wells Look in Squarespace 7.1

While you can’t install the original wells squarespace template on a new 7.1 site, you can absolutely recreate its iconic aesthetic. The key is to build a squarespace 7.1 sidebar navigation.

Unfortunately, a native, site-wide sidebar squarespace 7.1 feature doesn’t exist out of the box. However, you have two primary options:

  1. Custom Code (CSS/JavaScript): For those comfortable with coding, you can manually create a fixed sidebar. This gives you complete control over the design but requires technical knowledge. You can find many tutorials online that walk you through creating a sticky sidebar squarespace effect.
  2. Use a Plugin: The easiest and most reliable method is to use a squarespace sidebar plugin. Several third-party developers offer high-quality plugins that allow you to add sidebar to squarespace blog pages or your entire site. A good sidebar plugin squarespace will give you a robust, customizable sidebar without touching a line of code, effectively creating a modern squarespace template with sidebar.

Beyond the sidebar, you can use Squarespace 7.1’s versatile Gallery Sections to create the grid layouts that made squarespace gallery templates like Wells so popular.

Understanding Key Design Concepts Inspired by Wells

The design principles behind the Wells template are still relevant today. Here are a few key concepts and how they apply to modern Squarespace sites.

Sidebar Navigation and Blogs

A common request is for squarespace blog templates with sidebar functionality. A squarespace blog sidebar is excellent for displaying categories, an author bio, popular posts, or a search bar. In 7.1, you can achieve this by adding a block section next to your main blog content section or by using a dedicated squarespace 7.1 blog sidebar plugin. The process for how to add sidebar squarespace can be straightforward with the right tools.

Secondary Navigation

Many users wonder, what is secondary navigation in squarespace? Secondary navigation is an additional menu, often used in the footer or a sidebar, for less critical links like "Careers," "FAQ," or "Terms of Service." The sidebar navigation squarespace in the Wells template essentially served as the primary navigation, but on modern sites, a sidebar can be a perfect place for secondary links. You can learn how to add secondary navigation in squarespace 7.1 by adding a Navigation Block to a section, like your site footer or a custom-built sidebar.

Optimal Image Sizing

For any portfolio site, image optimization is key. Many users ask, what size should images be on squarespace? While there is no single perfect size, a good squarespace image size recommendation is to upload images that are between 1500 and 2500 pixels on their longest edge. This ensures they look crisp on all devices without slowing down your site.

  • Squarespace Banner Image Size / Squarespace Hero Image Size: For full-width banners, aim for 2500 pixels wide to ensure sharpness on large displays.
  • Squarespace Featured Image Size: For blog posts or portfolio items, a width of 1500-2000 pixels is generally sufficient. The exact squarespace blog featured image size you need will depend on your specific layout (e.g., side-by-side or full-width).

Switching and Identifying Squarespace Templates

The desire to switch squarespace template often comes from seeing a design you admire. Understanding the process is key.

If you are on an older 7.0 site, you can still switch between other 7.0 templates. But if you want a 7.1 design, you’ll need to rebuild. For those on 7.1, you don’t need to switch template squarespace 7.1. You simply customize your existing design.

But what if you want to know what template a site is using? You can try to detect squarespace template by right-clicking on the page and selecting "View Page Source." Then, search (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) for the word "templateId". The string of characters next to it is the template’s ID, which you can sometimes look up online. A more user-friendly method is to use a squarespace template detector browser extension, which can often detect squarespace theme with a single click. This is a great way to figure out how to find squarespace template styles you like. If you’re wondering where to find squarespace templates to start with, the official Squarespace design library is the best place.

Many of the questions around this topic boil down to how to switch squarespace template 7.1, and the simple answer is that you don’t—you redesign. This is a core strength of the new platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i change the template on squarespace?
In Squarespace 7.1, you don’t change or switch templates. You start with a design and then customize it fully using the Site Styles panel. For older Squarespace 7.0 sites, you can install a new template from the Design menu and preview it before making it live.

Can you switch squarespace templates?
Yes, on Squarespace 7.0, you can switch between different 7.0 templates. On Squarespace 7.1, you cannot switch templates because all sites use the same underlying framework. Instead, you change your site’s design and style. This is why discussions about a squarespace switch template 7.1 are really about redesigning.

What is secondary navigation?
Secondary navigation refers to a supplementary set of links on your website, separate from your main menu. It’s often placed in a site’s footer or a sidebar and is used for pages like "Contact," "Privacy Policy," or "Terms and Conditions" that don’t need to be in the primary header navigation.

Can I get a Squarespace 7.1 sidebar?
Yes, while not a built-in feature, you can add a squarespace 7.1 sidebar to your site using custom CSS code or, more easily, by installing a third-party sidebar squarespace plugin. This allows you to replicate the functionality of classic templates like Wells.

What were some popular squarespace wells template examples?
Many wells template squarespace examples belonged to photographers, architects, and visual artists. These sites typically featured a clean, minimalist grid of images on the homepage, with the distinctive static navigation sidebar on the left or right, showcasing the power of the design.

Are there good modern squarespace architecture templates?
Absolutely. While Wells was once considered one of the best squarespace templates for architects, the modern Squarespace 7.1 library offers numerous designs perfect for architects. Look for templates with strong grid layouts, full-bleed image options, and minimalist typography to find a great starting point for your squarespace architecture templates search.