3 Column Template Opinion Needed

I'm in the middle of developing a 3 column template and would like to get your opinion.
Which do you prefer between the two templates and why?
Here is the link: http://www.veluzarwebdesign.com/octplt/
You can change the template by selecting from the dropdown box on the left column.
The difference between the two templates is small.

Thanks in advance,
Troy

I like the square one.  lookes more "crisp" to me.  and love the idea of the three column..looks great that way.

If you add i top bar ala the red/black one in squares to the rounders..then i think rounders would look best.

As they are now squares looks best.

Three columns is good, but might I suggest narrowing the columns a little bit? The whole thing seems to be a bit tooooo wide unless you're looking at a 1280 pixel (or more) wide screen. If you try to stick within a width of 1024 pixels it would look a lot better (I think so anyway - have a look at my own demos at http://www.fido-x.net/demostore/).

Regards, Fido-X.

I also change to 3 colums my bouth sites: www.audio-car.ro and www.catalog-jaluzele.ro.I thing it look nice and have a lot of space for differnt stuf like add banner. 

A bit late to the party, but I'll drop my 0.02 here anyway...

I think 3-column layout is the bane of the web designers' existence. The years spent on the "Holy Grail" 3-column used to consume me as well.. then I realized the power of 2 columns and the way to make it look like a pseudo-3-column layout, without any of the problems (i.e. floatdrop, overlap, css manipulation) Never again will I go to 3 real columns.

May the gods have mercy on your soul!

In other thoughts, your template looks pretty good... for a 3-columner. 

I think 3-column layout is the bane of the web designers' existence.

Maybe you should take your developer's "hat" off, and view things from the perspective of a customer. When I visit a website, I don't like to have to scroll down 3 miles to find something.

make it look like a pseudo-3-column layout

What do you do here? Take a standard 2-column layout and place a 2nd 2-column layout inside the main content? Why not just go for a "real" 3-column layout? It is easier!

Fido-X.

In this world of cluttered webpages, there is sometimes too much information that 3 columns allow you to show.

I guess I was all about 3-column layouts until I found a site called www.csszengarden.com. It is one code base, redesigned hundreds of ways using CSS only. By default, it supports a "main" area and a "nav" area. I was so impressed with what could be done with 2 columns, I saw no more need for 3. Plus the different ways to make 3, as well as make them compatible with all browsers, as well as having to put little ie6 hacks in place, etc. etc. made it just annoying to me.

I'm not saying its bad for laying out information, but I personally just find 2 to be more my cup-o-tea and more redesignable with less pain. (based on my limited experience tho)

Some OC features/mods/contribs lend themselves to being placed in a box within a column - special offers, featured products, best sellers (am working on this one!).  The standard 2 column layout can quickly make for a very long left column!  3-cols gives some flexibility to allow these mods to display on every page in a balanced layout and still allow the main, centre column to focus the user on what he/she needs to be doing .... reading a product description, checking out etc etc.

My advice is simply to use whichever best shows off your content while keeping things easy for the visitor.

You could certainly consider reducing the width of the l & r cols in your prototype to give more prominence to the centre col. There's also scope for reducing the font size in the left col.

There are some 3-col layouts at www.opencarttemplates.com, including the store itself, with more in the pipeline ....

Chris