Hello,

I've been wearing for a few years now, but I'm always looking to improve the look. My current trouble is in the temples. From the pics, you can see my hair is really thin on the edges. Because of that, the problems tend to be in the around the temples. Where the piece meets my real hair.

I was looking into redesigning the template to help in those spots. I highlighted the areas in the first pic. I can't quite come up with a template design so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know what your current shape is, but this would be my suggestion;

I agree with Hersute. Just make sure that you have them lower the density on the temple flaps so that it matches your natural hair density.Personally though I think that with temple flaps you could actually go with a little bit less recession than Hersute shows. But that's just me. He certainly knows netter than I do. I'm very very new to all of this.

No, I agree, he could go with less recession.
Thing is, I don't know the age of InDenial, so its hard to know whats appropriate.
But, because the temple hair is quite fine, I didn't think a very strong hairline would look right.
Recession and thinning temple tend to go hand in hand, and as he said he'd been wearing for 20 years, I just assumed he must be older.

If InDenial wanted less recession, I think larger temple flaps would be needed, like this;

Hey, no I'm 30. I would go with less recession, but I think that would be too much of change from the way I look now. And since there are people I work with everyday, I think they would notice such a change.

If I could wear a hat to work, I would! But thanks for the suggestions. Maybe I could go with something in the middle? A template with slightly bigger flaps than the first, but not as big as the second flaps.

What people will notice is if something is wrong with the balance between the amount of hair on top, compared with the amount of hair on the sides.
It will be a subliminal thing that something is not quite right.
I'm sorry to say that its around 30 that men typically start to recede.
If you temple hair is creeping backwards, then your hairline usually goes with it.

Here's a guide that might help you:

Would I be able to do a comb forward hair style if I went with the design above?

Because in the past, I've went with freestyle and tried combing it forward at times but it never looks quite right. In fact it just looks weird and bad at the same time!

You can specify which direction you want the hair ventilated but thats not really connected to what the template size & shape should be.
If the area that the template covers is appropriate, you should be able to style your hair in any direction you want.