Freelance web developer

swordsinfo

Hi can anyone lend me hints or directions into going freelance. I have been working as a net admin for the last 4 years but would like to move more into free lance design I have all the skill sets and can develop dbs css flash but dont know how to get my name into the main stream without investing too much money. any hints tips ideas would be great

The Mighty Ken

First and foremost, you need to show what you can do. Get a portfolio website up there with some examples of your work in there.

zAbbo

http://freelanceswitch.com/ - good resource, lots of articles on start up etc.

swordsinfo

have been working on it so far i have the following
http://www.swordslife.com/design.asp

still in progress and I have been told that the floating divs aren't working completely so need to look at that. any points would be welcome but no good having a good page if no one is looking

John_Mc

swordsinfo wrote: »

have been working on it so far i have the following
http://www.swordslife.com/design.asp

still in progress and I have been told that the floating divs aren't working completely so need to look at that. any points would be welcome but no good having a good page if no one is looking

Coming along nicely but I'd try antialiasing those jaggys in the images in the banner if I were you. Will greatly improve the effect I think!

swordsinfo

totally agree with you wasnt too sure what the finished look would be like so left the rough guideline. Will redo appreciate the comments though thanks:o

swordsinfo

Ok I adjusted the main pic so jaggedness should be resolved any other ideas?:)

herya

You could use more contrast between the fonts and the background for the top banner and contact details bar. Also, website shots on subpages are difficult to see properly if they are smallish and at an angle (still some jagged edges there). Otherwise the designs look good, you may want to provide links to live websites so that potential customers can play with them, check the code etc.

swordsinfo

ok great - not sure if I can tighten up the sub page images - I think that was the best result for the angle that I have on a transperant image but will see if I can improve on this and on the contract on the top. i didnt want to provide live links as I would be taking visitors away from the design area if you get my drift and potentially might check out more than they would if live links were shown?

Axwell

Just a few points i noticed while looking at the site in IE7

Your Other Services is covering the piece of text at the bottom "Check out some of our works for an idea of our designs and information aboutthe design of the site." - typos in there also

The words company profile are outside the box that they site in at the end of the paragraph starting "Imagine having a world..."

The images in the Other Services are sitting outside of the box they are in also

Would you not put your site on your own domain as opposed to a design page on the domain swordslife?

I would also agree your examples are hard to make out and you would be better linking to live pages or else make the screenshots bigger at least so that they can be seen properly.

daymobrew

Are you "swords web design" or "swordslife web design" - the title has the latter but text (e.g. "At swords web design") and images say the former.

Typo on design page - "aboutthe" should have a space.

Strange one - the link to the Building & Construction Limited page uses the sitename parameter for the heade text. Compare this modified link. Aside: The BANDCS abbreviation just doesn't feel right.

The site images are png format. They are quite large and were slow to download. I converted the Eurequo image to jpg and the size dropped from 115k to 61k.

The Ark Gallery link mentions "bandcs" but does not use 'sitename'. I'm guessing that this is a typo.

FYI: The reflections on the bottom left of the main image don't seem to be of the images above them. Is it intentional that the middle images don't have reflections?

swordsinfo

no messing about there cant believe ya caught the reflections. I was working on it late last night so just left the previous ones there will render that now.

axwell cheers for those comments opeed it up in firefox and it wasn't looking great - issues with the hright of floating divs - sorted now.

Re the domain name - yes I will switch it over - it began as a news site and peple wanted to know more about the skill set I hance why its on the back end!

Im swordslife web design I was going to swtich to swords web design as it a more of a 'global name' but have yet to make that decision - i may use both but just trade under one!

the ark gallery issue - once again tired eyes going over this - problem resolved

Typo resolved - cheers for that

Mentioned before was trying to keep them in the domain of design rather than providing off links to other sites. Will look into this - as some of the orgional work swordslife included arent SEO although some of the pages use floats and are controled by CSS they are surrounded by table fields.

most probs ironed out i think so far - really appreciating the comments though. Whgat do prople think of the over all look - had a peak at one or two others site and i think I get the point across quickly and easyly

herya

The designs look good albeit it's hard to tell from the miniature when the detail is lost. Colour schemes and layouts are pleasant and easy on the eye which is a good start, I'd say there is very good potential there.

You should definitely provide links to live sites. If a potential customer has any idea about web design they will want to click through the websites, check subpages design, validate HTML/CSS themselves. They want to see how much is done in CSS/graphics, how much in Flash.

Polish your portfolio too, check it with browsershots.org - the glitches like missing reflections, jagged edges, misalignment, unpolished texts etc may not be easy to spot consciously but they contribute to a slightly messy look and you don't want your customers to get this impression.

swordsinfo

Cheers for the link very good thanks as I mentioned I would need to render some of the previous works for SOE so would have to contact the client again. at least the swords life one is the site its on so they can get a grasp of it all. If I can convay my ideas/ designs to users even then its part of the battle. THe EUREQUO one is a european project so might add the link for that one straight off cant be a bad look I suppose but its all pretty new to me going out on my own so all the pointers are/ have been great. Once again thank you all!