Affordable Web Designer Wanted

The Cannibal

I'm looking to launch a website that covers all forms of Irish media and just exlclusively Irish. It will feature sections for Irish bands, wrestling, drama, sport, politics etc. All Irish things that need exposure will be presented on the site and hopefully the collective readership will cross over into things they read about on the site and expand the audiences of all things presented on the website.

I am looking for someone affordable to design this site for me. They must be able to show me something of past work to assure me of quality and once I lay out my plans to them be able to give me a quote on price before work begins. If anyone is interested in this project they can hit me with an e-mail at miholik@hotmail.com

GoneShootin

Interested, but need to know more about your requirements - ala databases and so on.

Webmonkey

Me also...same as above..

The Cannibal

What I'm looking for is something that is easily navigatable between multiple sections. It will have a lot of media, video uploads, audio uploads etc.

I want it to be easily updateable. I don't want to have to rewrite a bunch of code everytime I want to fit text into a template.

General specifics I'll leave to whoever I get to design the site, I will give a general idea of what I want it to look like and what material I want represented then whatever they think is best to make the site look good or whatever they think I might need I will go along with if it sounds reasonable.

Webmonkey

Roughly what budget are you on here?

The Cannibal

I'd rather get quotes for the work to be done rather than state what I'm willing to spend. I'll give you a summary for my overall vision for the site and then you can decide a figure you deem appropriate for your time.

I want an eye catching index page, it's going to be all Irish themed so maybe that can be incorporated into the design. There will be multiple sections, at the moment the rough idea is for the sections to be Music, Drama, Sport, Society, Wrestling and Misc. I want the index page to have like a summary of what is featured in all sections kinda of like www.411mania.com. I want each section to have it's own page that is indentical to the index pages template but maybe in a different colour scheme to give that section its own trademark of individuality. I want all sections to have the following links accesible, About Us, Interviews, Biographies, Forum, Chat, Links, Reviews, Multimedia, Articles, Other as well as links to all the other sections of the site.

As I said before I want it to be easily updateable. So if you are still interested, factor in what I want and what you think you'll need to put in to complete the site and come up witha quote for me.

TomBrady

For something like that you are talking over €4000 with a decent designer and coder. Is this within the budget you had in mind?

smeggle

The Cannibal wrote:

I'd rather get quotes for the work to be done rather than state what I'm willing to spend. I'll give you a summary for my overall vision for the site and then you can decide a figure you deem appropriate for your time.

I want an eye catching index page, it's going to be all Irish themed so maybe that can be incorporated into the design. There will be multiple sections, at the moment the rough idea is for the sections to be Music, Drama, Sport, Society, Wrestling and Misc. I want the index page to have like a summary of what is featured in all sections kinda of like www.411mania.com. I want each section to have it's own page that is indentical to the index pages template but maybe in a different colour scheme to give that section its own trademark of individuality. I want all sections to have the following links accesible, About Us, Interviews, Biographies, Forum, Chat, Links, Reviews, Multimedia, Articles, Other as well as links to all the other sections of the site.

As I said before I want it to be easily updateable. So if you are still interested, factor in what I want and what you think you'll need to put in to complete the site and come up witha quote for me.

Oh right - I thought you had a new idea, most of that is done allready and with a little thought you can do most of what you want there yourself. Heck I could put you the basics of what you need there to run a site like that for around 750euro or I could teach you the basics in a couple of hrs on im (Well maybe longer than a couple of hrs ).

Most of the rest of it is just content input which you would do from an online admin editor/control panel.

Wouldn't pay out 4k+ for it - not these days anyway...

GoneShootin

I think the kind of site your looking at could initially be done by yourself using a CMS along the lines of php-nuke or mambo. For example, here is a php-nuke template:

http://www.templatemonster.com/phpnuke-themes/3246.html

But 4 grand? Lol at that!

Figment

Oh right - I thought you had a new idea, most of that is done allready

For that reason would have thought 4k would be close to the mark as well.
For features and content it doesnt look like it will stand out from the croud.
Good design is the only option left. Good design costs.

Webmonkey

750 wouldn't pay for something good. I would charge about €3500 and you would have a CMS for your pages so you don't need to know any html

GoneShootin

Figment wrote:

Good design costs.

Hmm - good point

smeggle

Webmonkey wrote:

750 wouldn't pay for something good. I would charge about €3500 and you would have a CMS for your pages so you don't need to know any html

And what I would be installing would have cms support, rss feeds, image upload support, mp3/mpeg support, ability to add/change/rotate xhtml/css template sets.

The 750 is to install the software and basic lessons in how to use it, after that the rest is upto the owner.

4k is a jk of a price to charge someone for what essentially they can do themselves.

btw - I allready have a sample site in place that belongs to a client of mine that will do exactly as the OP wants. That is being charged at 500 + 50% of all online advertising net returns. After (Simple) training the client can fully utilise the system - any extra template adjustments, such as an xtra hardlink, I do at no xtra charge - (cause I'm a nice guy ).

As I say, 4k is a jk to set someone up with the backend for a site like they require. As for 'Professional'? Well at least it would be upto current W3C XHTML/CSS standards and most of the 52 pre-set templates can easily be adapted to your own style. Again 99% of these are to current W3C standards. (A couple of templates do still use the sub-standard html 4.0/4.01 - these I do not install for that reason).

op can pm me for a link if he/she cares to have a look. I'd say there friend would be easily capable of installing the system for them at an even lesser cost. OP then gets the fun of building and developing there concept/project themselves. Much more fun than paying 4k out IMO.

Webmonkey

Ok and this includes a whole design with it. Man you are really charging below what you should be. Just a little bit of advice. No doubt in your skills, hell you're probably better than me with it but i just think 750 for a site like this would be too little.

Figment

smeggle what happens when the client wants it to actually look good, professional and usable. You don't seem to have quoted for any design there, just instalation. Is this all you do for the price?

ChicoMendez

look whos out to make a quick buck!

smeggle thats exactly what i call the fly by night approach....
What you are offering is a BOG :eek: standard solution... there are alot of CMS solutions out there....like mambo .. but hey they provide 2 things
1 - the ability for a non-tech person to set up a 'standard' website
2 - the framework for a real developer/designer to create a pro solution... its just a stepping stone.

Take for example mambo... take a look at the increasing number of mambo sites out there... they are all basically the same and provide no competitive advantage over the others NONE what so ever ....design wise of functionality wise... just bland

On the web today differentiation is everything because no matter what type of a site you set up you going to have lots of competition.


The Cannibal - Hey if you want a good deal then there are thousands of 'template flyby nights developers' over in india that will beat smeggle's price hands down... giving you a similarily 'bog standard solution'.
- just dont expect it to be successful.


smeggle have you ever heard of Michael Porter ? .... guess not.

heggie

hehe, pointed that out about smeggle in a previous post, glad to see im not the only one who thinks this. The guy has no concept of design being something necessary!

smeggle

heggie wrote:

hehe, pointed that out about smeggle in a previous post, glad to see im not the only one who thinks this. The guy has no concept of design being something necessary!

Totally agree - no idea of design whatsoever except like 30yrs in Engineering design, A degree in Arts (OK & Humanities), A level Art & Design About 25 years experiance in stage work including design of stage back drops, nope not much of an idea in design.

Design is simple, a monkey can do it - getting that design to work correctly and be functional, interoperative is a different ball park all together.

smeggle wrote:

I'd say there friend would be easily capable of installing the system for them at an even lesser cost.

And basic sample of how a site like that can be done to the required standards..

http://www.blogireland.ie/corkandcounty/

Each part of that has it's own seperate section and those can be sub-sectioned at will. Templates can act globally or not as you wish across the system. Special templates can be added to any section. Global Admin log-in across each seperate section though access to each section seperately (To prevent unneccessary errors by end user).

I use free open source software so to charge any thing like 4k would be wrong of me. I may not charge high rates for my work but I do give a very good solid product at the end that easily equals more expensive sites. I also as you know work or try to keep my work upto the latest standards as set out by W3C. Tell me any coder in India that does...


btw: Link if for a 'Sample' site only. It should no way be viewed as an end product.

heggie

lol what age are you? 75 or so ? a monkey can do design sure, but not design that looks or functions well, you really are a bit of an idiot, trying to be jack of all trades. To the OP, design is as important as the implementation of the site, so look for a design co or development co that will outsoure one of these aspects or else has the expertise to do that in house.

smeggle every site you have linked to or shown some association with looks like a bloody template, are you that creatively challegned that you cant see that ?

ChicoMendez

smeggle wrote:

And basic sample of how a site like that can be done to the required standards..

http://www.blogireland.ie/corkandcounty/

Amazing.... you are hired

(in front of yashid askrod from new dehli)

heggie

lol

Figment

smeggle wrote:

And basic sample of how a site like that can be done to the required standards..

http://www.blogireland.ie/corkandcounty/

And so where is the design? There are standards...and there are standards.

smeggle

Figment wrote:

And so where is the design? There are standards...and there are standards.

At least go and fix your own page design to fit in a browser properly before you even attempt to question mine - across all resolutions as well. Nice to see your attempting to come upto some sort of reasonable coding standard. Maybe center your pagecell content area against the back ground may start to help. As it is your left/right borders are imbalanced. This is to comply with the W3C recommended standard for web sites resolution of 800x600 btw (That never changed even though we have clever high resolution now), in any case the website/design should function properly across all resolutions.

I And that was with just a very brief look - as you say

There are standards...and there are standards

Why not try using them?

Serbian

smeggle wrote:

At least go and fix your own page design to fit in a browser properly before you even attempt to question mine

There's nothing wrong with Figment's site. It fits perfectly into my browser window. Maybe your resolution is too low?

Figment

Velcrow

This thread was a good read -

Now this is a good website

http://www.dgi.ie/

smeggle

Serbian wrote:

There's nothing wrong with Figment's site. It fits perfectly into my browser window. Maybe your resolution is too low?

I never said there was anything wrong with the design but the site does not work in all resolutions. Just because approx. 20-25% 0f users can now and do use higher resolutions doesn't mean as a designer/coder that you should ignore the lower compliant resolution as adviced by W3C.

Whilst the site is rather pleasing I wouldn't put it in the category of exceptional especially considering it's very basic mistakes in resolution/coding.

As I said though I did in fairness to the site only have time to give it a brief look. In that time I found 3 coding mistakes - the validator found four. Whilst that doesn't affect operatability of the site overall, a few simple edits will make resolution compatible and coding standard compliant to xhtml 1.0 Strict not xhtml Transitional as stated by the page coder.

ChicoMendez

Totally agree - no idea of design whatsoever except like 30yrs in Engineering design, A degree in Arts (OK & Humanities), A level Art & Design About 25 years experiance in stage work including design of stage back drops, nope not much of an idea in design.

first you preach about you being a god in the design world

I never said there was anything wrong with the design but the site does not work in all resolutions. Just because approx. 20-25% 0f users can now and do use higher resolutions doesn't mean as a designer/coder that you should ignore the lower compliant resolution as adviced by W3C.

then you preach about standards

http://www.blogireland.ie/corkandcounty/

but good god just look at it ... not pretty at all
If i came to that site- unless i was really really interested in what lovely linda said i would click back.

http://www.spoiltchild.com/

on the other hand that is just bliss (a few coding errors or not). first time i saw that i said wow... power in simplicity and class. I took the time out of my busy schedule to study it and eventually bookmark it under cool sites

That my friend smeggle is what Mr Michael Porter preached about so many years ago ... .... 'Competitive Advantage'

Design is simple, a monkey can do it

what does that make you then... (250 years experience and all)


**private message to the rest of the readers**
I honestly thought smeggle was a 16 year old kid that came on to mouth off and try to make a quick buck and compete with the indians... But if this 30 yrs experience is true then thats worrrrring

heggie

yeh, what a waste of education!

Figment

Thanks ChicoMendez, i appreciate the review

rsynnott

Figment wrote:

smeggle what happens when the client wants it to actually look good, professional and usable. You don't seem to have quoted for any design there, just instalation. Is this all you do for the price?

That was unkind.