Affordable Web Designer Wanted

rsynnott

smeggle wrote:

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.

Ah, yes, degrees and experience automatically make you good at things, you know

smeggle wrote:

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.

I'm not sure that word means what you think it does.

smeggle wrote:

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).

What's 'genral'?

smeggle wrote:

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...

Ah, racism.

smeggle wrote:

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

Well thank dog for that.

Webmonkey

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

Honest to god, when I loaded this site i thought it was a parking page that was full of advertisments.
If i came onto this site browsing through the internet I would turn away from it automatically. Nothing there attracts me into the site.

Fair enough it has good coding standards, but nothing beats a good design in the end of the day. Design is the first thing people see, not the HTML code underneath - you know what i'm trying to say.

Fairplay to Figment. He produces good quality attractive design. Has a unique edge over the rest of the sites out there and that to me is what catches a users attention.

I would rather pay someone good money for good design. Not a cheap template look because in the long run it will cost your business.

Regards

miju

smeggle if the blogireland website is anything to go by I wouldnt pay you €100 let alone €750

at the end of the day you can have the most perfectly coded site in the world but if the design is rubbish (and the blogireland site design is beyond rubbish) well then all the coding and content in the world cant help you IMHO

personally i think that €3-4k is a good quote for what the OP is looking for, theres an old saying that would ring true here with smeggle and thats

BUY CHEAP AND YOU WILL PAY TWICE

as someone already said in this thread theres the actual professionals and then theres the fly by night professionals guess which one you are smeggle

kstanl

Web design is much the same as any other service - you get what you pay for.

RicardoSmith

If you have to explain good design to someone they'll never understand. Its that simple. Either you have an eye and apprecation for aesthetics or you don't.

Figment

Sorry guys, this thread has strayed a little and its partly my fault. I was just trying to highlight the difference of the perceived offerings of different businesses for what you pay. its never a clear cut case of this firm has a better price to that firm.

I am sure smeggle offers good value and service for what he offers and has many happy customers. He just perhaps needs to be a little clearer on what his service does and does not contain.

It is very easy for someone from a design background to not understand and dismiss the importance of a good backed and relevant standards and accessibility.
It is equally as easy for someone from a coding background to not understand and dismiss the importance of design.

It can also be difficult to recognise good standards when you don't have the relevant background in that areas.
However good knowledge of both areas is important if you are to offer that kind of service and consulting to your clients. While in some cases clients themselves mightn't recognise the importance of both you are being hired because of you do and you need get across a particular image of them and their service to their clients.

RicardoSmith

I think the crux of the matter is you charge what people are happy to pay. If your "product" allows you to charge 4k for a job someone else is charging 1K then you're obviously doing something right.

You want the client to define a budget, a time scale, and list of deliverables, and milestones. You also want to be crystal clear when a milstone has been met and a deliverable, delivered.

If they can't do that then walk away. Because they don't know what they want, and they haven't planned, or budgeted for it. If someone is serious they'll have this all worked out in advance. If they don't well then they are not serious. For new clients I always wanted part payment at one of the mile stones.

Otherwise you might aswell ask how long is a piece of string.

Laguna

smeggle wrote:

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.

Totally agree with Smeggle on this one. 4K is a not only a huge amount of money for the site in question but an uncompetitive quote. For that price the person who wants someone else to build a site could go out, buy a high spec P.C, take local nightschool classes in web design, buy every decent book on HTML/ASP/JSP/CSS and teach themselves everything they need to know and build the website EXACTLY how they envision it themselves.

ChicoMendez

BUY CHEAP AND YOU WILL PAY TWICE

i have a more apt saying than that

PAY PEANUTS AND YOU WILL GET MONKEYS !
(thing you all know whos the monkey on this thread)

For that price the person who wants someone else to build a site could go out, buy a high spec P.C, take local nightschool classes in web design, buy every decent book on HTML/ASP/JSP/CSS and teach themselves everything they need to know and build the website EXACTLY how they envision it themselves.

Good god man... what are you talking about.. Yes the person could do all that... it might cost the same in terms of euros but it would take 10 times as long.... ie 3 years (taking into account the person in question has a job, a family and a social life!)
And at the end of the day it would not be as good as a pro designer/coder
(not to mention that in that 3 year period 6 more sites have popped up in your area and any ealier starter advantage you would have had you have now lost)

Hey... lets do a little comparison...

1) i want to deck out my house with lovely asian furniture ... but fu*k in dublin it would cost me about 10g's for top notch. So by Laguna's twisted philosophy i would be better off buying a ticket to indonesia... paying the locals to teach me how to design and build furniture over a 6 month period... buy the raw materials, build my furniture and ship it back... and hey guess what IVE saved a few cent.

2) a good plummer is too expensive, so ill pay the young lad down the thats says he can fit my bathroom for $100 over a weekend. what a deal!

i know im getting a little of the point, but Laguna and smeggle, you catch my drift ? (where is smeggle anyhow - hes dissapeared - probably burried in newest & hottest standards book!)

kstanl

Laguna wrote:

4K is a not only a huge amount of money for the site in question

Maybe for what you produce, yeah. It's only uncompetitive if you're competing against a similar calibre of designer/developer. Otherwise you're just another conman trying to make a quick buck on no talent and basic understanding of the skills and technologies involved.

To the OP - your website is your business' window to the rest of the world. Why save a few quid by getting some cowboy to design and develop your online presence when, for a few grand more, you'll get a well-designed and competently coded website? It's up to you of course but there's no such thing as a cheap website that's actually any good. Not that I know of anyway. You wouldn't hire an unqualified grifter to do your accounts so why make the same mistake with your website?

Rollo Tamasi

Laguna wrote:

For that price the person who wants someone else to build a site could go out, buy a high spec P.C, take local nightschool classes in web design, buy every decent book on HTML/ASP/JSP/CSS and teach themselves everything they need to know and build the website EXACTLY how they envision it themselves.

Money can't buy you expierence mate! I think your comment is a bit unreasonable to be honest.

RicardoSmith

Then theres the people who'll throw it together in frontpage or word and think you're robbery at €200. Your pitching at different markets.

Laguna

Shut the **** up saying I have a twisted philosophy. You should be careful saying personal comments like that.

rsynnott

In fairness, it does sound rather eccentric, like the dreams of a mad libertarian. Please note that it was not a direct personal comment, rather he was criticising your ideas. That is allowed here.

Rollo Tamasi

Laguna wrote:

Shut the **** up saying I have a twisted philosophy. You should be careful saying personal comments like that.

I didn't intend that as a personal swipe at all Laguna

smeggle

hmm Some intersting comments.. I especially liked the one 'Pro-coder/Designer' one. I've probably near enough reviewed the majority of Irish Websites and design wise some of them are top class. Some overuse flash but I'll not let that detract from them. (Personally I dislike flash/.swf - Theres still a lot of folk on dial up but thats a personal opinion as i say).

I never once insulted Figment's site design in anyway yet you lot still feel the need to have a go at my stuff, in a very insulting manner in places, just because I pointed out the coder had made a couple of basic mistakes, which when fixed will validate the document as xhtml 1.1. A bit of tweaking of the css values and the site would operate across all resolutions.

That is your job as a designer/coder to ensure that the site operates across all browser platforms and at all resolutions. The site should also be fully accessible to disabled users and should be fully functional and easy to use. I even commended the coder for attempting to upgrade to the newer coding standards. Brilliant stuff is that - but just cause I say ' Hey you got a couple of small mistakes' I get slagged of?

By a bunch of 'Pro-designers/Coders'? if your so 'Professional' Then why is your code not valid? Very easy to throw insults about but I'd rather say hey look it's your java insert throwing you out on the validation. Here's the bit of code instead of trading insults.

Doesn't bother me much if you don't like my designs - a lot of other people do and some don't, you can't please everyone *shrugs*

If the guy wants the fix for his xhtml it's the java doing it specifically this bit

<script language="JavaScript">

Change that to the correct code and the document should validate - the css is just adjusting values to percentages as opposed to fixed pixel value. Then the document becomes resolution friendly across all sizing.

dahamsta

Funniest thread so far this month. Smeggle, you're not qualified to lecture Figment on design, ok? Really, you're not. I've been laughing my ass off at the entire concept all the way through this thread.

adam

Laguna

ChicoMendez wrote:

1) i want to deck out my house with lovely asian furniture ... but fu*k in dublin it would cost me about 10g's for top notch. So by Laguna's twisted philosophy i would be better off buying a ticket to indonesia... paying the locals to teach me how to design and build furniture over a 6 month period... buy the raw materials, build my furniture and ship it back... and hey guess what IVE saved a few cent.

I wasn't telling you to STFU Rollo Tomassi mate, this 'smart' **** here was saying I have a twisted philosophy and as you can see by his response he went off at a tangent about some ****

Rollo Tamasi

k.




(did that flash code work Laguna?)

ChicoMendez

Laguna wrote:

I wasn't telling you to STFU Rollo Tomassi mate, this 'smart' **** here was saying I have a twisted philosophy and as you can see by his response he went off at a tangent about some ****

:eek: :eek: :eek:



Just drawing paralels....
but hey perhaps your reaction to the actual wording and not your actual argument proves that perhaps you thought about what you wrote and realised that Rollo Tamasi was right after all.

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

Money can't buy you expierence mate! I think your comment is a bit unreasonable to be honest.

Well said!

kstanl

dahamsta wrote:

Funniest thread so far this month. Smeggle, you're not qualified to lecture Figment on design, ok? Really, you're not. I've been laughing my ass off at the entire concept all the way through this thread.

adam

Agreed. Smeggle, you're not a professional Web Designer. It's appartent from your rhetoric and terminology that you're a total amateur who is just starting out and who knows a little bit of semantic markup. Don't be pedantic by running your detractors sites through a validator to try to prove your point. Instead, why not try and produce some quality work pro bono or get get junior position with a web agency in order to improve your skills. But stop trying to sell yourself as a professional. You're not. You're not even close.

Rollo Tamasi

[little comment]this thread is getting a bit harsh [/little comment]

ChicoMendez

[little comment]this thread is getting a bit harsh [/little comment]

smeggle wrote:

Design is simple, a monkey can do it.

As you can see it was harsh from day 1
- if you make outrageous statements like this (downgrading the work of many on this thread to monkeywork) you have to assume what follows..

kstanl

Precisely. It's people like Smeggle who make it difficult for people with real talent to make a living by preying on poorly educated clients and undercutting people with overheads. Having said that even monkeys can design is indicative of his complete ignorance and unsuitability to the industry. In fact, he's a liability. Tell me Smeggle, do you tell your clients that design is monkeywork??? Ironically, your site actually does look like it was designed by a monkey.

Rollo Tamasi

fair enough!

The Corinthian

The Cannibal wrote:

I am looking for someone affordable to design this site for me.

if you want to do this properly then the 4k figure that has been bandied around is about right. If you want to get something up on the cheap then go with a bottom feeder like smeggle or some school kid.

Just bare in mind that if you take the cheap route you’ll probably end up wasting your time and money in the long run. The site will not attract attention and the functionality will be limited. After a year or two of it sitting there with no one going to it, you’ll probably just let the domain and hosting lapse.

Wasting pounds in order to save pennies is actually a particularly Irish business practice, as I don’t think I’ve seen the same level of penny pinching in other countries. As an example, I have a friend who was offered ADSL (for his company) when it first came out. Because there was an up front cost of around a grand he procrastinated, even though ISDN was costing him around €450 p.m. He eventually got ADSL in two years later. Do the math.

I’m not saying that you would do this, only that you should be aware that it’s almost always a false economy.

Webmonkey

This thread is getting more funny as it progresses.

rsynnott

I worry that the idiots who got into IT during the boom when people didn't care about skills if you knew how to use a mouse, and possibly Visual Basic, are going to end up repurposing as webdevs, and flooding the market with cheap shoddy work.

*my usual rant about SQL injection and the brainless deemed to be inserted here; I'm too lazy to be bothered; it's summed up here if you really care*

Figment

I think its done to be honest. Both sides have pretty much had their say. It is starting to stray into personal comments.
As my argument is a matter of visual design i will illustrate it as my last comment.

Two cars, keep the rain out, pass the NCT standard and get you from A to B within the speed limit. Which image do you want to project for your business?

smeggle

kstanl wrote:

Agreed. Smeggle, you're not a professional Web Designer. It's appartent from your rhetoric and terminology that you're a total amateur who is just starting out and who knows a little bit of semantic markup. Don't be pedantic by running your detractors sites through a validator to try to prove your point. Instead, why not try and produce some quality work pro bono or get get junior position with a web agency in order to improve your skills. But stop trying to sell yourself as a professional. You're not. You're not even close.

That is the funniest post I've seen so far in this - I'm not going to bother answering you here but if you care to pm me with a more direct form of contact then we can discuss that comment privately. Unlike you I have no need to (attempt) to embarrass someone.

As for the rest of it especially the cost, if indeed I was looking after the website overall and inserting all content myself, then the price obviously would be a lot closer to 4k (A damn site more than that actually). As it is the op is looking for something that they will input on a regular basis content to.

Lets then look at what the original poster requested;

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.

That would indicate to me that the op wants a site that will be constantly updated with articles on Irish based media (Currently being done btw by quite a few sites). It also indicates that they want to do all of the updating etc.

So the system I would give him/her would do that and a heck of a lot more - all I would have to do is upload a bunch of files to a server which takes ten minutes, set a DB, username, password and server details (Generally 'Localhost') and the basics of there content management system is fully operational. They can then choose from 50 preset templates or design or have there own template designed.

Upto now I will have probably worked for 1 - maybe 2 hrs. So lets say the op does want to go the xtra bit and hjave there own template packs designed for each respective area of the system. In total I would be editing 3 base templates. Obviously the op will have an idea of what they want and would show some form of example and discuss there ideas. From that a basic template is produced and displayed. The op would then give feedback on any changes they require. That should take at most 3-4 days.

So for approx. 1 weeks work I'm going to charge 4k? Most of which, the actual core working of the system is not written by the designer/coder in question, takes all of 5 minutes to install? (That is true of any CMS irrespective if it's mambo or whatever).

Most of the time spent on this will be on design of the base template/s and most of that work is done by the direction of the client who's website it will be. I seriously do not think 4k is a feasable figure for this type of site or for the op's requirements.

Finally, I'll say it again, spoiltchild have a very nice template, I've seen better - I've seen worse but sadly as good as it is, it is not fully functional. Period.

You can have the best design there is and be bloody good at it (Figment IMO is good at it) but then that brilliant design is worth nothing if it does not function correctly. At 800x600 spoiltchilds design becomes virtually non-functional. W3C still recommend sites be designed at 800x600 irrespective of the higher resolutions. The simple mistakes are few but the most glaring one is incorrect head structure. The browser has allready thrown back into Quirks and it hasn't even got to reading the body yet.

You can insult my work all you want as I say some will like what you do others won't - so what? but that aside, it is fully functional, fully compliant to current standards and fully functional across all resolutions.

As to my professional abilities? Well you can say what you want but in my defence I was earlier this year advising four BAhonours students on there thesis project. Cork University fully commended my advice and requested permission to utilise some of that advice. Not bad going for a 'Non - Professional' (Which I'm not btw and can fully proove that if the need arises).

This is what 4k is gonna get the guy.
A CMS - Content Management System - written by someone else.
Installation of the above CMS - time worked about an hour maximum.
Basic template set - max worked about 2 - 3 days
Domain name - domain will cost 70euro max (If .ie any others cost approx 9 euro ,com, .net etc)
Hosting - Probably popped on to the hosts own server as a sub-folder so your paying there server costs.
Piss poor coding standards meaning there site will only be accessible by approx. 60% of Internet users (If there lucky).

According then to the 'Pro-designer/coders' advicing in this thread thats great value for money. Most clients are bull****ted by these 'Pro-designers/coders' with loads of waffle and then charged over the top prices.

btw rsynnott - if your also refering to me with your last comment then your way of beam. I did watch rather gleefully from the sidelines so to speak during the period you talk of and your rant is quite interesting to say the least. (FYI I'm not that silly ).