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JackArc

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 10, 2006
216
0
Orange County, CA
Title says it all. Preferably someone a little cheaper. Open to all options! This would be a website for my fraternity wilth easy access for me to update pages (news, brother of the week, calender, etc!) Thanks for any input!
 
i might be able to do it, although I live in Australia. i'd probably do if for around $150 ~ $250 depending on what you want. Although I do have school so it might take a week or so.
 
WTF? 150- 250 bucks with a CMS to boot. You are selling yourself and the industry short my friend.
 
WTF? 150- 250 bucks with a CMS to boot. You are selling yourself and the industry short my friend.

Second! And given the quality of your work Tominated there's no reason to sell yourself THAT short. I know your just trying to make a name for yourself and get some clients under your belt. But give yourself a little bit more credit than that.
 
i might be able to do it, although I live in Australia. i'd probably do if for around $150 ~ $250 depending on what you want. Although I do have school so it might take a week or so.

ahah 150 bucks are you serious??...why would you even bother..do you even want to make money in web design...

undercharging often can scare clients off and it cheapens the industry...stay in school!
 
Stop picking on tominated!

When I was in 9th grade $200 was a lot of cash, that was like a years worth of allowance. I would surely have sat down two weeks if front of a computer to get that kind of money.

But, I do agree with the others, tominated: your website looks really nice. A lot of 'professional' web designers would charge a whole lot more money to make that kind of a site.:)
 
what are you talking about? tominated has freely admitted its a template on other threads. its not a secret. and for a 14 year old kid he is doing some great stuff, but this website is not one of them. i think that he has an incredible future in front of him and he will be ridiculously successful, but to act like he is a "professional" designer and get irate that he only wants a few hundred dollars for a website is silly. he is starting out just like everyone else did. good for him.
 
what are you talking about? tominated has freely admitted its a template on other threads. its not a secret. and for a 14 year old kid he is doing some great stuff, but this website is not one of them. i think that he has an incredible future in front of him and he will be ridiculously successful, but to act like he is a "professional" designer and get irate that he only wants a few hundred dollars for a website is silly. he is starting out just like everyone else did. good for him.
I know, I know. I'm not saying you did the wrong thing, I'm just saying that you picked the perfect spot for destroying all the good things people said about him. Seriously, no offense, I was just pointing out the irony :eek:
 
I know, I know. I'm not saying you did the wrong thing, I'm just saying that you picked the perfect spot for destroying all the good things people said about him. Seriously, no offense, I was just pointing out the irony :eek:

Well, I personally find it neat that people think he is selling himself short, and then say he uses themes/templates.

What is being sold short? Obviously, its not the amount of design...

In any case, its not in poor taste to make a reference to past works even if those past works dont truly showcase anything other than proficiency in a single app.

$150 is a good price for a theme/template based website is it not?
 
Well, I personally find it neat that people think he is selling himself short, and then say he uses themes/templates.

What is being sold short? Obviously, its not the amount of design...

In any case, its not in poor taste to make a reference to past works even if those past works dont truly showcase anything other than proficiency in a single app.

$150 is a good price for a theme/template based website is it not?
That's not what I was talking about. I was saying he would feel kinda small, you know, people giving him praise and then someone coming in saying that all the praise is based on a template.
I think he would feel better if all those people looked at a piece 100% his work and said "huh. looks good." than if of the same number of people told him "maaaan, that is amazing!!!!" because he showed them a template.
 
The main thing for Tom (and others) to realize is: there's no way to estimate a site without knowing what the customer needs.

We don't know whether they want 4 templates and they'll populate the data themselves, or whether they have 100 pages of photos and physical documents to enter, and expect that to be part of the package.

The phrase "easy access for me to update pages (news, brother of the week, calender, etc!)" implies some kind of Content Management system, which is fine and dandy if the web host has one they offer for free and the designer is already familiar with it, and the client is happy with the stock system with all its limitations. But building from scratch, or installing on a host without support, or significantly modifying the default functionality and appearance of the CMS package, can be very time consuming.

The risk, Tom, when a designer throws out a low price without doing the client interview and needs analysis first, is that once the committment is made, and the designer sees the project spinning out of control -- and they are 50 hours plus in on a $200 contract -- the designer tends to just walk away, leaving the client #*$*ed and the designer's reputation shredded.

So let's get real here, everyone. Tom may be willing to work for $10 an hour, that's fine. Many others here rely on professional level billing to make a livelihood, and need $85 an hour - that's fine too. The client will choose the level of professional experience and budget that they are comfortable with.

To the OP:

You need to commit to spending some time up-front carefully defining your needs. Look at other sites that have the functions that you need in yours, then make a PRIORITIZED list of the features you want from most desirable down to 'nice to have'. Keep in mind that the further down the list you get the more expensive it will be. You may need to tackle this in stages. But the designer needs to know all of your goals, so the initial architecture of the site will support adding Phase 3 items next year. Before finalizing a quote, you should get to the stage of having a storyboard of your site, showing schematically frame by frame what the end users will see and choose, and what the site admin (you) will be able to see and edit.

(If you go to a professional design firm, they will go through this planning with you and charge you for the time. If budget is a priority, then it is worth doing as much of this as you can youself ahead of time.)
 
The main thing for Tom (and others) to realize is: there's no way to estimate a site without knowing what the customer needs.

We don't know whether they want 4 templates and they'll populate the data themselves, or whether they have 100 pages of photos and physical documents to enter, and expect that to be part of the package.

The phrase "easy access for me to update pages (news, brother of the week, calender, etc!)" implies some kind of Content Management system, which is fine and dandy if the web host has one they offer for free and the designer is already familiar with it, and the client is happy with the stock system with all its limitations. But building from scratch, or installing on a host without support, or significantly modifying the default functionality and appearance of the CMS package, can be very time consuming.

The risk, Tom, when a designer throws out a low price without doing the client interview and needs analysis first, is that once the committment is made, and the designer sees the project spinning out of control -- and they are 50 hours plus in on a $200 contract -- the designer tends to just walk away, leaving the client #*$*ed and the designer's reputation shredded.

So let's get real here, everyone. Tom may be willing to work for $10 an hour, that's fine. Many others here rely on professional level billing to make a livelihood, and need $85 an hour - that's fine too. The client will choose the level of professional experience and budget that they are comfortable with.

To the OP:

You need to commit to spending some time up-front carefully defining your needs. Look at other sites that have the functions that you need in yours, then make a PRIORITIZED list of the features you want from most desirable down to 'nice to have'. Keep in mind that the further down the list you get the more expensive it will be. You may need to tackle this in stages. But the designer needs to know all of your goals, so the initial architecture of the site will support adding Phase 3 items next year. Before finalizing a quote, you should get to the stage of having a storyboard of your site, showing schematically frame by frame what the end users will see and choose, and what the site admin (you) will be able to see and edit.

(If you go to a professional design firm, they will go through this planning with you and charge you for the time. If budget is a priority, then it is worth doing as much of this as you can youself ahead of time.)

thanks for the advice!
 
For a Template, basic CSS, and my primal CMS, I can quote around $250. Check out my company site here (designed and coded myself).

But brilliant advice there, CanadaRAM. Which is why I usually specify exactly what they are getting.
 
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