Webdesign and my webdesigner

hotchip24

I wanted to have a website built for our family business as it was about time. I got prices
(1. From a professional Vat registered company to design a unique website for our business over 4 pages to the cost of 1350euro.
(2. From a professional web deigner cash in hand for 6 pages for 800euro. ( 3. From a webdesign student for the same as No.2 but for 170euro.

I decided on No.2 Option and giving all my text, fonts, photos, etc to the designer expected a master piece to come back to me. Im not sure if I can mention J00mla websites,but it was on this backdrop he was presenting the finished project as. I dont feel happy about this as I could have put it on J00mla myself or payed the student to do for me at a cost of 170 into his hand.

What am I meant to do? I gave the designer a list of websites I liked and disliked and tried to cover every angle possible. I feel he has not listened to anything I have said nor read up on any of the material I put to his attention prior to designing the site, as to get a view of what I was expecting.....

I feel ive been ripped off....

Is this a comman problem with businesses having websites designed?

Sully

First price is about average for a lot of fairly decent webdesigners. Second price, probably more a startup company or someone where business isnt going as good as he/she may like, third price is a student who at that price probably isnt as good as either of the above. How did you expect a masterpiece for 170euro?

Personally, but this is just my personal opinion, I dont think website designers should be creating websites in wordpress unless its actually needed. Some designers seem to use WordPress for every website they build. At the end of the day, depends on the design he did for WordPress but at €170 - dont think id class it as a "rip off" tbh.

lucian

There is a slogan I red the other day:

"Buy cheap, Buy twice"...

So very true.

swordsinfo

hotchip24 wrote: »

I wanted to have a website built for our family business as it was about time. I got prices
(1. From a professional Vat registered company to design a unique website for our business over 4 pages to the cost of 1350euro.
(2. From a professional web deigner cash in hand for 6 pages for 800euro. ( 3. From a webdesign student for the same as No.2 but for 170euro.

I decided on No.2 Option and giving all my text, fonts, photos, etc to the designer expected a master piece to come back to me. Im not sure if I can mention J00mla websites,but it was on this backdrop he was presenting the finished project as. I dont feel happy about this as I could have put it on J00mla myself or payed the student to do for me at a cost of 170 into his hand.

What am I meant to do? I gave the designer a list of websites I liked and disliked and tried to cover every angle possible. I feel he has not listened to anything I have said nor read up on any of the material I put to his attention prior to designing the site, as to get a view of what I was expecting.....

I feel ive been ripped off....

Is this a comman problem with businesses having websites designed?

If you want PM me and I'll see if I can tidy up the site for you cant be much work in it for 6 pages.

I dont think the comments are fair. I think quite the opposite I think theres so many options out there that those days of charging large prices for a site are well gone .. but I could be wrong

aidan_walsh

If you want PM me and I'll see if I can tidy up the site for you cant be much work in it for 6 pages.

No solicitations on this forum.

swordsinfo

appologies - was just trying to help the lad out

EKRIUQ

Breakdown in communication or lack of skils?

Firstly Joomla is one of the best CMS systems out there so the designer can hardly be faulted for that.But Joomla is a piece of software that runs your website It should'ent have anything to do with the design/look of your website but should have a lot to do with the functionality of the website. Where the designer let you down here they didn't customize the administration side of the website it's not that hard and look's 100% more professional.

I'm pretty sure I could replicate the look of any website so when you give the designer all the information text and images and font's I don't think he didn't listen to you, I think he just didn't have the capabilities to design the website.

Did you see a first draft give your ideas, second draft? If not I'm guessing because the designer probably couldn't change it if you asked them.

forbairt

Is it possible to link to the site in question ?

Seanie M

Slightly askew from the topic but somewhat related, it is sometimes hard (from a designers point of view) to realise that the client-to-be wants a good website, wants only to pay peanuts for it, and therefore can sometimes make it hard to give a price for a job that you really want/need, but still feel you're going to get your money's worth in the end (as the provider).

I had a lady ring me for a website on Tuesday. Simple, about 6 pages, lots of photos to be taken (on site, by me) and edited of garden products and lots of text to boot. She's elligible for a CEB grant too. She thought €1200 inclusive of hosting, e-mail, domains, and set up (+VAT, she's VAT registered) was too much, even though she'd have to come up with half herself, the rest paid by the CEB. And I was going in cheap at that price too.

She's looking around for someone cheaper...

Seanie.

Placebo

i currently have to update a previously joomla made site and its just horrible, there is no need for a CMS for a simple website, unless ofcourse that is the nature of the site.

I think you should have asked him for a mockup first and checked up on it midway to see how i was shaping up.

forbairt

its always nuts when I tell people my rate and some go .. oh.

And then I never hear from them again :P

Meeting with Client (travel to and from + meeting time)

Logo Design or retouching it up for website. The amount of people who have "crap" logos in my mind is crazy and it can really make it tricky to make a nice site when you've got that on the page.

Retouching of photos for the site. Slicing up photos ...

Putting together 2 - 3 drafts

Working towards that one draft that will be final version.

Templating the site.

Putting it into a CMS

I don't write content .. my engrish is rough .. but I've had to retouch a lot of clients content cus it was just pure EEK ... that takes time.

Trying to get the whole thing optimized for the search engines .. keyword placement .. meta .. and so on.

Submitting it to search engines and trying to do a certain amount of link building.

Phone calls with the client and all the email writing and back and forth.

Then you can have the whole IT side of things that you get roped into ... setting up email ... teaching them how to configure their clients and what not.

Training them on the CMS use.
Training them on how to resize images or use tools to do what they want.

And so on ... They may want Flash elements on the site. They may want custom forms ... extra features .. forums ...

But person X said they'll do it for 50quid ... Fine ... go with person X
I'm trying to make a living out of this.


But back on topic. From the sounds of it there was a breakdown of communication with your webdeveloper / designer was he both ? Had you checked his portfolio before hand ... was there custom design work that he had done ?

The amount of people who can put together a site is huge

The amount of people that can put together a site and design as well is not so huge.

tricky D

hotchip24 wrote: »

I gave the designer a list of websites I liked and disliked and tried to cover every angle possible.

Without prejudice to you or the rest of your points, sometimes what the client thinks they want, is opposite to what they actually need for their business. I've had clients who showed me a few sites they liked. Boy did they look fancy and had purty things that twirled and moved (yup Flash), but upon asking some basic business oriented questions, you could see the clients getting it. It's about the business of getting the customer in the door not about showing some fancy stuff which 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' Communication and lots of it is key, otherwise you can't find answers to questions, make compromises, educate, impart skill and experience and all the other things that make true pros stand out.

Jobs at a bit above this price point typically might go like: chat, draft 1, feedback, draft 2, feedback, a solid enough template (not a masterpiece), rollout etc. Your case seems to have skipped the feedback bits and because there's no communication you have no adequate control.

my 2c

sheesh

hotchip24 wrote: »

I wanted to have a website built for our family business as it was about time. I got prices
(1. From a professional Vat registered company to design a unique website for our business over 4 pages to the cost of 1350euro.
(2. From a professional web deigner cash in hand for 6 pages for 800euro. ( 3. From a webdesign student for the same as No.2 but for 170euro.

I decided on No.2 Option and giving all my text, fonts, photos, etc to the designer expected a master piece to come back to me. Im not sure if I can mention J00mla websites,but it was on this backdrop he was presenting the finished project as. I dont feel happy about this as I could have put it on J00mla myself or payed the student to do for me at a cost of 170 into his hand.

What am I meant to do? I gave the designer a list of websites I liked and disliked and tried to cover every angle possible. I feel he has not listened to anything I have said nor read up on any of the material I put to his attention prior to designing the site, as to get a view of what I was expecting.....

I feel ive been ripped off....

Is this a comman problem with businesses having websites designed?

he wasn't showing you the admin section by any chance? that would explain the presence of joomla.
So let me get this straight, You paid 800 for a designer and you got a content managed website? what the hell is wrong with you? very few students could design a website and skin a cms and none of them are going to do it for 170.

if how ever you paid 800 for psds then I stand corrected.

swordsinfo

i dont - i tend to think some companies complicate things

The way I see it no matter what site you build you create a home page and a content page - identify the primary and secondary navigation links then the content is just dropped in.

Logos agh i dont find logos sell a site - might sell the company for branding etc but most of the sites boards included dont have great logos its the functionality that sells it - make a site easy to use and you have a great site?