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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 21:31 
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Plissken wrote:
I charge what might seem large rates, not at Grim... level mind, but not "mates rates" either.

It is my living. What I do get pissed off with is people doing it for money that is well below what it is costing them in time, simply to earn 100 quid. Screws the market for the rest of us.


I can understand that, but consider this:

£1,500 for a five-page website in html with no e-commerce or member gubbins - just text and pictures.

In comic sans.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 21:36 
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Yes, people like that need to be stabbed in the face.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 21:37 
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Then that is totally cunty. But idiotic on the part of the customer.

It is an odd market to pitch into, to be honest. On the one hand, you've got people knocking out five pages for a 100 quid and doing the work while getting paid at another job. That is an advantage I simply don't have.

On the other, you've got the thickie customers, who get taken for a ride. How come I never find them? Not because I want to rip them off, but they've obviously got more money than sense, so I can get paid a decent rate for a decent job.

As it is, I seem to find people who have been horribly screwed over ("That domain name we said we had bought for you? Well, we didn't. Now pay us £££ or we switch off everything and sell it to Russian spammers") and spend time rebuilding their sites and their confidence.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 21:40 
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I don't think I could do web design for a living. I look after the company website and some of the input you get you know is a load of rubbish but as it's come from someone higher up, you have to do it anyway, knowing it's doing the site no favours. Ho hum. Still, I've been dabbling more with php and creating functional websites is far more interesting.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 21:44 
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I gave advice to another charity recently that had paid £5000 to a company who basically just implemented an existing CMS and reskinned it. Without content.

After I informed them of this, they were naturally very unhappy, but resigned as the money had already been spent. What pisses me off more than anything is that £5000 to that particular charity was an enormous amount of money, but the cuntface arseholes of the company in question clearly didn't care one bit.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 21:52 
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Some people seem to have balls of steel when it comes to selling this stuff. I recently finished a web-based thing that'll be useful for quite a few companies and this morning the pricing was discussed. I envisaged an initial set-up fee plus a small cost to cover hosting. The CEO's first idea was as well as the other fees to charge per page of output generated. :shock: Great way to encourage take-up of the system there.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 21:52 
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I came up with a nice phrase that describes what I feel about companies like that - "professionally offended". I take pride in my work and make damned sure that the final product is what the customer wants - partly because it is my living and partly because I am one of those lucky bastards who can do his hobby for good money, and I know that I'm lucky. That sort of thing just fucks me off, totally.

Dunno if it endemic in the industry, though. I work a contract at a College at the moment and because I was busy building a clustered Sharepoint site, I simply didn't have the time to do the public facing site - so they went to an outside company, who did a very good job and I worked with them on the design, and wrote the hooks into the back end database for courses and such.

I got very angry when they came back six months later saying "did you know it doesn't meet X standard and you really need functionality Y" and were basically trying to screw more money out, doing me out of a job at the same time.

Admittedly, I think they were a little pissed off when I asked them to send all the artwork over in AI/PSD format. Artwork the College had designed in the first place - that is another bugbear of mine, sell the first set of icons for a fiver, another one after the fact? 200 quid...

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 22:20 
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In December I did nineteen hours of work and invoiced for six grand, and I had my full-time job on top of that - it was a good Christmas :)

Normally, however, it's £75 an hour for complicated stuff, and £50 an hour for easy stuff.
There are three of us, though.

[edit]This was in reply to CraigGrannell from the bottom of the last page.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 22:20 
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I remember what I meant to ask you - how did writing that book come about? Did someone ask you to do it, or did you offer?

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 22:22 
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Hello Grim...

Would you mind holding this orb for a moment?

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 22:22 
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Grim... Your words would make me sad if I didn't think you were a genuinely top bloke.

Are you thinking of a 'My Grim... Book, by Grim...'

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 22:24 
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Mimi wrote:
Grim... Your words would make me sad if I didn't think you were a genuinely top bloke.


Come on now - it was somewhat complicated work. Ahem.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 22:26 
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Due to recent charitable giving I can only condone Grim...'s rate of pay, regardless of how absurd it may seem to others ;)

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 22:55 
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I couldn't do web design for a living. I send far to long move things up and down 2px on different browsers, and making sure it scales correctly, and that blind people can read it etc etc. I hate it. I don't know how you guys put up with such a ropey, flakey system of working. Is that why you charge ten bazillion dollars a second? If you ask me, people with simple text pages have the right idea, like the GNU site as an example off the top of my head -- peeeeeerfect.


Speaking of careers....someone give me a job?

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 22:58 
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Pod wrote:
I couldn't do web design for a living.

Jesus, neither could I.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 23:01 
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Grim... wrote:
Pod wrote:
I couldn't do web design for a living.

Jesus, neither could I.


£1250 for a single site? Not a living? That's 15 sites a year to get the average uk salary. 15 sites in 365 days! Piss easy. Thought I imagnie finding gullable punters is the hard part, right?

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 23:03 
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Pod wrote:
If you ask me, people with simple text pages have the right idea


I am very much in favour of keeping things as simple as is necessary, both technically and aesthetically. Particularly aesthetically - bold and clear designs and themes are right up my alley. I don't like all those fashionable mirrored effects and I fucking despise pastels.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 23:05 
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derp

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 23:12 
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Pod wrote:
Grim... wrote:
Pod wrote:
I couldn't do web design for a living.

Jesus, neither could I.


£1250 for a single site? Not a living? That's 15 sites a year to get the average uk salary. 15 sites in 365 days! Piss easy. Thought I imagnie finding gullable punters is the hard part, right?


I think what he's getting at is that he does the coding, not the design.

I could be wrong, but that's what I've done on a few sites. Left the design to other people.


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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 23:17 
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I'm pretty good at the desig side of things, as it happens. Being a bit of an artsy ponce helps. I mean to team up with a few technically-skilled but slightly artless people this year and see what happens, since it'll be faster than techying up myself, but it's on the back burner at the moment. Stupid universe, with its 'not bending to my will' policy.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 23:22 
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Remember that actually coding the stuff in the first place takes time - you can copy and paste it into later jobs.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 23:31 
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Advice for people so they don't get stung by Print / Web Designers:

Ask to see samples of previous work and get an estimate before you give them the go ahead.

Crazy, I know.

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 23:53 
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Mr Dave wrote:
Pod wrote:
Grim... wrote:
Pod wrote:
I couldn't do web design for a living.

Jesus, neither could I.


£1250 for a single site? Not a living? That's 15 sites a year to get the average uk salary. 15 sites in 365 days! Piss easy. Thought I imagnie finding gullable punters is the hard part, right?


I think what he's getting at is that he does the coding, not the design.

I could be wrong, but that's what I've done on a few sites. Left the design to other people.


This. Also, I've got a real 9-5 (well, 9-5:30. Does anyone actually work 9-5 any more?) job to go to, too.

[edit]Hang on, where did £1250 come from?

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 0:10 
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Grim... wrote:
Mr Dave wrote:
Pod wrote:
Grim... wrote:
Pod wrote:
I couldn't do web design for a living.

Jesus, neither could I.


£1250 for a single site? Not a living? That's 15 sites a year to get the average uk salary. 15 sites in 365 days! Piss easy. Thought I imagnie finding gullable punters is the hard part, right?


I think what he's getting at is that he does the coding, not the design.

I could be wrong, but that's what I've done on a few sites. Left the design to other people.


This. Also, I've got a real 9-5 (well, 9-5:30. Does anyone actually work 9-5 any more?) job to go to, too.

[edit]Hang on, where did £1250 come from?


viewtopic.php?p=1050#p1050

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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 0:35 

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Short version, someone took ComicalGnome's best ever pay packet and used that as the basis for an average calculation.


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 Post subject: Re: Design-me-do
PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 0:42 
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Gotcha.

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