Thanks scottlpool2003! So if you don't mind me asking, how old are you now? I'm doing pretty good right now with what I got on my shoulders. I am designing a website for an author. except I don't know if he realizes how much this stuff really costs. He wants 3 different sites. One for his publishing company, one for his book, and one for his sisters book. He wants a message board (custom skin), WP blog (custom theme), sample chapters out of his book, and for me to be his webmaster for multiple years (about 5-10 he says). I gave him his quote, and told him it would be around $3,000 (I went cheap on him because he is a friend) he flipped out, he said he was expecting $50. What do you all think I should do?
It costs you nothing but your time and effort. Get a free template and edit it! I'm 21 now JacobWarren so I've gone through what you're going through and yes, I still like everyone else have problems from time to time. But the thing that you cannot put a price on is experience. If you were to never have a problem, you would never know how to fix it! You really need to go back to the design board and think what your skills are and what market you can target. If you're 90% design and 10% SEO then design websites for people. Target a market that have really bad websites (schools) do 1 school and you have something to go to the next school with. Build a reputation! If you're more coding and programming then make scripts and sell them! I'm selling the back end script to my website for $50 and I'm not a programmer! I can program and code, but when I was your age I was dividing my time between: Design & Development SQL PHP HTML CSS SEO RESEARCH HTML is no longer a code that is acceptable by Google. They will read it but they don't like it so it's mainly CSS now.
That's awesome. Yes, I've decided now that I'm just going to focus on web designing. I like it, so why not ya know? And yeah, I love those Web Standards books. All of my designs are CSS. I have a question though. I want there to be music in my portfolio, but is it legal for me to use other peoples music? Like foreigner, or some funky techno stuff?
Okay, I have a finalized logo design for my site. What do you all think? (It's in the file attachments)
I know copper12! The only problem is is it's soooo damn hard! lol. You all can see how my site is coming out http://test.visvivadesign.com/ thats the test site
Alright, I finally have the design finalized! http://www.visvivadesign.com! Now I just have to add content.
My honest opinion? You've made the header area way too big. You've put emphasis into your logo rather than your content. The trick is to draw the users eyes to where you want them to go. I.e. ads or content. I have to scroll down and if I'm looking to buy designs I'd rather see everything with minimal effort. I may sound like I'm contradicting myself with my website design but I'm aiming for a much different audience. Your search box "type, hit enter" that's unprofessional. "Enter Keywords" or something like that but make sure your punctuation is correct! Twitter, MySpace, Facebook? Great promotion but you're looking at being a web designer. It's unlikely that professional customers are going to be on Facebook or MySpace really isn't it? It also makes you look more like you aim toward the younger generation which is shutting your niche to an even smaller minority. Your links also lead to a different design so that needs to be sorted ASAP. Keep up the hard work though JacobWarren you've put real effort into that, I hope you see my advise as a friendly critic and not just putting you down.
Here's a reply to Jacob Warren. I have a video production background and copyright issues for music always come up. It's always best to buy some blanket buy out music. Check out Music Bakery - musicbakery.com/ they have some great techno stuff and you can listen to samples before you buy. You'll have to pay but its better than a $20K lawsuite later on.
Thank you Scottlpool2003! I changed what the search box says. So you think I need to resize my logo? And thank you for the input on the social networking, but I think I'm going to keep it. It's a way for me to stay in touch with my clients. I am currently redesigning the services page and the portfolio. Thank you! Also, no offense taken.
Good stuff, yeah I think you should completely rethink your header and logo. The header goes onto the background rather than the content so if you're going to put so much work into the header, join it onto the content. It's not practical to have links on your background image.
Do whatever you're good at. Since you can build websites you can offer your services around forums & freelance websites and easily make a couple thousand dollars each month.. Or start promoting other people's products via your websites..