A couple things before I continue: This post is not spam. I recently had an oustanding experience with a design firm and thought I'd share the info. I do not work for, nor am I affiliated in any way with this company. The company which designed my sites is www.alex-designs.com. They've done two of my four sites: www.paranoia-tv.com and www.vertigo51.com About a year ago, I began my search for design firms. I googled "web design firms" and went back and forth with about six different companies. Many of them had a top notch portfolio. Took me almost three months of research before I finally narrowed the list down. But because of either price, or web hosting (some firms require you to host your site with them if they design it), I nixed most sites from the running. Anyway, I ultimately settled on alex-designs. A few things about them: *They're based out of the Ukraine. Initially, that caused some trepidation. How would I get my money back if something went wrong? Could I trust them, etc etc. But most of the sites on their portfolio are American clients, so that put me at ease. *All communication was done via email. I emailed my concept (with jpg images of how I envisioned each page), along with a word file which spelled everything out in detail. *Once work began, they were pretty quick. Each site is different in terms of how long it takes, but if I emailed them with questions, it was never more than a day or two before they responded. *I got two sites designed, one with flash, for less than a third of the price a few other companies quoted me for one site. One thing I've learned about dealing with any firm: be as specific as possible when describing what you want. Font, color, the whole nine yards. Don't just say "I need a line at the top of the page." How thick should this line be? How far down from the top of the page? You get the idea. My first site took longer than it should have, because I wasn't as specific as I should have been. And before you give final approval, go over every little detail many many times. You'd be surprised that you find a little something out of whack somewhere which you didn't notice before. Anyway, hope this helps. -Vertigo
So long as you're happy with them, cool. I personally didn't hang around on the sites for long because they were very slow to load and my connection is speeding along tonight. It might not be the designers though, the hosting company needs to be chosen just as carefully. I like the look of them both though. Maybe your servers a bit slow backing up or whatever they do in the early hours
AdamSee: You're codepress is the first of it's kind I've come accross. I think this is innovative considering the new web standards that websites will have to adhere to eventually. Are the sites converted manually or is there some type of program you use?
personally, for how much you paid for, you got a good design. There a thousands of web design firms, some good/some bad/some ok/some well you get the point.. It was a good idea of you to research. Personally if I ever needed a proffesionally designed site i would go to http://www.giantpeachdesign.com/ . I love all of there designs, there clean professional and I know how much time and effort they put into each of these sites (i know one of the designers from another forum, call it a plug but w/e i like them).
Hey, Thanks for the replies. I realize some will like their work and some won't. Just wish someone had given me a reccomendation when I first started out...so I thought I'd pass my good experience along. There are so many out there to choose from, it was really astounding and took lots of research to finally find a good fit.
My sentiment was; you get what you pay for. They seem good value, undeniable, but their design and especially the coding isn't top notch. Many of their sites also look different in Firefox. Meatball, many thanks. It's all hand-crafted. We primarily target design studios & back-end coders currently.
What do you think of www.realworksmedia.com? I liked www.qbmedia.net, but their servers seem to be so slow!?! Shame.