Hi, If you have $5000 to make a top quality PSD website design, which company would you chose? I ask this question because I have been searching for a serious PSD template designer and still no luck, nor a contest at freelancer.com worked. I would appreciate if you suggest serious companies like psd2html.com ( they don't do PSD designs) Also, I wont chose from this thread, just curious to know about your favorite PSD designers. Thank you.
NONE, because starting from some goof assed picture of a website crapped together in photoshop is NOT how one builds an accessible website! Fact is I've never seen a website that started from a PSD that wasn't complete and utter rubbish from a usability standpoint -- no matter how pretty it is. Simple fact is people visit websites for the CONTENT, not for the goofy graphics you hang around the content... as such CONTENT should be FIRSt. Semantic markup of content, bent to one's will with CSS to create the layoutS (yes, plural), THEN you bring in the PSD jockey to make the graphics you hang on it -- MAYBE. CSS3 is REALLY making that last step even less necessary. But then I don't believe in off the shelf coded templates either since content should dictate the markup -- as such how can you make a 'design' until you have content (or a reasonable facsimile), and semantic markup of it. End result is most always akin to shoe-horning that fat woman's size 9 foot into a size 3 pump. To be brutally frank, 99.9999999999999% of the crap vomited up by 'artists' out there reek of "WCAG, what's that" and "But I can do it in Photoshop" idiocy -- this stems from 99.9999999999% of the re-re's pissing out PSD files and having the cojones to call themselves 'designers' don't know enough about HTML, CSS, accessibility or usability to be designing joker foxtrot sierra! In fact there's only two things they are qualified to be designing, and Jack left town, took his **** with him! Starting from some goofy idiotic drawing is putting the cart before the horse and a completely back-assward approach to design, and the ONLY reason it's become an accepted norm in the industry is the dumbasses willing to write checks for vague promises don't know enough about this stuff and are too easily swayed by "ooh, shiney" -- instead of asking "Very pretty, but what good is it?" Stands to reason since a lot of them are under the delusion you can get sound technical advice from Forbes, when that's akin to trying to get financial advice from Popular Mechanics. Because at the end of the day if it's an inaccessible mess, it doesn't matter how pretty it is. Take a queue from the major successes of the Internet -- Amazon, Google, e-Bay, Craigslist, Facebook -- these aren't exactly a visual tour de force now, are they?