Can I vent?

[kd5rjz]

You certainly do get what you pay for, though. Not to be snarky, but $2500 seems on the lower end of the spectrum to begin with, so it sounds like the agency you went to is probably in the lower tier of design shops. Granted, I don't know exactly what type of site was being worked on for your parents.

If you don't mind me asking, who was the design shop. I know people in every major design shop in Oklahoma City. I'm the president of RefreshOKC and former board member of AIGA. You can PM me if it if you'd like. Also, PM me what type of site your parents was having worked on if you don't mind me asking, as well. Is it an e-commerce site? What platform?

Case in point:

Proud of memberships in mediocre professional organizations, no mention of degree. Memberships in professional organisations no one cares about are often used as a red herring to divert attention away from their lack of education.

$2500 a low number? I can get a program written for a PLC or a stack of electrical drawings from a real engineer for less than that! Both of those are something a high school student can't do, web design is something anybody can do.

Also note, if you're going to provide him with any additional info, do it in PM so that nobody else will bid on the job, lol.

If you're looking for a flashy ecommerce site, look for someone with a marketing degree.

 

[aestus]

Case in point:

Proud of memberships in mediocre professional organizations, no mention of degree. Memberships in professional organisations no one cares about are often used as a red herring to divert attention away from their lack of education.

$2500 a low number? I can get a program written for a PLC or a stack of electrical drawings from a real engineer for less than that! Both of those are something a high school student can't do, web design is something anybody can do.

Also note, if you're going to provide him with any additional info, do it in PM so that nobody else will bid on the job, lol.

If you're looking for a flashy ecommerce site, look for someone with a marketing degree.

Rofl, someone seems a little butthurt.

First of all, I asked him to PM me, in case he wasn't comfortable making public the web design firm that is doing a bad job with the website or the name / url of his parent's website / business. As a person who knows these other agencies and professionals through these professional organizations, I could personally go to "said" web agency if I knew them just to ping them to see what's up. If I didn't know them or if they really just suck, I could make recommendations to independent designers I know who could possibly help him out for free.

Yes, that's right. Free.

You obviously have no idea about web development, web design or even user experience design. You probably think web design is just a couple of single html pages with default photoshop filters thrown on some graphics. Just because some bubba decides to learn a little HTML and filters in Photoshop, doesn't make that person a "web designer." I guess any bubba who picks up a hacksaw and a dremel tool is now a gunsmith and therefore, all gunsmiths are a sham and only industrial designers and machinists are real gunsmiths..... /facepalm.

Besides, no one in the industry even uses a catch all "web designer" as a role or title. Designers can be broken down in multiple disciplines, some being visual and other others being purely in code and programming. You're mistaking graphic arts with design and that is a common problem. When it comes to enterprise level applications, most of the work is in designing an engineering solution and building a platform to support it. Last I checked, languages like Ruby is a real programming language not limited to websites, but full enterprise level apps and utilities.

Lack of education? I have an associates degree in instructional design, a bachelors in multimedia design, a 2nd bachelors degree in mass communications and marketing, and a year into a masters in visual communications. My company has designed interactive remote controllers for Logitech, a tablet interface in conjunction with Motorola for the NFL that will go live next season that allows coaches to review the footage shot just seconds ago to the players, while the coaches draw and mark on touch screens and everything is transmitted live each device. We've designed user experiences and UI's with SAP, Pepsi, the Stock Exchange, and I'm currently engaged with a project to overhaul and push Expedia.com into E3. Our user experience researchers are world reknown up there with Frog Design and IDEO. We have offices in Dallas, Austin, OKC and soon an office in Seattle or Chicago and another in London or Amsterdam in 2013... but according to you I guess my company and I are a sham since we're "web designers." Rofl.

 

[jdagreek]

I am never amazed at this kind of thing. We do websites for friends and some business friends.

In this day and age anyone can put up a website. We use omnis.com for hosting. Costs $110 a year for hosting. Do a simple google and one can find dozens of companies that sell templates. With any computer skills and/or a friend one can put up a very good website for a couple hundred dollars, including a years hosting.

The only reason to reach out to a professional is if you are doing something really complicated with lots of monthly/weekly/daily updates.

 

[Zombie]

Yeah, web designers are the serial rapists of the IT world. They've figured out how to do programming, but no well enough to be a programmer, they've figured out graphic design but not good enough to be a graphic designer. Yet they see how much money actual IT professionals make and think they can charge it and stick your website on some hosting service and pretend like they know how to run a server farm. Web designers by trade are a horrible idea, your best bet is always to find a real IT guy that does stuff on the side.

The only thing below web designers on the IT food chain are the people who actually get those stupid certifications instead of degrees. Like any other trade, make sure whoever you are working with actually has a 4-year degree from an actual school. That will greatly increase the odds that they aren't a fraud.

I'll bite on this one too...stupid certifications? you mean like the MCITP certifications? a degree means absolutely nothing other than you can take a test. I'm definitely not a "fraud" or flunky. Having a degree doesn't make you better than me or more legitimate than I am....

 

[LightningCrash]

Yeah, web designers are the serial rapists of the IT world. They've figured out how to do programming, but no well enough to be a programmer, they've figured out graphic design but not good enough to be a graphic designer. Yet they see how much money actual IT professionals make and think they can charge it and stick your website on some hosting service and pretend like they know how to run a server farm. Web designers by trade are a horrible idea, your best bet is always to find a real IT guy that does stuff on the side.

The only thing below web designers on the IT food chain are the people who actually get those stupid certifications instead of degrees. Like any other trade, make sure whoever you are working with actually has a 4-year degree from an actual school. That will greatly increase the odds that they aren't a fraud.

I almost just brushed this off, as you just sound completely inexperienced in the matter. But how do you come to these generalizations? IIRC, you don't even work in IT.

To be honest I would love to see a resume come through with an Oracle Solaris Cluster System Administrator certification, or a Veritas Cluster Server cert. It would be easier than trying to filter through the people with a "COMPUTAR SCIENCE" degree who claim "This is Unix! I know this!"

TBH if I was ****** at it I would charge ~$400 for a basic Drupal setup (not counting whatever hosting I pointed them to), assuming they had logos I could work from. But if I was really good at it, like VM obviously is, I think $3500 for a complete package would be reasonable.
I did Mitch's site for free, but 1) he's not a douche and 2) i felt like doing something nice. I suck at graphic design though.

 

[tRidiot]

Wow...

So who's got the tape measures?