.: How to Hire the Right Web Designer
By:Jim Pretin
Category:Home / Internet / Web Design
If you are a novice internet businessperson, and you just started an online business, you probably have no idea how to go about hiring a web designer. Who should you call? Should you look someone up in the yellow pages? Should you hire someone who works for a company that employs many different web designers under a single umbrella, or should you hire a sole proprietor? Or, should you hire a freelancer who does web design part time? How much does it cost?
If you need someone to develop a very simple, static website that is merely a personal homepage or just an informational site about your business, then you pretty much have carte blanche. The only issue in this case would be cost. A freelancer will charge a lot less than a professional, but a freelancer might not do a thoroughly competent job. There are numerous website directories that contain a database of freelance web designers who are seeking work. If you hire one of these individuals, make sure you request to see samples of web designs they have already done, just to make sure they have not done shoddy work in the past. I find it best to hire a professional in this instance, because even though a professional will charge more per hour, they can usually do much better work and get it done faster. So, in the end, a freelancer could actually charge more and you might end up getting a design of inferior quality.
Let us take a moment to delineate what the differences are between a freelancer, a sole proprietor, someone who owns a small, reputable web design business with a few employees, and a designer who is part of a huge company that employs up to one hundred web designers (there are quite a few companies out there that employ hundreds of web designers under a single company umbrella and also provide domain name registration and web hosting services all in one package).
First of all, a freelancer is usually someone for who web design is merely a hobby. This sort of a person has probably taken a few courses in simple web design at a local institute or college, or might be self-taught, and dabbles in web design as a part-time job or a way to earn extra cash. Some of these freelancers might be quite talented, but their designs are ordinarily not as crisp as what a professional can produce. To reiterate, a freelancer is someone who only moonlights as a web designer. So, they are typically busy with their other career, and will take a longer time with your project because of time constraints. In the end, the freelancer probably will not give you the design you really want, and will refuse to refund your money.
A web designer who is part of a larger company that employs one hundred or more designers is just as bad as a freelancer. These sorts of web designers do not have much design skill, and are often given many different jobs to do at once. As a result, they will throw your design together haphazardly. You will be very disappointed with the work they produce.
The best web designers to hire are professionals who do web design as a career, and do focused projects. You should hire either a sole proprietor who has a large portfolio of work to show you, or a small firm of web designers who work together and have extensive web design experience. Professionals charge more than anyone else, but because they have so much experience and such a wide variety of designs for you to choose from, they will do a fantastic job in only a fraction of the time.
The only time you should use a freelancer or other inexperienced designer is if you can meet with that individual in person, explain exactly what you want, and if the project itself is very simple and the design work necessary for the job is not too extravagant. Do not make the mistake of hiring a freelancer over the internet that lives in a different state and only accepts payments via PayPal or some other sort of electronic payment processing service. Make sure your freelancer is someone who resides close by so that you can monitor their progress and visit them if you do not like the initial design they produce.
For almost all web design projects, it is best to hire a professional. Even though it costs more, it is generally only a one-time cost. A website is typically only designed once with major revisions only done once every few years; you may make changes here or there in the short run, but a web site usually stays the same for up to a few years or more. So, you might as well go with the most talented yet reasonably priced designer you can find.
Also, it is very important to hire a designer who has a contract that you can sign that stipulates certain terms and conditions. You should be able to pay the designer a down payment of 25% - 50% of the total quoted price for the job, with the balance due upon completion. This is critically important, because it can be very frustrating to flush money down the toilet on a design you hate without any way to recoup any of your funds afterwards. Also, the designer should be able to quickly produce some sample layouts after they have been assigned the job so that you can at least pick a particular design that you like the most, and then the designer can begin working on that design rather than using their artistic license to create a design from scratch.
Follow all of these recommendations and be careful when hiring a web designer. Always work with a professional if your project requires a certain level of expertise and skill, and make sure you request a portfolio containing samples of their work so you can see what they have already done. Make sure their prior designs meet your standards.
Article keywords: web design, hiring a web designer
Article Source: http://www.articles32.com
Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.
.: New Web Design Articles
1). HTML Might Become Obsolete
Web designers are beginning to dump HTML in favor of more versatile web programming languages
2). Macromedia Dreamweaver: An Introduction
Getting started with your first web page can seem very daunting indeed. Macromedia Dreamweaver is the industry leader in web editors, but knowing where to start and what you need to know can be a little confusing at first.
3). Finding A Good Web Designer
Avoid the mistakes I made when I hired someone over the internet to design my web site
4). Top Tips for Getting Free Websites
There are millions of opportunities of earning money online, but for that you frequently need to have a web site and there are many people interested in how to build a web site online for free. So whether you want to build a free business web site or to build a Yahoo-like web site, you can be sure there are plenty of online guides, such as this, to take you step by step through the process.
5). Is Your Web Site Driving Away Visitors?
Much has been written about optimizing your web site for search engines, but less emphasis is placed on usability. Optimizing for usability and for search engines is not a contradiction.
6). Choosing a Web Designer
freelance web designers are rip-off artists
7). HTML Sitemaps Are Still Important
An html sitemap is one that humans and search engines both can read. Google sitemaps are important too, but they are specific to google and are read only by a search engine.
.: Top Web Design Articles
1). Advanced Joomla Templating (pt1) Using Module Class Suffix
an article from User Written Resources
1. duplicate the styles already used for the particular module, adding a suffix to each style name. this will definitely include some of the following;
1. .module {} 2. div.moduletable {} 3. div.moduletable h3 {} 4. table.moduletable {}/li> 5. table.moduletable th 6. table.moduletable td
and can include other styles used on the content in that section, such as;
1.
2). How To Make a MySpace Layout That Stand Out
If you are a MySpace user, you have learned what an easy to read and fun profile looks like. The only problem is, you may not know how to create or find out. Most of the time when you see an awful MySpace layout, it's because its sloppy, hard to read, or has annoying links you didn’t even see. That is because since MySpace has been growing so much, so have the layout sites.
3). Professional XOOPS theme design - What to look for
In general, prices for theme design work will range depending on a number of factors. If you don't mind the designer releasing the theme on their site for others to purchase, then you can expect anywhere from $20US to $50US for your theme. If the theme must be a one of a kind theme that only you use, you could expect to multipy the fee by at least 10x.
4). Adsense: The Smart Investment
Over the last 2 years, We have been building a Virtual Adsense Empire of over 500 websites and making some good money. We've also been building content sites for clients using the same system. The system we use is not something that produces 1000's of sites with a click of a button, our system does not build spam websites, nor does it produce the same sites you see over and over and over again.
5). Irish Graphic Design Industry
Graphic design is the use of color, light, balance, contrast, emphasis, proportion, proximity, repetition, texture and a plethora of other elements to create a work of digital art that is pleasing to the eye. Graphic design is about seamlessly molding image and text to convey a theme, message, or often advertise a product or service. Graphic design dates back to prehistoric times.
6). How to Create a Splash Page for Your Website?
These splash designs prove to be quite popular, especially among the designers as they allow the designer to show their skills in flash and any other technology on a single page. The splash page design involved in the splash page will be one that is very attractive to the eye of the viewer. Its main intention lies in captivating the viewer the moment he looks at it.
7). Does Your Web Design Include Background Music?
When you design your website, you may wonder whether or not you should include background music in your web design. The answer to this requires you to ask two additional questions: