worth 6,000 bucks?
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- _rootlock0
This is like bum wars. The crappy design "firm"(i use firm loosely) looses a paying job to a freelance designer(i use designer loosely) who says he will do it for free. ahhhh... this might work out, all the crappy designers under bidding each other.
- mikotondria30
You have encountered, early in your career, having to try to make a silk purse from a sow's ear, otherly: to polish a turd:
The logo you've tried to start with is beyond saving. The whole asthetic of a site needs to resonate with, and be informed by this and you've kinda been true to it in that what you created from the site has no structure, sense of space or scale, and the colors are bad. If this were my client, I would honestly refuse to go any further without including a new logo. You're honestly never going to get anywhere trying to include that. No page, however nicely you lay it out, with whatever stunning gorgeous typography or images you use will gel with the logo, there's simply no way to do it. Its like going round to Gordon Ramsay's for dinner, where he says he'll cook with whatever you bring, and you bring a BigMac without the bun or pickle, etc, and just wash off the gray lumpy meat patties. There's no way he can highlight and embellish, or even disguise the gristly inept amateur filth that he's been given.
Just becuse it is learning, doesn't mean it has to look childish or childlike. Start again from scratch, and you'll get much further, much faster.
Apologies if you actually did design the logo.- the logo was designed by a guy that works at kinko's, i have been given no direction other then "make it like the logo" :(applepirate
- im not a good designer i will be the first to admit that, but i do strive to offer "what the client wants" a lot of time that is not prettyapplepirate
- anything anyone will like but the person writing the checks, so yeah, box of crayolas is about rightapplepirate
- _rootlock0
looks like a box of crayolas blew up.
- applepirate0
ok i expected as much form V3... and JNR, i have 3-4 other paying clients right now that im focusing on, this is a .psd that i am getting ready to wire up in flash that is ready to accept a wp blog feed, flickr api data for her media sections photo's and vimeo vid's for her .mp4 uploads of her presenting(which is her entire business model)
this is just a basic all art/bitmaps exctracted form for the content to plug into, is it really that bad V3/JNR???
- Well, to be honest, it's not good.Jnr_Madison
- To be fair tho, I haven't read the thread so I don't know the details of what you have to work with.Jnr_Madison
- i am trying to get the client(a close family friend) away from a horrible html template, thats my startingpoint.......applepirate
- version30
i. am. laughing. my. ass. off.
i knew free was still over paying
- applepirate0
so you guys ready to get really nasty over your bored weekends and trash every idea i have for a clients website? i sure hope so... if i still feel like calling myself a "designer" on monday im gonna guess that a few of you are away from the pc/mac all weekend...
here's my framework/wireframe concept
- lots of content needed to be accessed after im out of the dev phase, so i just want uber simplicityapplepirate
- moldero0
someones getting ripped off.
- version30
if it's free, they're still overpaying ;)
- wow. thanks. your my newest design mentor. please guide me with your kind words sir... need an intern?applepirate
- applepirate0
^all that my friend's knew about my line of work was that i was "into computers" i have been half way across the country for years and we had lost touch.
once they realized they were paying someone for something they were not happy with they wanted to give me the job. the company that made this template shit still made 3g's off of VERY little work and is probably going to get more out of them b/c i have no desire to maintain the shopping cart section of their site it has nothing to do with my skill set... so all i am really doing is taking the design/UX/2.0 stuff that these guys were not capable of offering and working on it for them for the price of some diner's and such.
im not in over my head i was just in an akward position this morning where i had to go talk to a shit web firm about why i would be taking the design work that they obviously are not capable of completing off their plate....
oh fuck it i cant win. im gonna quit replying and get back to work on this site! cant wait to hear how horrible you guys think my design is when i post my static .png of the layout into this thread for a design crit!!!
- I feel badly for you - your new design needs to utterly knock it out of the park, or you're toast :(. Shame.mikotondria3
- version30
ap, i want to respect you i do, and i'm on your side in regards to would rather provide a quality product, which obviously, this is not, it's just that this story has a sense of oh fuck, what have i don eto myself,i'm in over my head and now i don't know what to do. to me it is jeans mistake, regardless of her age, like i said earlier, why did they not come to you first? further add to the fact that she as a consumer made a bad purchase, you come in here seeking validation in something that never had to be on this site. when you buy a car off broadway you know what you're getting into, but when you decide your shit car isn't really what you wanted and you go to the dealership looking for help, to me she is a worse example of a client than design firm x is an agency. in this story, you're the big brother who came to the rescue on the playground. neither you or jean have any respectability in this situation due to your actions after the fact.
- ha. ok well thanks for the attempt in respect. i was just bringing this hear to make sure...applepirate
- that i was validated in thinking this template/design was utter shit. thats all...applepirate
- i never expected anyone to even take the time to read my first long rant. never been much of a good thread starterapplepirate
- *hereapplepirate
- applepirate0
^ sure i totally understand that but how do you step back and allow the buyer to get ripped off when you have the ability to remedy the buyers remorse you know they will be feeling?
its like telling your best friend who is a chick that her asshole boyfriend is cheating on her. Who cares if you piss the dude off its your best friend... "bro's before ho's" goes out the door and all that modern machismo bullshit alongside it.
so maybe im too emotional about watching people waste money on bad design. but i do everything in my power to alleviate the world of developer's of this caliber that resell templates. sorry for all you sales guys and ceo's that make money off of ignorant clients but it is our jobs as designers to move past the 2002 mentality of reselling other peoples work to keep an office full of employees afloat. where is the pride in your work when all you do is plug content into templates?
- i'm going to email her and tell her i can do it for half the price that you can, if you don't mind.kona
- go ahead im sitting at her house laying out a pshop file to plug into flash 2nt. im doing it for free...applepirate
- what is 50% of nothing id be glad to paypal that too you right now???applepirate
- i know you are a better designer then me kona no doubt, i just hate that good design is reserved for peopleapplepirate
- half of nothing = me doing it while i'm naked.kona
- that can afford to take their projects to agencies or well established high cost solo artist. im damn near a "non-profit designer"(and proud of it)applepirate
- 50% of nothing today is worth zero. but 40 years from now it will be worth roughly $45.87. paypal that to me.kona
- your ustream feed of you doing this site in the buff and the money's all yours ;) i need a good laugh im out of weedapplepirate
- whoa whoa... not in the buff. i'd keep my combat boots on.kona
- version30
buyer beware
- applepirate0
really guys am i the bad guy?
if you see family/friends getting ripped off do you feel no obligation to help them out? especially if it involves their livelihood...???
i might have "pirated" a gig away from a small team that needed the work but they were not willing to make changes that the client had been asking for. Months have gone by since they were asked to match the template's colors to her very loose branding concept which was Red, White and blue.
all i wanted to do in the beginning was help them an updated identity to coincide with some new products that they were developing.... i had no idea i would be taking over a large web project incorporating my friend who is an illustrator, a biz partner that is a wordpress guru and myself.
I was just talking to some friends at diner and they asked for my advice.. my advice once i saw the template was "start over" they just happened to want to use me as the "reset" button.
clients having to pay full price for shitty design that they are not happy with is something that i cant stand back and bite my tounge about so if that makes me a client stealing douchebag then so be it. at least i can sleep at night knowing that i made a small business owner happy with their product.
- version30
pirate is very fitting for you
- applepirate0
i just got back from a meeting with jean(the client) her husband(my friend of 10+years)and the salesman/owner of the web "design" firm.
they guys were all on 5 year old dells surfing penny arcade in the ikea furnished make shift looking 800sq. ft office....
it was a battle of the twits with these guys all i wanted to know was "can you incorporate my redesign into your existing content implementation" and all the salesguy kept repeating was "we have thousands of man hours in this how are we gonna pay our developers for the work that you are no longer happy with"
so.... end of story is like this, im taking over the design/programming of the site and they will be taking care of the shopping cart. their template is gonna be shoved back into their folder and used on some other unsuspecting client that doesnt know what questions to ask or what is available in todays web3.0(yeah i said 3.0 deal with it) world... we have moved past thinking that 2Advanced style shit is the "future of webdesign" and realize even flash needs to be SEO(GAIA frameworks and the like help enormously) these guys just arent capable or willing to do that style of work no matter what the cost. Hack-TML shops like this just make me hate the title "web designer" that gets tossed around onto template editors.
fuck this is wearing me out. thanks for your responses... they were more helpful for my frame of mind then i could have imagined.
- you're..... welcome?Gucci
- I feel cold.pylon
- "Thousands of man hours"? Are they kidding? And for $6000. So what, >$6 an hour?ETM
- yeah he literaly said "we have thousands of hours into this"applepirate
- craighooper0
She agreed to pay $6000 for the product, and signed her name in ink declaring so.
Is the project done? Until the moment comes that they say "we are done, here are your files", and she says "wait, you have yet to complete, a, b, c, and d", and they don't, then there is little that you can do, Flash dude who started this topic, other than do you best to look and sound like a douche by putting yourself in the middle of things.
Yes, said website is awful. Don't get involved—concentrate your energy and efforts on yourself instead.
- i was asked to build a flash based 3D game to add to this template so i freaked. now i have a job that i am happy to doapplepirate
- do for a family friend that was getting ripped off.. dont see how that makes me a douche?applepirate
- blaw0
On the topic of templates, I agree that companies that promote themselves as a Web design/development company, then turn around a slap a free theme on an installation of WordPress are shit, but it doesn't take much time looking at their previous work to determine this. I give such companies a shelf life of about 9 months.
- the company in question is 10yrs old and had a client roster on their white board that made them seem very "busy"applepirate
- i wish a 9month shelf life was a true read on these kind of assbag's... but somehow they fill business parks all over DFW competing with the same templatesapplepirate
- (sigh) Really? Must have a great salesman. I get you on this. Currently a minor bur in my side fits this bill to a tee.blaw
- Also, while all dogs go to heaven, all salesman go to hell. So there's that.blaw