The $$$Buck STOPS HERE!!!!!!!!!!
Listen to this!!!!
This Real Estate guy from Dubai gets a hold of my email address and sends me an email of how badly he is in need of a web site. He said he sells apartments in huge 60 floor towers. He said he would do it himself but doesn’t have the time because he is so very busy with all his clients selling them apartments. In other words making bank. He said he wants something completely in FLASH. Very smooth moving, sharp looking, edgy, clean, crisp, hot and fresh out the oven. (meaning unique). Then he tells me he wants something that looks just like http://www.zara.com/. I emailed him back , " hey no problem we can make something SIMILAR to it if not better." Now zara.com is an ok looking site. Kind of dull in color but decent flash. I just didn’t like the jagged movement of the site when it switches from one page to the next. I mean it’s a fashion site with beautiful people. Slow it down a bit be smoother. Anyway, he wants a quote and he tells me that Price is very important to him. Cost is key in this project. (also interpreted as; "I got no money to spend on marketing my growing business with 100s of clients, but I want an awesome flash site. Sincerely, el cheepo") He also wanted to see a mock design of it. He was testing my creativity. He said " Show me your style of design. I will compare it to others and if I like it I will pick you." Hmmmm.. ahhhhh ok geeeee ok yeahhhhhh . SURE I will spend 4 hours designing a nice little layout for you so you can go with another designer. Common what do you take me as, a JOKE!!!
4 hours later I had a design ready for him. WHY DID I DO IT? Well you see the problem with me is my creativity goes wild as soon as a project idea is brought forth. I mean I am serious. I literally take a pencil and sketch the design all over my brain. Then I start talking to myself and arguing with myself of what color scheme to use. But at the end I always get my way. I think?? The other thing is, I don’t like being challenged, but love to be competitive. I like to step up to the plate. I don’t care what it is. Designing a web site, playing sports, eating spicy lava like curry… whatever. So I designed it.
Very clean looking. I really took my time to be detail oriented on this one. But I did it. I then estimated how many hours it would take to actually implement this design and put it all into flash with the effects and all the bells and whistles. My total came out to around.. ohhhhhhhhh 40-50 hrs. Now taking that and applying my web design minimum wage to it of $30/hr brings me to around $1200-$1500 bucks. WHAT? You think $30 is too much. No way! $30 is a joke price. That’s dirt-cheap. People start to question your credibility when you go this cheap. They probably start to think you are the swap meet of web design. There are companies out there, tearing apart bank accounts with rates as high as $150/hr. MAN, if I could charge like that… ohhhhh man.. But you see its getting the clients that will actually pay for it with a marketing budget, is the problem. NETWORKING, its all about NETWORKING. Well back to el-cheepo. But considering this guys situation, I said to myself, "Why loose a client over $600 measly dollars… Wait there is nothing measly about $600.. I take that back. But I really wanted help this guy, and the project seemed like fun. Plus if the word got out in business booming Dubai of me as a web designer, there could be more projects coming my way… So I quoted the guy $950… Yes $950.. I mean, am I generous or what… just say I am generous… I even said I will design him a logo and a business card free of CHARGE.. Magic word here is FREEEE. People love it. I feel like I am doing NON-PROFIT work.
You want to know what this guy tells me.. MAN>> this guys said.. "I like your design, but I want it to look EXACLTY LIKE zara.com. EACTLY like it. No change. Also I can only pay you $700, $950 is too high" … are you feakin’ kidding me….. Man this was ridiculous… So I said. " I am sorry that I cannot go any lower than that. Maybe you should consider going with someone who can throw some text up in notepad with some flashing gifs that say " WOW- WOW-WOW-WOW" and a dancing clown that moves across the screen waving his hands. With 20 different font sizes and colors, that changes to 20 more different fonts and colors every time you roll over it. Like this one LOL// http://www.southernorthopedics.com/ Hahah wait wait wait, this one is even better. http://www.womenkickboxing.com/ or to top it offf this ONE>>>>>>> Weddings site ahahahahh oh man.. I am crying, did you see those things, that dead pigeon trying to fly… lololol… dude what the heck was that….. I gotta forward these to the Dubai guy… " ok let me bookmark these… Man o man….
Those types of sites will for sure get the audience’s attention, and make them hit that little X in the top right hand corner of your screen
I really think us web designers are underrated. To learn new applications is difficult and time consuming. Especially stuff like PhotoShop, Flash and Dreamweaver where you have thousands of possibilities. Even if you do pick it up its not necessary that you will be good at it. Just because you can make a ball go from left to right doesn’t mean you know flash. They say you are still a beginner at flash if you do not know AS (Actionscript). Which to a certain extent is true. You are very limited if you can’t implement AS. Creativity!!! That is number one. If you are not creative you cannot be a designer. Yes you can copy other designs and modify templates but what’s the use when there is a need to be unique. But you will not get into making good money like that. Then you have Dreamweaver. Now that is a frustrating program, if you don’t know coding or html. Tables inside of tables inside of frames inside of more tables. That also takes some time to learn. IT AIN’T EASY!!!! It takes hours of dedication and patience to learn. We took the time to learn it, we are knowledgeable in it, and we deserve to get treated with some RESPECT. "R – E – S – P – E – C – T … Find out what it means to me … sock it to me sock it to me….."
There is no bargaining in web design. You pay for what you get. This ain’t downtown, I don’t sell fake Louie Vatan purses. COMMON PEOPLE GIVE US SOME CREDIT!!!!
This Real Estate guy from Dubai gets a hold of my email address and sends me an email of how badly he is in need of a web site. He said he sells apartments in huge 60 floor towers. He said he would do it himself but doesn’t have the time because he is so very busy with all his clients selling them apartments. In other words making bank. He said he wants something completely in FLASH. Very smooth moving, sharp looking, edgy, clean, crisp, hot and fresh out the oven. (meaning unique). Then he tells me he wants something that looks just like http://www.zara.com/. I emailed him back , " hey no problem we can make something SIMILAR to it if not better." Now zara.com is an ok looking site. Kind of dull in color but decent flash. I just didn’t like the jagged movement of the site when it switches from one page to the next. I mean it’s a fashion site with beautiful people. Slow it down a bit be smoother. Anyway, he wants a quote and he tells me that Price is very important to him. Cost is key in this project. (also interpreted as; "I got no money to spend on marketing my growing business with 100s of clients, but I want an awesome flash site. Sincerely, el cheepo") He also wanted to see a mock design of it. He was testing my creativity. He said " Show me your style of design. I will compare it to others and if I like it I will pick you." Hmmmm.. ahhhhh ok geeeee ok yeahhhhhh . SURE I will spend 4 hours designing a nice little layout for you so you can go with another designer. Common what do you take me as, a JOKE!!!
4 hours later I had a design ready for him. WHY DID I DO IT? Well you see the problem with me is my creativity goes wild as soon as a project idea is brought forth. I mean I am serious. I literally take a pencil and sketch the design all over my brain. Then I start talking to myself and arguing with myself of what color scheme to use. But at the end I always get my way. I think?? The other thing is, I don’t like being challenged, but love to be competitive. I like to step up to the plate. I don’t care what it is. Designing a web site, playing sports, eating spicy lava like curry… whatever. So I designed it.Very clean looking. I really took my time to be detail oriented on this one. But I did it. I then estimated how many hours it would take to actually implement this design and put it all into flash with the effects and all the bells and whistles. My total came out to around.. ohhhhhhhhh 40-50 hrs. Now taking that and applying my web design minimum wage to it of $30/hr brings me to around $1200-$1500 bucks. WHAT? You think $30 is too much. No way! $30 is a joke price. That’s dirt-cheap. People start to question your credibility when you go this cheap. They probably start to think you are the swap meet of web design. There are companies out there, tearing apart bank accounts with rates as high as $150/hr. MAN, if I could charge like that… ohhhhh man.. But you see its getting the clients that will actually pay for it with a marketing budget, is the problem. NETWORKING, its all about NETWORKING. Well back to el-cheepo. But considering this guys situation, I said to myself, "Why loose a client over $600 measly dollars… Wait there is nothing measly about $600.. I take that back. But I really wanted help this guy, and the project seemed like fun. Plus if the word got out in business booming Dubai of me as a web designer, there could be more projects coming my way… So I quoted the guy $950… Yes $950.. I mean, am I generous or what… just say I am generous… I even said I will design him a logo and a business card free of CHARGE.. Magic word here is FREEEE. People love it. I feel like I am doing NON-PROFIT work.
You want to know what this guy tells me.. MAN>> this guys said.. "I like your design, but I want it to look EXACLTY LIKE zara.com. EACTLY like it. No change. Also I can only pay you $700, $950 is too high" … are you feakin’ kidding me….. Man this was ridiculous… So I said. " I am sorry that I cannot go any lower than that. Maybe you should consider going with someone who can throw some text up in notepad with some flashing gifs that say " WOW- WOW-WOW-WOW" and a dancing clown that moves across the screen waving his hands. With 20 different font sizes and colors, that changes to 20 more different fonts and colors every time you roll over it. Like this one LOL// http://www.southernorthopedics.com/ Hahah wait wait wait, this one is even better. http://www.womenkickboxing.com/ or to top it offf this ONE>>>>>>> Weddings site ahahahahh oh man.. I am crying, did you see those things, that dead pigeon trying to fly… lololol… dude what the heck was that….. I gotta forward these to the Dubai guy… " ok let me bookmark these… Man o man….
Those types of sites will for sure get the audience’s attention, and make them hit that little X in the top right hand corner of your screen
I really think us web designers are underrated. To learn new applications is difficult and time consuming. Especially stuff like PhotoShop, Flash and Dreamweaver where you have thousands of possibilities. Even if you do pick it up its not necessary that you will be good at it. Just because you can make a ball go from left to right doesn’t mean you know flash. They say you are still a beginner at flash if you do not know AS (Actionscript). Which to a certain extent is true. You are very limited if you can’t implement AS. Creativity!!! That is number one. If you are not creative you cannot be a designer. Yes you can copy other designs and modify templates but what’s the use when there is a need to be unique. But you will not get into making good money like that. Then you have Dreamweaver. Now that is a frustrating program, if you don’t know coding or html. Tables inside of tables inside of frames inside of more tables. That also takes some time to learn. IT AIN’T EASY!!!! It takes hours of dedication and patience to learn. We took the time to learn it, we are knowledgeable in it, and we deserve to get treated with some RESPECT. "R – E – S – P – E – C – T … Find out what it means to me … sock it to me sock it to me….."
There is no bargaining in web design. You pay for what you get. This ain’t downtown, I don’t sell fake Louie Vatan purses. COMMON PEOPLE GIVE US SOME CREDIT!!!!
posted by sarfaraz at
10/07/2005 11:21:00 AM
1 Comments
