Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Family Favors: Free of Charge :(

Here it comes. I was going to get to it but had to really think of this one before posting. Family meaning, immediate, cousins, relatives, close friends etc… People you are really close to and know or interact on a daily basis. . Have you ever been good at something, or maybe you are the stronger one in the family, or the taller one, or the person who knows all about computers, or knows about fixing Antique Amish toilets K , or just a handy danady man or whatever you call them. Or perhaps you just happen to be a WEB DESIGNER. Here is the question?
Should you charge your "family" to design a web site for their personal or business use?
Now when I was fist starting off I asked my mom if I can redesign the web site for the school that she works for. Now I needed some projects under my belt like I explained many posts ago to get any type of recognition as a designer. So I told her I would do it for free. That’s fine, it’s your mom so you have to do it. Plus she cooks and feeds you and carried you for 9 months, so you don’t have much of a choice. I designed that web site http://www.newhorizonwestside.com/ about 3 years ago. This isn’t how it looked back then; this is actually my 3rd revision of the site. Till today I still update it every other month and put up various content. That’s cool. No problem. Ok
Now my uncle in san fran finds out that I do web sites, so he asked me how much it would cost for me to do a website for a restaurant. I said yes I will do it for you. So I created a full FLASH website for him. http://www.houseoffalafel.com/ . It came out cool, put up some menus and news clippings. Now do I charge him? Of course NOT. I did not charge him, he is my uncle. He kept on insisting that he will pay me and asked me for my rates and all that. He has been there for me and supported me when I was younger, he was kind of like the COOL uncle of the family so I was more than happy to do it for him. So family is family, you have to be there for them no matter what. I mean it’s just that money can break up relationships. That’s why doing business with family shouldnt be called BUSINESS, its called Family Favors. When money gets involved, people measure hard work at different weights. In my opinion it just isn’t worth it.
Then my little sister (cousin) was getting married and needed a site to show the place and time directions, she wanted something simple. But I can’t do simple. I can either do my best or just give you a template. Regardless whether its free or not. Money doesn’t measure the hard work I put into something. Because most of these sites will be displayed on my portfolio and people will look at it. They will not know which sites I did for free or which I charged for. They just see sites and I will be judged by it. So I give it a 100% every time I design a web site. So my cousins’ site, http://www.samerandanish.com/ I did was a full flash site, left it for expansion once they give me some pics to work with. But no charge for that either. Common that’s like my little sister, I will be the monster of the family if I charge her for that. LOL… oh well. I hope nobody else in my huge family with 38 cousins don’t need and site done.

It ain’t easy….