posted
As all of here have a creative level from one degree to another, some hands on, some computer, and some both - I was wondering what your thoughts are in taking those design abilities and pursuing a serious direction in digital design with emphasis on web design (not programming).
We all know that the world wide web is a big thing but what's it like out there for someone who is in the business of Web Design?
I don't mean just trying to learn it by buying a book and picking it up on your own (no offence)- but investing in a certified college course that specializes in digital design covering many of the popular computer programs.
Is it a well paying market with good employment oportunities. Do the programs learned there overlap well back into the digital design area of sign making.
posted
From what I have seen, 'design' work on the web falls into 3 categories.
Web Design - no programming This is where you find you a programmer that can code in your work and let you know what is possible within the constraints of the web. There are a ton of these out there and I would think it would depend on a 'right time right place' type of luck.
Web Design - some programming This is where you learn some of the aftermarket web authroing software fairly thouroughly(sp?). Applications like Adobe GoLive, FrontPage, DreamWeaver, Flash, etc.
Web Design - Web Programmer This is the big one. If you are willing to spend some time and devote yourself to this, you can make a nice paycheck. This is learning the above mentioned apps and learning the html side of it, including Flash and flash integration, tables, Pearl, and a few other high end apps that get the nittygritty done on the web. If you learn this side of it AND throw in the talent of being able to design, you will be a leg up on 95 percent of your competetion. Most in this category are 'programmers' and are easily distinguished from someone with some artistic nack.
Can you make money, well a couple of years ago, a friend had some nice pearl exp and database exp... where we worked folded after a bit and he started looking for jobs, he got offers from around the country offering him 60k to 90k to start out. Pretty nice money for something that if you are interested in it, you would probably enjoy.
[ February 19, 2003, 09:28 AM: Message edited by: Tony Potter ]
-------------------- --If you don't care where you are, you ain't lost.
Tony Potter Blind Mice and Company 3001 Bever Ave. SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52403 (319) 573-9001 www.blindmiceandcompany.com tonypotter@yahoo.com Posts: 209 | From: Cedar Rapids, IA | Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I'm certainly not qualified to give an answer to your question, but I thought what was in the fax machine this morning was interesting.
This fax was advertising a company that does web sites for $899, including 10 pages, animation, custom layout, website navigation, domain registery, free hosting, search engine registration, and a whole list of other stuff.
Here in my area there are a dozen or so folks who advertise that they do web sites.
Now, Dan Antonelli seems to be doing a bang-up business doing web sites, along with related design and printing services, but I wonder how anyone could do a total web site set up for $899. I know that Dan doesn't.
It will be interesting to see the thread on this question.
-------------------- Chapman Sign Studio Temple, Texas chapmanstudio@sbcglobal.net Posts: 6306 | From: Temple, Texas, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Last year Dave and I put our heads together, and started up a business doing web design as a branch off my business. Him the tech-head, me the Artzy-Phart.
There is quite a learning curve, and definately still riding that wave. Still, it's been a good decision.
If I've learned anything, it's that I wouldn't even give a thought to doing a site for anyone under $1000 bux. Maybe a Web PAGE ... but even that would come at a decent price, as the brunt of the cost in setting up any site comes in setting up the foundation for it ... the overall look, navigation ... the design.
With the time involved in consultation with a customer, outlining their business with them before anything even gets started, and then all the variables to follow ... well all that has to be considered in the cost. Otherwise, it's just not a viable source of income.
Of the websites Dave and I have completed to date, non of them came under $2500. Our absolute base cost for a site is $1500.
Consider this. Even Verizon is getting $1500. PER YEAR for their 5 page sites. And like their yellow page ads, they are not all that saavy in the way of design.
I look at websites as the newest form of the yellow page ad. Only better, as they are interactive, provide "real time" data, and corrections can be made after the fact! hahahaa Another reason I'm sure that Verizon is jumping on that band wagon!
Nettie
-------------------- "When Love and Skill Work Together ... Expect a Masterpiece"
posted
Alot of the new "deals" on websites are for user designed and maintained sites. I have seen one offer and looked at their product,finding a design shell built into the front end for the potential client. In these days of do it yourself design mentality the offers are just for the sale and privilage to have a site. They do not include hosting fees or secure pay programs for internet sales which would be additional. I would like to see something like this that the local sign shop owner could charge for design,sales AND hosting rental. That would make the sale a very lucrative business option. I am currently investigating just such a venture and considering marketing it for sign shops everywhere. Think about it,...your customer asks about a website,...You sell them the site,...charge for the design if they cannot and or prefer professional design services,...then get a monthly portion of the hosting fees. If this amounted to only $25 a month it adds up to $300 a year,...year after year,per site.It would be a win win situation for all involved considering the potential for future revenues accumulating over a period of time.
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
It can be profitable but there's a catch. If it's just something you're thinking about because you are having a tough time making it with signs or whatever it is you do, you have to look at why you are having a tough time and decide if it's your local market or of it's because you aren't promoting your business like you should. If it comes down to poor promotion, a new business venture will not make things any better.
That being said... web "designers" are a dime a dozen, just like sign shops.. You think getting undercut on a sign job is bad, just think about getting undercut by a 15 year old, and remember there is NO money for him to lose cause all it costs is time, and he very well could crank out an awesome site in a very short time cause his mind moves at the speed of technology. You just have to stick to your guns, it's a market that's thousands of times more fierce than signmaking!
As far as "formal schooling" in web design, that's up to you. It might make clients feel safer using you, but your peers will laugh at you - most of those courses are not very thorough and by the time you make it through them, the software or technology is considered "OLD". If you can pick up a book and force yourself to dig deeply into it, you WILL learn more on your own cause there's just too much to fit into a class!
I've spent a few grand on training courses and certifications in AutoCAD over the years.. the courses were a JOKE.. I knew more going into the classes than everyone else knew coming out of it, but hey, I got that piece of paper that says mediocrity is enough to get the job done.
There are a few ways to go about the design of a website.
You can provide JUST the design - the look and feel, or the interface.. no navigation or HTML.. this is how I personally would prefer to do it because you get to do the fun design part and none of the boring and frustrating tweaking part.
You can do the interface and the navigation.. simply put, you just design the look and feel and very basic navigation through the site via menus..
You can do interface, navigation, and content.. the basic complete website.. The content part is what makes web design in my opinion, boring. It's just plugging in words, a few images, some hyperlinks, then tweaking everything so it works and looks right.. can get pretty tiresome and frustrating sometimes, but I get bored with monotony easily.
Then the web programming.. the ultimate in web design hell - frustration and monotony combined with technologies that don't always have straightforward solutions.. PERL, PHP, XML, ASP, SQL, JAVA, etc. *Can* be worth some bucks to do this stuff but you gotta be dedicated and you gotta find clients willing to pay for it.
The nice thing is, you are not limited to your local market for web design.
Hosting is another way to bring in some cash if you can get the clientelle. I can host other sites on my server for about $1-$2 per month, and charge $20-$25, I'd rather not deal with the headaches. The technology and equipment is already in place, it's as simple as filling out a form and submitting it so the host can update their systems. You'd be surprised how many times hosting services are resold from one host to another, to another, to another to another - one host might have its own host, who also has a host, who is hosted by some other company which is also hosted elsewhere.
-------------------- "If I share all my wisdom I won't have any left for myself."
Mike Pipes stickerpimp.com Lake Havasu, AZ mike@stickerpimp.com Posts: 8746 | From: Lake Havasu, AZ USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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Nettie uses CorelDraw and Photoshop when designing and I take her work into the Macromedia products - Fireworks and Dreamweaver - for the navigation and programing. I learned to use the Macromedia programs from reading books, Internet tutorials, some trial and error , and reading others peoples questions at the awesome Macromedia news groups.
CorelDraw and Photoshop are obviously terrific programs for design work. Most any other design program like Illustrator or Freehand would work equally well if you already know how to use them. You can certainly design almost anything you want with Fireworks but it is really geared for web use.
I think that if you are already a good designer you could learn the basics of HTML, navigation, and programing without taking formal classes. It's not terribly difficult to program a "brochure" style site with some simple navigation. There seems to be a large market for the small, fairly simple web sites. This is good news if you are just starting out and planning on being in the web business for yourself.
Nettie and I are doing this for ourselves so I don't know about the employment opportunities aspect. It certainly is a growing industry though!
There truly is a lot of competition out there so your portfolio (of web work) will help sell your services. The navigation has to work well too but what people will be attracted to is the "look".
-------------------- David McDonald Palm Harbor Florida USA
posted
Stephen, yep! I prefer the design aspect but I do all the other stuff as well. I'm just growing increasingly tired (and fatter) of being at a computer all day!
-------------------- "If I share all my wisdom I won't have any left for myself."
Mike Pipes stickerpimp.com Lake Havasu, AZ mike@stickerpimp.com Posts: 8746 | From: Lake Havasu, AZ USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
I think any education is good, but at least where I'm at, everyone does it, or knows how to do it, and they design and know the engineering part of it. We specialize in environments, and I must say that there is good money on the high end side, website design is sort of the same thing, you can charge 1000 bucks to design a "cheap" website, but if it takes you 40 hours, thats only 25 bucks an hour, not much in my opinion, for the investment you are thinking of getting into, of course you can aim higher, and get into the high end part of it, then you have to rely on help, and that can complicate things. Like everything, it depends on the level of design and the perception of your worth, we have done website, (not our specialty) I don't know what we charge, but freinds of mine have told me of 20-40k for some sites they work on, but with a design team working on them. A good reference is Communication Arts, How, and Print magazines, that specialize in general design, also the The Ethical Guidlines book by Graphic Arts Guild on contracts, pricing guidlines, and misc issues involved with high end design, including web graphic design. Rick
-------------------- Rick Chavez Hemet, CA Posts: 1540 | From: Hemet,CA U.S.A. | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Like many folks here I stick to the creative side of web design. I have a fairly good knowlege of Photoshop and wtih other computer based tools can put together a cool looking site in a hurry. My sole focus is how it looks.
I leave it up to other talented tech folks to make it work on the web.
Our own sites are designed by me with my favorite son-in-law doing the posting and such. A talented artist in his own right he does add his touches to my work to make it even better.
Most of my web work is part of my larger designing efforts.... and connected directly to jobs I have on the go, mostly as a part of a larger contract.
-dan
-------------------- Dan Sawatzky Imagination Corporation Yarrow, British Columbia dan@imaginationcorporation.com http://www.imaginationcorporation.com
Being a grampa is one of the the most wonderful things in the world!!! Posts: 8771 | From: Yarrow, B.C. Canada | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Being as this is something I recently added to my services, thought Id respond. First of all, I played around with web design software for years. Frontpage, etc. Id do my own stuff, and it was funky to say the least. I really started paying attention when Dan Antonelli, and Nettie and Mark Fair started getting into it more. These are three people I really look up to, cause we seem to think along the same lines. Their work really blows me away. ALong with alot of others here in Letterville. I found out that Dreamweaver and Fireworks were a couple of the most used programs out there for this kind of work, so I headed to ebay and got some. I really pushed myself to learn the programs, on my own, and by reading the manuals and using the tutorials and help sections. These are invaluable to someone learning. Ive only done a couple of sites outside of my own, but I am please with them, and so is the customer. I found out one thing, I like this kind of work. ALthough time consuming and downright hard at times, the end results are what makes me smile. Im hoping that it is profitable enough to keep doing it, and I intend to price sitebuilding as I do my other work. To make a nice profit. Its still new to me, and I have alot to learn, but Ive always enjoyed learning everything I can. Youve got a lot of talent Bevin, as Ive seen some of your work. If you apply that to web design, its untelling what you could do. Have at it!
-------------------- Maker of fine signs and other creative stuff. Located at 109 N. Cumberland ave. Harlan, Ky. 40831 606-837-0242 Posts: 4172 | From: Ages-Brookside, Ky. Up the Holler... | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
Web design now represent about 25% of my overall business. I've got over 50 sites under my belt now. Web design in conjunction with my print and graphic design services compliment my overall approach to marketing businesses. Thats a key point in my sales approach - there's many web designer, many graphic designers - but its rare to find a company proficient in executing all phases of a clients marketing. Cohesive image building is what makes me different than 'just' a web designer.
It has been steadily busy with web sites and generally, at any given moment over the past year, we've had about 4-6 going on at once. We're busy with a few landscaper sites, and a few sign sites now.
Pricing is all over the map. We start at $2k and go from there. And even at $2k, it only makes sense to sell it at that price because of the efficiencies I've gained from the experience I have. For a novice, you'll make much less because the time needed to execute a really nice site will be more substantial.
But theres more to designing than the technical expertise. Its the marketing know-how that goes into effective sites that makes a big difference. Anyone can design a site - but not many can design a functionally intelligent site that's not only intuitive but also helps achieve the marketing results a client needs.
You are smart to invest in formal training and education. I think coupled with existing sign making skills, you can capitalize on your current client base and broaden your product offering.
My philosophy (The Jerry Maguire Principle!), in general can be summed up by this: Less clients spending more money makes client management easier, and makes me more profitable. So if you can offer added product lines, you'll need less clients. And, like Jerry Maguire. Its more personal.
"Some are born to move the world, to live their fantasies. But most of us just dream about the things we'd like to be." - Rush Posts: 1192 | From: Washington, NJ | Registered: Feb 1999
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![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Another reason I'm sure that Verizon is jumping on that band wagon!
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- most of those courses are not very thorough and by the time you make it through them, the software or technology is considered "OLD". If you can pick up a book and force yourself to dig deeply into it, you WILL learn more on your own cause there's just too much to fit into a class!
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