Web Design New Years Special 200.00
polycounter lvl 13
Hi, I hope this is the right place for this if not I am sorry. As many of you know besides practicing to become and environment artist I also create and host websites.
200.00 gets you a 6 page website. It can either be wordpress or html/css.
Hosting is 5.00 a month which is 60.00 a year. The hosting includes frequent monthly updates as well. So if you wanted to add a new picture to your portfolio I can do that.
I posted the full details here.
https://post.craigslist.org/manage/4263599424/hwtmm
If anyone is interested give me a call
Gary 862-290-4188
200.00 gets you a 6 page website. It can either be wordpress or html/css.
Hosting is 5.00 a month which is 60.00 a year. The hosting includes frequent monthly updates as well. So if you wanted to add a new picture to your portfolio I can do that.
I posted the full details here.
https://post.craigslist.org/manage/4263599424/hwtmm
If anyone is interested give me a call
Gary 862-290-4188
Replies
Wordpress with a decent template is free & it has a built in content managing system that can be picked up in 10 mins. It also supports all the functionality anyone would need to build a portfolio site.
Im busting ye balls since i just done up my new portfolio @ www.arthiccup.com for 2 hours work & a free template. Hardly amazing but functional.
So what does the other £220 buy?
I can design a website from scratch. I don't have to use a template. I could make it css html from a photoshop mach up and I know jquery and php as well.
When i worked for a large marketing firm, we charged a similar price for a "website in a day" scheme. Overheads were lower so hosting was free to clients. My site hardly shows it but my past work included custom DBMS solutions, extensive builds, even a actual university website. (hooking it up to the outdated internal systems was a hodgepodge to get around.) Contracts ran up in the thousands.
For the 6 pager, as horrible as it sounds we could charge £200+ because people were incompetent with web design in general. I'm not devaluing your work but this is a board where people educate themselves regularly and theres plenty of resources readily available for them to access.
Anyway, my only real gripe is that you offer (only) monthly updates. How come clients don't have access to the website to update freely? Wordpress above all else should allow a client to freely update their site without risk. This was mandatory at work and in some cases we had to implement god knows how many systems to stop clients destroying the site & server space but it was often a deal breaker if we did not provide access.
Lastly, you could do a little work with your colour schemes, they seem a little dated :P But best of luck with your venture, i know a few people who put themselves through university by setting up a web design firm!
http://www.malibusauto.com
and some other ones I am working on with some artists currently such as
http://www.edgarg3d.com
http://www.lab3dcg.com
so string together a bunch of <img> tags in a <ul><li> is all most people need maybe with some minimal styling from a css file.
Consider that, it wouldn't take me long to write some php, or python that just spits out pages for people with only a archive of images, and some contact details as input.
Right now it just seems like you're swindling people who don't know better. I've seen the same caliber of website from anyone who has passed an HTML 101 class. If you're looking to make a legitimate career out of this I would definitely study some more current web design techniques and just do some research into design in general.
On a side note I know I'm not the best designer in the world. I am not trying to come off as one. I am sure I can do a heck alot better if I really studied into web design and such. My passion is 3d though. I can't give that up.
Here's something for a friends birthday(mind you, still kinda rough) http://www.pixelsnader.com/bartfolio/uncategorized/no-regrets/ - it would fit in a 200 budget, the site is hosted on a 30(2GB, 64GB cap, domain) server, and it's a wordpress theme so he can add his own content (though incompatible with plugins and stuff - it's really just for the CMS bit).
And here's a comparison via pingdom:
Which shows that your two sites have an insanely long waiting time. Your (I'm assuming) U.S. hosted sites take longer to connect from New York than my host in Enschede/Netherlands, also connecting from NY. In short: a cheaper site crosses 3500 miles faster than yours does 50 miles. So I'd say that for the price, the hosting is a pretty bad deal.
I'm also siding with some of the others in saying that the design work isn't too great. I realize that part of it is because of the low price, and there are some decent sites among them ( like http://www.malibusauto.com/ and Scott Dental) that are good value at $200, but most of them feel like they're a decade old. I'm also not a fan of a lack of a grid and consistent sizes in the two portfolios you linked.
And like Lazerus mentioned, your updating is very client-unfriendly. Why not just ask a fee or charge an hourly rate for updates? Wordpress might seem too simple, but most artists don't really have anything like a brand, and their work is what's matters, not their sales pitch. So a simple template could work quite well, even if not customized at all. (though I do feel that Pepera's site is a bit too simple. But it's been like this for years and it suffices)
This one isn't wordpress either
http://hansenpropertiesofok.com/index.html
I think my job has me like a robot though forreal because I realize all my sites are just aimed at dentists, doctors, etc.
Like this one I made
http://calhoundentistexit315.com/
takes a good 3~4 seconds from New York (and 4~7 from Amsterdam), of which only 1 or so seconds for the data transfer, and rest for connecting. The realtor one does connect to the domain quickly; http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/bwCrHE/http://hansenpropertiesofok.com is that hosted elsewhere? Or maybe a different domain registrar?
60 bucks might be a decent price over in the states, I'm not sure. But for me it seems like bad value to the point where I'd consider getting a European host despite being in the U.S.; even if performance isn't improved you'll at least save on costs. (If you'd like, I can put a test-site on my host so you can test speeds) At any rate I'd have a look at different providers.
And here's some feedback about your work itself.
One thing I notice in the waterfall charts of your sites is that you have a lot of separate files. A connection can only have so many things going on simultaneously (I think pingdom limit is 5 or 6) which means that while you're asking it to load a half dozen CSS sheets you cannot ask for other files.
Imagine having to load a shopping cart full of beer, one bottle at a time. You can only pick up two at a time (one per hand) and then you gotta walk back to the shelf. But if you have a crate of beer you can carry a whopping 24 bottles at once. You'll walk a bit slower because of weight, but you don't need to make nearly as many trips.
Same goes for files. On http://hansenpropertiesofok.com/index.html you've got a bunch of tiny images like the /!\, (+), phone, clock, testimonials, logo which could easily be merged into a single image. Right now it takes about 1.25 seconds to load all those small files, but if you combine them (or at least some of them) that could go down to 0.9 seconds. Which percentagewise is a considerable 30% speed increase on those images, and even for the site itself it's a still worthwhile 10% or so.
Your personal site really needs a retooling too, if you've got any spare time. The Calhoun dentist, the realtor, and the two in your craiglist ad are much stronger than you have on your site. Portfolios, whether game art or webdesign, stand or fall with their weakest work. So I'd suggest cleaning out your closet, picking only the 6 strongest sites (3x2 icons can be a bit bigger and show more detail) as a selection of your work.
And the design itself isn't particularly strong either. It looks, frankly, like a incense/buddha store's selfmade page. I'm not sure what you're going for, but it doesn't work, I'm afraid.
I'd suggest taking a cleaner approach, getting a decent logo (off the top of my head, a somewhat chunky geosphere should convey both '3D' and 'internet', perhaps with a lowpoly cursor, and be still somewhat original). Note; by going clean I don't mean getting rid of all color. A quick google shows http://www.triplagent.com/ which is very colorfol, but also very flat and simple. And very purple. I don't think the site would work well for you, but it's just an example of slick yet colorful.
I also think you've got too many menu/page options, with a lot of overlap between about/services/why us. Instead I think you'll want to have a box on the homepage that lists services like SEO and whatnot, possibly under the webdesign image. And a similar list for 3D. And simply merge the key points of the other two texts in a well written frontpage blurb.
Right now the text is... not good. There's a bunch of spelling errors Like "Lets face it, alot of websites", and overall the text doesn't flow too well. IMO it's a bit too long as well. Explain what your service is, not what the tasks for that are. Maybe it's worth looking at copywriting services.
We can deliver, host and maintain anything from a single focused page to an expansive webshop. We can refresh your current site or build a brand new one, and make it future-proof and mobile-friendly. We can even design a completely new and unified brand including site, logo, businesscards, and whatever else you desire.
Just give us a budget, and we'll figure out the best way to stretch each dollar.
The two ads for webhosting and hitcircles feel like ads. As in you have ads on your site. They don't feel like displayed work, but a way to scrounge some extra income.
http://webpagesfordoctors.com/ very unfinished at the moment.