f13.net

I have just found out this morning that I am being cut to half time (a result of mortgage industry pain not work performance).  Since I pretty much hate my job anyhow and have enjoyed designing web sites I figured I would take this opportunity to try and transition into a self sufficient independent web designer.

I know a few people here are at least part time web designers and I have really never had a clue what to charge for my work.  I have charged in the past but I was mostly in it for the learning experience so I was pretty much billing enough to keep people from taking the work for granted. 

My plan is to take on small (under 10 pages) "mostly for advertising" type web sites and just crank them out as fast as I can.  Maybe even require the client to host through me for x dollars a year.  Now I realize my skills aren't where I want them to be (mostly need to work on color selection) but here is an example of work I have charged for in the past, hopefully one of you more experienced designers can tell me if I should be charging more or less:

$1400 - Customer provided NO CONTENT or text (god I hate that).
http://www.robroywest.com (http://www.robroywest.com)  <-flash photo gallery and interactive site plan.

$1500
http://www.beecreekestates.com (http://www.beecreekestates.com) <-interactive site plan.

$500 (mostly ripped from a template I may or may not have rights to use) Flash menu, simple application page.
http://www.txinvestmentloans.com/ (http://www.txinvestmentloans.com/)

$2200 - confusing here the 1st site was paid for and cancelled 2x (they keep selling the property on me), 2nd site was built using time owed from the 1st site and home page was dictated by the client (bleh).  Still some decent flash photo galleries.
http://www.lakehurstvistas.com (http://www.lakehurstvistas.com)
http://www.nuecescanyonranch.com (http://www.nuecescanyonranch.com)  I will eventually talk the client into a free home page redesign just so I can use this as a reference.

Now keep in mind that the flash interactive site plans for the home development sites take quite some time to create, I did all the photography as well (included in price).

So any useful comments or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

I can't comment on the money aspect because i've never had a real job :awesome_for_real:, but heres some stuff that might be helpful:

Colour Palettes
--
http://www.colourlovers.com/
http://kuler.adobe.com/

Stock Photography
--
http://www.sxc.hu/ -this one is free
http://www.istockphoto.com/

Free Icons
--
http://iconbuffet.com/ - kind of a social collection/trading game with icons

Web APIs
--
http://www.awszone.com/
http://www.programmableweb.com/
http://www.trynt.com/

Generally useful websites
--
http://www.alistapart.com/
http://script.aculo.us/
http://www.glish.com/css/

Though I charge less (because the people I've done work for are either friends or friends of friends), the going rate I know of for freelance web design around here is about $75/hr.

Yeah anywhere from $65 to $80 an hour is good. I wouldn't really recommend hosting the websites unless you REALLY want to. Look at Templatemonster.com for layout ideas.

If they aren't providing text, then jack up your price a bit. Call it a "marketer's fee" ;)

I'm gonna be completely straight up about this:

Having worked at GoDaddy over a year. Web designers are the most overpriced, underworked people in the goddamn country. They charge too much for too little and get away with fucking murder with what they charge and how they deal with the elderly, stupid women, and even stupider businessmen.

That's to say, if you have no problem with digitally raping and pillaging (I don't, it just makes my job... harder), then by all means, go forth.

But I've yet to meet a "web designer" that should be charging more than $15 an hour, if that.

Edit: Actually, I've seen people do amazing webwork. But it's always for a corporation (their full time job) or a web 2.0 app (rounded corners will always be yummy) or was done pro-bono. There's something to be said about elegant work. Most people either can't afford it or don't get it for what they're charged.

Also, if I had the wherewithal, I'd be digitally raping and pillaging also - lots of old people to abuse in AZ. I just don't have the time or patience.

My brother was lucky enough to steal just about all the clients from the company he worked for (which had a falling out after 9/11). He gets a lot of high profile/unusual work for a lone freelancer (Revlon, Tiffany's, Showtime, shit like that), but none of it is amazing really. More power to him. I don't give a fuck what kind of money he makes.

My thoughts exactly, I hate writing copy and it is the worst when a client has nothing to contribute beyond "my company name is x and we sell x's".  If I could actually team up with a decent copywriter I would go on the warpath trying to crank out obscene amounts of content.

My plan isn't really to digitally rape and pillage, that 1 template was bought in a "web design" package from some individual (dare i say company?) in hong kong, so if I take him at his word I have rights to it, if he is full of shit I don't.  I happen to think he was full of shit, still not sure how ripping content makes your job harder (unless you are the reciever of cease and desist letters)...

I am going to aim at providing full custom content that goes a bit beyond "lol dude this frontpage is the shizzle!".  I am 100% sure I have the database, html/scripting, and flash design skills to get er done but I definately need to work on my lack of color coordination.

I'm thinking of going the $1000 5page custom site with a fair bit of flash and some template driven user definable content, tie that to a $30 a month 2 year hosting contract for some possible long term residual income.  Assuming I can keep the design of said project under 30 hours per.

I agree, I believe the last "web designer" I met was wiggling around on my lap at a strip club.  But this is actually a reason I think my idea will work.  I believe I can bring more to the table than your average "$15 an hour" web designer.  I have the equipment and the talent to do extensive photowork without subbing that out + very good photochop skills (except for my color issues) + back end database experience + rapidly developing flash skills = profit>$15 an hour?

Anyhoo, thanks for the great feedback and links.  definately some food for thought here.

Well, I'm a shitty 'web designer', I've done a few sites I won't link to, but the decent ones were done under salary conditions. The most esoteric I get is some CSS, I am pretty much still straight html for a clean layout that supports the material and design is king. But even I'd ask more than $15/hr, because it takes skill and $15/hr is, depending on the market, at the higher end of unskilled retail. Hell, in a city it might be going rate for retail, I mean here in bumfuck walmart is hiring at $11/hr for unloaders, which means you have two legs and at least one arm.

I've done some work on the side, and I charge $60/hr. I feel fucking stupid doing so, but I do it mostly to weed out jobs. I really don't want to work when I get out of work. $60 is the low-end of what people are charging locally, and I'm probably more professional and competent than most of them, so I should probably charge more. But seriously, charging $60/hr to reset someone's wireless and passwords, maybe run a few updates and scans if I'm feeling charitable...yeah, it's crazy.

But that's the world, and despite the fact that we hobbyists think it's very basic, stupid shit...most people don't have a clue and truly need the help. That said, I turned down the last several jobs and now refuse to build computers for people because I need more free time and money can't buy that.

And thats the dilemma what do you charge people for being stupid and having no clue?  I mean the work is the work but the true personal cost comes from having to work with people who probably have no concept of what a good job looks like much less what it takes to acheive that level of result.

heh, I just had some nice lol thoughts - The ironic part is that Go Daddy with it's monstrously confusing plus sales oriented web interface is a huge contributing factor to creating a customer base that is overwhelmed enough to pay a premium for what should be a simple self generated web site.   Godaddy's "confuse em into buying something they don't need" design is digital rape and pillage on a scale I can barely even comprehend.

Problem is, "web designer" is sort of a dead end anymore… …unless you have some sort of specialty, like Flash where you can easily charge >$100 per hour to make those annoying banners that many aspiring web site owners salivate over… …web development has evolved into a team effort, where you have programmer/developer working with graphic designers, editors, system administrators, etc.…

Granted, there are still the small Mom+Pop type outlets that covet professional looking sites, but you're going to have to step outside the bounds of "web designer" and learn some scripting, information architecture, etc.… …or at least the ability to take F/OSS (or pay for products) platforms and customize/tailor the look and feel (and add-ons) for a client. Otherwise, you will be stuck in 1999.  The times, they are a changing, customers want splashy flash, podcasts, email newsletters, AJAXy UI, etc.… …even if they can't properly frame their desires in the correct lingo.

I've been chasing customers away… …it's just frustrating, I try to get customers to define what they want first, before engaging. It seems for many aspiring web site proprietors, the concept of having a web site is just about "we want a cool site"… …instead, I ask "what are your goals", "what do you wish to accomplish", "what is it visitors should come away with", etc.… …which usually results in blank stares, or worse, descends into how the last web guy (in many cases a relative or friend) didn't do this, won't answer their queries, etc.…

And you can field some strange requests… …I made big easy money once just crafting a half dozen pages with a JS rollover tab menu… …for a site that was never meant to go public, just used to shore up venture capital as his first presentation to VC interests was inviting, but they withheld because they deemed his site "too unprofessional"…

Admittedly, I've lost a lot of zeal for this as I once was excited, learning all I could and jumping from mainframe/*nix programming into web development… …now, I think I'd rather be writing TSO REXX dialogs for 24x80 displays…

I don't charge by the hour, i charge by the scope of the job.

I think there is plenty of mom and pop business out there.  I have turned down alot of potential "slam dunk" business over the last 2 years simply because I didn't have the time.  I had a roofer come to me saying he lost a few jobs for not having a web presence, he wanted something non crap but didn't need any interactive features.  I don't think he was in a unique situation and the idea of cranking out $500-$1000 sites and getting in and out as fast as I can sounds pretty good to me.

I do plan to steer clear of online shopping type of stuff, I could go there but i think it would entangle me with the customer more than I am comfortable with.

I love all of these over priced web designers - because one of the products I sell to Realtors is websites. For about $30 a month. Once they realize a custom built site is going to cost them $4000 and they'll be at the mercy of the designer to get updates done, our templated sites look a whole lot sweeter at our pricepoint.

Before someone says it - no, templated sites do not automatically suck. As long as the site gives you the tools to pull out the stock stuff and put in your own content.

I'm talking about $500-$1500 not $4000, besides any Realtor that doesn't just use top producer is retarded.  I personally plan on steering clear of Realtors anyhow as a vast majority of them are too much of a pain in the ass to be worth working with.  Fortunately for me most professions aren't as "organized" as the NAR, so you wont find some cookie cutter industry specific web solution for your local roofer, plumber, or electrician.

You are right all template sites do not suck, but once they reach a density where every 3rd Realtor in town is sporting the same site then they start to look a little meh.

I  :heart: U

(www.darrenmantle.com (http://www.darrenmantle.com))

My girlfriend got paid $5,000 to do this (http://www.stevensrx.com/).

She ended up shelling out about $1500 for the text copy, though.

None of the menu links work…

Not true. "Home" works.

Owner will never notice anyway.

About 1/3 of the links work, actually.  That's what she was paid for - if they ever want to add content for 'em, that's on them.  Still WIP, I guess?

Jesus Christ I need to get back into web development.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stevensrx.com%2Fcustomcompounds.html&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

5 grand and she can't even spit out a valid HTML doc?  There is a large gap between onsie-twosie pages for a couple of bucks and making a business.

The page is pretty enough, I guess.

That validator is bullshit.

there is no attribute "LEFTMARGIN". there is no attribute "TOPMARGIN".

ORLY?

a code validator that doesn't break down which bowsers don't support what is worthless.  Also, lolz:

Line 40, Column 102: required attribute "ALT" not specified.
…e_page2.png" width="670" height="445"></div></td>

so the validator requires every single img tag to have alt text?  I can understand key images but no friggen way I am filling out alt text for all the background/fluff stuff.

A California judge ruled under the Americans With Disabilities Act that ALT tags need to be used (as Target found out the hard way). However, usually I only fill it out on images which actually have text or to describe the image. It's good practice to do as well because it looks good to search engines. But ALT tags on a spacer pixel image? Give me a break.

I call BS on this. Ya know what plumbing is also something that anyone can learn to do but I'm still going to pay someone an outrageous amount to do it because I can't be assed to bother and it sucks even more to start something and not know how to finish it.

Web design is the same way. But there are still people out there who don't understand how to cut and paste in a word document let alone build a website. Those people are more than happy to pay $65 or so an hour for someone to come in and do it for them. It's not always about the skill or the difficulty in learning it, it is about the fact that MOST people don't have any desire to ever bother to even try.

Hell, I used to work some side jobs at $35/hour doing basic computer support. Things such as unpacking a new PC and plugging in the monitor, keyboard, mouse, network and then making sure their basic software was on the thing. I eventually stopped even though I was getting more and more requests because at $35/hour I was about half the price of anyone else doing that sort of thing.

"You have used the attribute named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not support that attribute for this element."

It's not rocket science.  If you expect your web page to be viewed in a certain way in all browsers and for new browsers in the future then you have to play by the rules the browsers understand.  Otherwise crap in = crap out.

Also, if w3 says you're doing it wrong then, guess what?  You're doing it wrong.  Having written the standard would give them a leg up in that dept.

edit: re: alt text.  It's a federal ruling that all images have alt text, if you are developing a website for a state or federal agency or anyone who can get sued for discrimination for not complying with the order then, yeah, even your spacers need to have alt text.  There is more reasoning to the judgment than just that though, I recall that it has to do with how web pages are translated for blind and deaf people and technical issue with the conversion.

Also, spacer images to margin your pages?  Quit fucking up the internet and get with the program.

Welcome to the real world.

Okay, the update none of you were waiting for, I checked with her on it -- apparently after she turned control of the website over to them, something FUBAR'ed with the hosting (hence all the 404's), and the pharmacy stopped caring about it after they bought it; the hosting provider changed the password, so she can't fix it, and the pharmacy doesn't care enough.  All the same to her, she still got paid.  Yay for clients who know they want a website but don't really know why?

As to HTML skills, or lack thereof -- AFAIK she basically taught herself HTML for this project.  She's a graphic designer (print and motion primarily) by trade, not web.  This job was more taken up on a lark during a semester off.

Which basically validates everything Schild said about how web design is a spectacular racket.

Not really. Graphic designers learn to design, and that knowledge applies just as much to websites as it does to print design. There is a big difference between a random guy who knows html/css and a guy who's gotten a degree in design and knows how to make websites that are aesthetically pleasing, robust, and usable. That difference should reflected in the price of their service.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibm.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=www.sony.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.msn.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

Whatever.

I think Krak was talking about spacer images, not validation.  In theory you should be able to do your page layout without doing stupid shit like that, but in reality, you have to do all sorts of horrible kludges with 1-pixel spacer images and whatnot to work around bugs in browsers and/or the limitations of the standard while satisfying your client/boss's requirements.  (Try using CSS to give something rounded corners.  GYAAAHHHH.)

I did a website for the company I work for, teaching myself PHP at the same time, and it probably ended up costing them about $600 or so AU$. (I'd provide the link but it has a petition form that I feel f13.net users might abuse). It was really quite simple, but I could do the same thing now in about 10 hours or less (if they provide content). I'd feel bad charging $500 for it, let alone more, as it's simple stuff. But then the whole industry is a fucking rip-off so.. do whatever you can get away with.

I probably would for clients I didn't give a shit about if I still had a urge for web stuff, but I find the whole thing a bit boring.

Web Design is a racket. But you have to actually design insipid websites, which is fucking boring, and live with the fact you're ripping people off. I have no taste for it, but if you can handle it...

All three of those sites are full of bullshit little hacks. They're just done in Javascript so the validator doesn't notice. The W3 CSS validator doesn't even work at the time of this writing (Servlet has thrown exception:javax.servlet.ServletException: Timed out). Let me bow down to their web java prowess. Servlets. :uhrr:

The only entities that can afford to waste time on useless shit like that are corporations where it takes 50 people to change a light bulb.

And I have yet to see a WYSWIG editor that doesn't pointlessly use pixel spacer images and still look fine in all browsers.

Design is a mug's game, the real work is in taking the design and making it work.

Really I just hate design to death because either the client doesn't give a shit OR you're going to be buried in bullshit little changes because the vice editor or whatever decided the background is not quite the right shade blue and that image should be moved here oh and that word doesn't sound quite right can you change it to this? It gets very annoying. It's nice to make something that either works or doesn't work. It's so simple.

Don't hate on design - In the real world, all the 'bullshit little changes' you're talking about are what sell the product.  Dwarf Fortress is awesome no matter how it's presented, but that's okay for them because it's mom and pop in a basement working on it.  A professional client needs professional design at every level - web, print, motion, packaging, type, copy - because it hurts his bottom line if he doesn't have it.

It's all well and good to hate doing that, but it's as real work as anything the code-monkey does.

If anything, more real, because in many arenas a poorly done product with good presentation, marketing, etc. will outsell a well-done product that lacks those things.

Example:  Despite its awesome searching power, Google probably wouldn't be where it is today if they had gone with the same cluttered portal-style layout as Yahoo instead of their simple-and-sleek form factor.

fixed

I would say the "non-designer" simplicity in the Google web look works a lot better than the designer inspired Yahoo. Even now, Yahoo has went crazy with translucent photo banners, YUI CSS grid, etc.≥ and the result is well, a pixel perfect display that just doesn't scale. Bumping the text size up (as is necessary on a high resolution monitor) totally throws off the "tab fittings" and the text blocks bleed into each other…

Look at all the wildly successful sites. Excluding the train wreck that Myspace is aesthetically, they're all clean and simple, uncluttered and very basic design even if that was by default, not by choice (as it was with Google)… …Wikipedia, FlickR, Reddit, first editions of Digg, Twitter, etc… are all bare bones much to the derision of the "designer eye"…

…and UI analysts like Jakob Nielsen (yeah, he's a bit full of himself) keep showing that simple (and thus, snappy) is so much better than fancy and splashy, even if web visitors are not directly aware of the sentiment…

Yes, but Yahoo sucks it over Google for more than the fact that they clutter the shit out of the screen. The fact that Google has more stuff in it to search from instead of having some editor monkey read over every web site before including it in the search goes a long way. Sure it means you get a lot of garbage, but it also means there's more choices.

Yahoo's probably is that they try to put too much information on one page, which makes good design almost impossible.

As for web design, any asshole can design a web site, that doesn't mean it'll be a GOOD web site or an effective one.

Spacer images are a necessary evil, and nothing the W3 has done has changed that in 10 years. Not CSS, nothing.

I wasn't hating on design, that what the "Really I just" was for. I know why they ask you to do all those bullshit changes, it just doesn't mean they're any less bullshit to carry out for me. Like I said I like to have a clear goal and to make it happen. Design is always fluid and that annoys me.

And that is why people will pay a good bit of money for a professional designer that's actually heard of Nielsen. Compare the average site created by someone who knows just enough about HTML and Flash to someone who understands the concepts of usability, accessibility, and design and there's a huge difference. Sure the average person can pick up a book or a simple tool and create their own website but 1. they don't have the time 2. their time is worth more than the $35-$60/hour they are paying you and 3. their website is still going to look and function like ass.

Do yours support the IDX listings?

You and I completely agree on this.  That said, there's an argument that this is by design -- that MySpace explicitly targets a 'lower class' aesthetic (http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html) because it's now the site for people who didn't go to college, and Facebook is for people who did. (Warning: the sort of insufferable liberalism that even other liberals find fucking annoying is ahead.  Under no circumstances should you click through to her article on why she doesn't capitalize her name in order to fight hegemony)

Lol, "lower class". It's just popular. It's not that complicated. I'm sure people would flock to facebook or somewhere else if those places had everyone's friends, as many artists, etc.. But they don't -- and probably never will.

Stray, I disagree. People with MySpace pages make me froth with anger. I fucking hate that place.

Heh, well.... Why exactly? Most people are just there to correspond or share pictures with friends. Like an email alternative, I guess. I'm not sure how that could piss you off so much.

Every once in a while a friend I havn't seen in a while cons me into going to their myspace page.

And every fucking time I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE FIRST TEN FUCKING SECONDS OF SOME RETARDED FUCKING SONG BECAUSE YOU FEEL IT'S NESCESSARY TO PERFORM AUDITORY RAPE ON EVERY POOR SON OF A BITCH WHO CLICKS ON YOUR PAGE.  FUCK YOU CUNT!

Erm, sorry, but yea, music on webpages? No fucking thank you.

Haha. It amazes me what that kind of stuff gets to you guys sometimes.

[edit] Not making fun of you! I am truly amazed.

Do you still work there? I have 49 domains registered through them and would really like some sort of meaningful bulk discount.

Heh. Do they all renew at the same time? Or at seperate times? Are they all .coms? Basically, PM me.

I don't think it was by design originally. It just worked out that way. The fact that they have left it that way is probably by design though. When you're building for functionality on a fast growing live site HTML trumps graphics.

Depends on the board. We have our own IDX solution, but can only offer it to Agents if their board allows it. If the board doesn't, we usually just frame in whatever solution the board does offer.

And to keep this on topic - the advantage of our IDX solution is that it sports a superior design and layout to most of our competitors :P

most IDX is easily framed.  The advantage of top producer lies in prospecting your database.  Probably one of the best thought out industry specific marketing/crm solutions ever made.  So to make a long story short if you HAVE a client database you need to be using top producer, if you don't HAVE a client database you need to find a new profession.

I work as a web designer with a team and I can say that web developers, depending on what kind of sites they are working on, are not overpaid. I do mostly internal web design work for our intranet and find myself consistently learning new things. My skill set is, in my opinion, deserving of what I get paid, but I can see that people who are much better at my job should make more, while people who basically slap stuff together in DW and call it a day would make a considerable amount less.

Bottom line is that all web developers and designers are getting paid to do a job that is in demand and thatmost people can't do. When being able to spit out a good web site is a common ability for anyone, then the pay rate for web development and design will go down. But we all know that wont happen cause most people don't just pick up web coding and most people don't just pick up good web design, layout, typography and what not. You have to learn that, and it takes time and most people want to do other things.

On the Yahoo site thing... It is hard on the eyes, but it is a good site. It is a LOT of information, but there is some really impressive stuff going on there. That and the java script desktop email client they got going is pretty damn sexy. It is all pretty impressive from a technical stand point, and is all very user friendly and runs well.

It is not how I would personally like to design a site, but it does what it needs to do and does it well.