Damn I remember that clip, from back in the day when I used to lurk on Apple fan forums. I've made some websites over the past years, some of which were iWeb and Photoshop made, your stereotypical kid. I've even made a site with the Adobe Muse beta (protip: don't). Over the years I've improved my designing significantly though, but I'd definitely hesitate to call myself a designer, even though I do design things. Maybe I'm using No True Scotsman here, but isn't there a difference here between a kiddie with a Wordpress theme and a 'proper' designer? Isn't the latter producing a much more refined product that has a completely different market (companies) than the CC kid (market: your aunt)? insomniasexx, would love to hear your input on this.
I would say yes, but pragmatically speaking, most clients would disagree. I know too many that just get raped whenever they try and do any work. In fact, the biggest Reddit dustup I ever experienced was telling an interloper in /r/favors that it was not only against the rules to ask for someone to design an entire campaign for charity for free, it was also rude. Thus began three weeks of constant attack, several thousand downvotes, two threads on subredditdrama, nine months of password reset requests and over 900 niggerfag jewcunt hatemail PMs. For defending designers.Maybe I'm using No True Scotsman here, but isn't there a difference here between a kiddie with a Wordpress theme and a 'proper' designer?
The thing about design and design is that one is created with the tools and fads of the day to make something that looks nice and the other is created with specific form, objective, and purpose. People were blown away when a video appeared recreating ios7 in Microsoft Word. Pretty cool, huh? The tools don't matter. The colors don't matter. The fonts don't matter. If it get's it's job done successfully, then it is good design. If it looks good while doing it, even better. In reality, things that look good just make it more likely that people will receive your message or be able to use your product. It enhances your ability to reach your objectives, if the objectives are there in the first place. The function should always come first. A kid with a Wordpress theme is decorating. He's taking a template that someone else made. The objective of the original designer was to provide a broad-spectrum solution to typical web goals to sell to kids like him. Then the kid changes the colors, fonts, copy, and calls it a day. Neither of these people took into consideration that true design would be created for the client based on their particular goals and objectives. Let's say you have a flyer. This flyer is supposed to let local people know that you are opening a new business and you are having a grand opening next Saturday. What's the difference between a "good" and "bad" flyer? It's not because one is ugly. Ugly is subjective. Badly designed flyers are badly designed because they don't tell the audience what the audience should know. We get so caught up in the details that we often forget the original goals. A flyer that says, Now, if the goal is to get people to come to the grand opening, you have to give them a reason to come. One way designers combat this is through hierarchy. You typically do this through contrast - contrast of size, color, shape etc. The first thing you want someone to know is largest, the second thing is smaller, etc. You guide them through the information and have a better chance that 80% of people will know you have a new coffee shop. 70% will know the location. 60% will know about the grand opening. And so on. How does this all apply to the difference between Wordpress kids and designers? Well, a Wordpress kid would take a flyer off of Google, change the colors to match your store, add the information in the set places, and it would be beautiful. But would it accomplish its goal? Maybe. If you are lucky. Whenever you are using someone else's pre-defined placement, navigation, and hierarchy, chances are it's not going to do its job. You have to add an extra sentence here. You have to add another button there. You have to change the colors. Now you've lost the contrast. Now you've lost the sizes. Now you have 5 sentences where there used to be 10. Or 5 sentences where there used to be 1. 90% of the time I spend designing is talking to clients, figuring out their objectives, and doing wireframes to perfect the hierarchy. I can put pretty colors and fonts on a page in about 10 minutes. I can write the HTML/CSS/JS for a site in 8 hours. But the site will never be good if I just sit down and code it in 8 hours. I have to spend 80 figuring out exactly what it's supposed to do and the best way to do it. Add another 80 when the client changes their mind and another 80 if you want it tested and to work on all devices and ie8.
in 72pt font would be a successful flyer. It tells people that you have a shop, its location, and the fact that there is a grand opening. "NEW COFFEE SHOP ON MAIN AND 5TH STREET. GRAND OPENING SATURDAY."
Now you have everyone who wants a free coffee and has nothing better to do in your coffee shop on main and 5th street on Saturday. But what about those people who only like coffee shops for their wifi? What about the people who only drink coffee before or during work? What about those who care more about the price than the coffee? What about people who love decaf coffee? What about those who only want to be seen in a cool coffee shop that matches their style? "NEW COFFEE SHOP ON MAIN AND 5TH STREET. GRAND OPENING SATURDAY. FREE COFFEE ALL DAY."
Suddenly your flyer has too much information to easily digest and you've lost all of your audiences. "NEW COFFEE SHOP ON MAIN AND 5TH STREET. GRAND OPENING SATURDAY. FREE COFFEE ALL DAY. FREE WIFI. ALSO, FREE COFFEE FRIDAY MORNING FOR YOU PEOPLE WITH JOBS. SMALL COFFEE $2.00. MEDIUM COFFEE $3.00. LARGE COFFEE $4.00. REFILLS ONLY $1.00. DECAF COFFEE ALSO AVAILABLE. [PHOTO OF HIP PLACE][ANOTHER PHOTO]"
Thanks for the response. The worst part is that most clients don't see it that way. For most clients, web design is only a) make the site do this and b) make it look pretty. Barely anyone knows that design is about behaviour and response to input just as well as it is about making it look pretty. And then they wonder why it takes so long to change 'just a simple thing' when they change their mind.90% of the time I spend designing is talking to clients, figuring out their objectives, and doing wireframes to perfect the hierarchy. I can put pretty colors and fonts on a page in about 10 minutes. I can write the HTML/CSS/JS for a site in 8 hours. But the site will never be good if I just sit down and code it in 8 hours. I have to spend 80 figuring out exactly what it's supposed to do and the best way to do it. Add another 80 when the client changes their mind and another 80 if you want it tested and to work on all devices and ie8
Yup. I've been slowly learning on how to educate clients about this. The biggest thing is quoting. After you sit down with a client and discuss what they need, most people are quick to throw a number out there. This is one of the worst things you can do. Instead, I lay out a page that has a brief overview of the project and objectives, the technical details (8 web pages, 1 contact form, hosting, new domain, email, no email, a database, mobile first, whatever), and then break down the cost really intensely. Each stage must be completed and paid for before the next stage happens. By doing this, the client starts to realize the scope of work and the dedication I am giving to their project. It also prevents the another too common occurance: a completed project with 'for placement only' images and copy because the client has yet to provide those items. Upfront deposit: Usually around 10%. This makes the client realize this is real. This happens after the meeting, after this quote / scope of work is given, before I start real work. Planning / Research / Asset Collection: This stage consists of planning exactly how everything will work: IA - navigation, hierarchy, flowchats, wireframes, personas (sometimes), etc. This is also where they have to give me photos and copy and pay me again. Until I have copy, photos, and money, I don't move to the next stage. I usually require 20% here. Design & Development: Sometimes I break these up separately, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I require payment after both, sometimes I don't. Depends on the project. 40% payment here. First round of revisions based on client feedback: I define revisions very carefully in the initial project objectives so that if they change the entire scope, we start from scratch and re-do pricing. I don't ask for money after this round typically, unless the scope of work changes. Testing, second round of revisions, cleaning up, delivery, tying up the lose ends. Final payment of 30%. Any revisions beyond what I defined in the original scope is charged for. Typically, I include 2 or 3 rounds of revisions in the price. I define a revision as a set of changes that have no effect on the number of pages, cause a complete redesign, or changes the objective of the project. Things like changing copy or images, moving elements around, and making colors darker are examples of revisions. "Hey, actually I just realized I want to have a new page in the top navigation" = $$$. Adding a link to their brother's facebook in the footer would be fine. By giving concrete examples of what a revision is and isn't, the client doesn't have to guess as much and they like and trust you more. Building trust with your client, educating them, and giving them the information to be intelligent has a great effect on the relationship. So many times I see people bitching that their dumbass client wants them to change the entire top navigation and menu and they don't know how much work that is and they have to do it for free. The client is only a dumbass because you didn't tell them how much work a change like that required, and you have long lost the opportunity to ask for money in due to scope changes. The other thing I see people failing to do is breaking down the price by hours. I decide how much money I want for the whichever phase, decide what my hourly rate is, and then divide to get the hours. I increase the hours by 15% (us designers - we alway underestimate both the time things take and the value of our work) and then add the money back up. I might say it's 25 hours at $30/hour for planning. 30 hours at $40/hour for wireframes. Etc. This also makes that big ass number at the bottom look much smaller. If you charge $10k for a website (or video or whatever freelance project you have) and break it down so that every individual charge is in the $500-$1000 range, people are ecstatic to pay you. If you throw the $10,000 number at them they wonder where their money is going and think, "holy fuck that is expensive." Since I started taking the time at the beginning to plan and educate clients I've had so much better luck getting paid and getting things done without ripping my hair out. It's amazing. It also weeds out all clients who aren't serious about a project and therefore it doesn't waste either of our time.
It's all about expectations, really. That goes beyond just the quality of the work. What you do, when you do it, why you do it, what happens when x goes wrong at time y. You need to set the boundaries for both yourself and the client, like with the revisions. Nearly every conflict in group work stems from different expectations. "But I wanted this feature implemented that way": different expectations of content. "Why isn't it done yet?" Different expectation of the timeline. The problem is that you can never avoid those conflicts (sadly all communication is imperfect), but that extra work you do upfront really helps a lot. And when you do your work according to their expectations, they will easily hand you over the money. After all, you did what they expected, so it's definitely worth the 10k.Since I started taking the time at the beginning to plan and educate clients I've had so much better luck getting paid and getting things done without ripping my hair out. It's amazing. It also weeds out all clients who aren't serious about it and therefore doesn't waste either of our time.