Hi Mark

Change this line in your CSS

.commentbody p {line-height: 1.2em; margin:0; padding:0;}

to:

.commentbody p {line-height: 1.2em; margin:5; padding:0;}

HTH

I appreciate everybody feeling free to call me all sorts of names from unprofessional to naive, based on something I wrote as an opinion.

*grins* It is fairly amusing.

On the other hand when design companies are taking part in the contests like sitepoint ones and provide designs (their work) before they are being paid for it, it’s a sure sign they are desperate to get work (at least in most cases) due to the fact that they are just starting out or they are not very good in what they are doing and therefor don’t have many clients lined up wanting their services.

The key to be satisfied with the design company would be

1) to do a serious research before hand to find the design companies that are right for the task you have.

2) communicate very clear the task to them, so at any given moment they know what you want, and you know what to expect.

3) set the price for complete project in the beginning, so you know exactly what you will be paying at the end, when your requirements are met.

The design contract for WTC was worth many millions of dollars - it’s obvious that multiple companies would be chasing that.

What you want is a bedroom designer, someone new enough to want to build up their portfolio. But then, you run the risk of choosing someone with zero (or little) knowledge - whereas if you work with an established design co. who charge proper rates, you are pretty much assured of having a good professional job.

Your earlier comments are absolutely irrelevant. When you contract a design co. you will get a contract and worksheet - if the design co you chose are professional then they will stick to the agreed terms with respect to completing your job in an orderly fashion and doing everything that needs doing. If they don’t stick to the agreed terms then penalties will apply (as per the contract terms). This could mean them paying for a different design co. to do your job, or returnig your cash.

So, be professional. At this moment you sound naive, and to be frank, cheap. If you do get someone dumb enough to work for you for free, let us know their name

Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it.

I do not consider myself having a cheap or unprofessional attitude with regards to this issue. I totally admit the tone of the article could have been much better, but when I wrote it, I was pretty discouraged by the responses I had received from various design companies.

I do not have an issue paying a fair price for a fair service - What broke the camel’s back (more or less) was that the companies providing quotes all wanted to overcharge me for hosting and added pages in addition to design. Wait, did I just call myself a camel? *sigh*

To clarify, I am not suggesting that I do not want to pay for a good design, or that I would not award a contract based on concepts submitted, what I am simply trying to do is empower the web community to carry over the “brick and mortar” model of bidding on design work.

One “real world” example - When there were multiple firms competing for the design contract on the World Trade Center site, the contract was not awarded solely based on their portfolio - they had to submit design concepts for that specific project. Then the company with the best design determined by a panel was awarded the contract.

When you approach the design company you do it for a reason, you have a chance to see the portfolio and decide if they are right fit for your web site and can do good job, and what you should expect from them.

When you have this “cheap” attitude you are guranteed to get cheap results and be unsutisfied and frustrated with the designers over and over again. Gary is right, if you are serious about what you are doing, you better be more professional about it… and work with professionals, and yes they do charge for their services.

I totally agree that part of being serious about the business is taking that step to recognize we NEED to outsource - The initial part of my post is about the need for outsourcing and spending money to out source.

What I do not like about the current model, or at least what I have been experiencing over the past couple of days is that the firms who want to bid on the re-design seem to only want to do it if they can charge $1,000 for the design with nothing for us to consider up front. No concept for the site.

Also, the companies that I have found in the past 3 - 5 days all want $40/month to host and $50 to add each new page. Those prices seem to be a little “out of whack” to me, but I could be wrong - it is just my opinion.

Not sure what you mean by your comment that I am attempting to take advantage of a design company. The way it works away from the Web is that multiple design companies will create concepts and “pitch” them to their potiential clients, hoping to land the account.

In fact, on the positive side, it seems that there is a group that recognizes this and has created a solution (in a round about way via contests) at http://www.sitepoint.com/contests/

I read about them this morning and am trying to figure out if this will be a good solution to my discomfort with turning over $1,000 to a firm without having any idea about the direction or their ability to take my site to the next level.

As always, comments are always welcome

I’ll take this post with a pinch of salt What you are doing is attempting to take advantage of a design company. Point 4 in your list, in other words.