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On February 01 2012 07:05 shannn wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 06:40 mmp wrote:On February 01 2012 06:20 Teodice wrote:On February 01 2012 05:16 HardlyNever wrote:
I have some web design experience, but my work would be marginally professional at best. Perhaps your expectations are far outside your budget range.
If you want to post what you are looking for, I could at least give you an idea about whether what you are asking for is a lot or reasonable. Well, I´ve posted some things in other responses but I´ll try to sum it up. (Sorry if my typing seams a bit off but it´s getting late here in Sweden  ). For the design: I´d want the design of our website to more "professional looking". The previoous designer had no experience from building website before so it has still the touch of trial and error over it. There´s no need for a totally new design, we just want the design we got reworked and "refreshed". A gentle touch by someone more experienced from other projects. The content of the site: I guess some mix of the design adds in here but anyway. As it stands today I cannot add or remove any content on the site except for the news. I cannot add anything to our roster page (which looks horrible at the moment) or at any other information page. I´d like as admin of the site be able to edit anything written or added at the site. May it be that a player has left a team and has to be removed from the roster or some changes in regard of our sponsors or the management of the team. I guess that´s all a coding question and not a design issue. So basicly the site would need a new platform but with the same updated design. The forum: Our forum is working well but since the server migration of the website some things seams to be off and I have not been able to switch them back to how it supposed to be. Probably easy for someone who got the experience which I sadly do not. Just minor stuff which can not take alot of time. Our wish - Our own tournament system: This is probably the most advanced part of the whole site. We´d like our own tournament system to our tounaments that we´ll start to host once again. It doesnt need to be as fancy as craftcup´s or TLs. We just need a proper, enough good looking bracket system for the tournaments. The price I were offered from a designer who have shown great interest is 1500 USD . That does not include the tournament system, just the coding and design upgrade of the site. I thought at first it was a bit much but when I thought some more on it I realized that must be a standard price for a professional designer which he is. That´s why I´d like a student or "hobby" designer to accept the project. Not only that it would be cheaper, also to make the designer want to upgrade and work with the site for his/her own benefit. To be able to learn and work with us through regular payment for every task on the long term. I don´t know. Maybe I just have to increase our budget? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. It's unrealistic to expect a contractor to want to voluntarily stay on and maintain the site after the contracted work is complete. It is also unrealistic to think that a website's demands can be met in a single contract. Things break. You'll want new features. You'll start to dislike features and want them changed. You'll need to pay more money or get someone experienced in your organization. As for price, you should expect to pay more for serious programming work (beyond HTML/CSS/PHP). You should expect to pay more for backend work over frontend work. You should expect to pay more for high quality artwork, and most programmers are not artists -- most artists are not programmers. Also, whether you go indy or firm, the quality of the final product is based solely on experience, not price. Paying more money with a firm probably means they're going to glue together some pre-built components (3rd party code), dress it up according to your design requests, and ship it sooner. Whether it's battle-tested depends on the quality of the firm and the tools they use. On the indy side, it's probably going to take longer to build but the single point of failure is the experience of the developer. Pretty much how I think and know how it runs. Especially the bolded part is true  If only I could do some designing :D 
Dunno if this counts, but my dad designs websites for a living, and my mum paints. He'll sometimes call her over to check something he's making and do some design stuff, I think. Don't think she does the same ^_^ can't imagine understanding Linux being very useful for painting landscapes
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I had no idea about the web designers were so difficult. I'm majoring in web design at my college, and I recently contacted a competitive sc2 player about making him a website, he said yes, I hit my road blocks yes, but I went to a place called w3schools, and will soon achieve victory :D.
But to aspiring web designers, start out doing basic html 5 web sites for really basic things. And when you get stuck w3chools is the answer :D.
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On February 01 2012 07:08 SeaSwift wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 07:05 shannn wrote:On February 01 2012 06:40 mmp wrote:On February 01 2012 06:20 Teodice wrote:On February 01 2012 05:16 HardlyNever wrote:
I have some web design experience, but my work would be marginally professional at best. Perhaps your expectations are far outside your budget range.
If you want to post what you are looking for, I could at least give you an idea about whether what you are asking for is a lot or reasonable. Well, I´ve posted some things in other responses but I´ll try to sum it up. (Sorry if my typing seams a bit off but it´s getting late here in Sweden ). For the design: I´d want the design of our website to more "professional looking". The previoous designer had no experience from building website before so it has still the touch of trial and error over it. There´s no need for a totally new design, we just want the design we got reworked and "refreshed". A gentle touch by someone more experienced from other projects. The content of the site: I guess some mix of the design adds in here but anyway. As it stands today I cannot add or remove any content on the site except for the news. I cannot add anything to our roster page (which looks horrible at the moment) or at any other information page. I´d like as admin of the site be able to edit anything written or added at the site. May it be that a player has left a team and has to be removed from the roster or some changes in regard of our sponsors or the management of the team. I guess that´s all a coding question and not a design issue. So basicly the site would need a new platform but with the same updated design. The forum: Our forum is working well but since the server migration of the website some things seams to be off and I have not been able to switch them back to how it supposed to be. Probably easy for someone who got the experience which I sadly do not. Just minor stuff which can not take alot of time. Our wish - Our own tournament system: This is probably the most advanced part of the whole site. We´d like our own tournament system to our tounaments that we´ll start to host once again. It doesnt need to be as fancy as craftcup´s or TLs. We just need a proper, enough good looking bracket system for the tournaments. The price I were offered from a designer who have shown great interest is 1500 USD . That does not include the tournament system, just the coding and design upgrade of the site. I thought at first it was a bit much but when I thought some more on it I realized that must be a standard price for a professional designer which he is. That´s why I´d like a student or "hobby" designer to accept the project. Not only that it would be cheaper, also to make the designer want to upgrade and work with the site for his/her own benefit. To be able to learn and work with us through regular payment for every task on the long term. I don´t know. Maybe I just have to increase our budget? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. It's unrealistic to expect a contractor to want to voluntarily stay on and maintain the site after the contracted work is complete. It is also unrealistic to think that a website's demands can be met in a single contract. Things break. You'll want new features. You'll start to dislike features and want them changed. You'll need to pay more money or get someone experienced in your organization. As for price, you should expect to pay more for serious programming work (beyond HTML/CSS/PHP). You should expect to pay more for backend work over frontend work. You should expect to pay more for high quality artwork, and most programmers are not artists -- most artists are not programmers. Also, whether you go indy or firm, the quality of the final product is based solely on experience, not price. Paying more money with a firm probably means they're going to glue together some pre-built components (3rd party code), dress it up according to your design requests, and ship it sooner. Whether it's battle-tested depends on the quality of the firm and the tools they use. On the indy side, it's probably going to take longer to build but the single point of failure is the experience of the developer. Pretty much how I think and know how it runs. Especially the bolded part is true If only I could do some designing :D Dunno if this counts, but my dad designs websites for a living, and my mum paints. He'll sometimes call her over to check something he's making and do some design stuff, I think. Don't think she does the same ^_^ can't imagine understanding Linux being very useful for painting landscapes
Having the ability to design and build/program your entire website/game or any other software as an indie will save you a lot of money for hobby/projects of your own as you're independent of others like OP (in his case both).
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On February 01 2012 07:15 TBone- wrote:
I had no idea about the web designers were so difficult. I'm majoring in web design at my college, and I recently contacted a competitive sc2 player about making him a website, he said yes, I hit my road blocks yes, but I went to a place called w3schools, and will soon achieve victory :D.
But to aspiring web designers, start out doing basic html 5 web sites for really basic things. And when you get stuck w3chools is the answer :D.
And then when you get stuck again, you learn that w3schools is amateur-level.
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Too many people think making a fully functional website is easy. Like others have said, it's not. It's simple to make a hobby website to display some news updates, but when you start implementing user accounts, sign-ups, user privileges, cross-browser compatibility, scalability, security, etc things become more complex. And if you want everything built from the ground-up to produce a completely unique identity its an immense amount of work for a single person unless you're getting someone who really knows their stuff.
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On February 01 2012 07:36 Xyik wrote:
Too many people think making a fully functional website is easy. Like others have said, it's not. It's simple to make a hobby website to display some news updates, but when you start implementing user accounts, sign-ups, user privileges, cross-browser compatibility, scalability, security, etc things become more complex. And if you want everything built from the ground-up to produce a completely unique identity its an immense amount of work for a single person unless you're getting someone who really knows their stuff.
Yeah, I´ve pretty much reached that conclusion myself by now!
I´d like to thank everyone for their input so far in my thoughts regarding this situation. If you got anything more to add, please do so! I gladly accept every inch of advice, insight in the whole world of webdesign counter services etc!
I highly appreciate all your comments! You´re the best!
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 01 2012 06:20 Teodice wrote:Well, I´ve posted some things in other responses but I´ll try to sum it up. (Sorry if my typing seams a bit off but it´s getting late here in Sweden ). For the design: I´d want the design of our website to more "professional looking". The previoous designer had no experience from building website before so it has still the touch of trial and error over it. There´s no need for a totally new design, we just want the design we got reworked and "refreshed". A gentle touch by someone more experienced from other projects. The content of the site: I guess some mix of the design adds in here but anyway. As it stands today I cannot add or remove any content on the site except for the news. I cannot add anything to our roster page (which looks horrible at the moment) or at any other information page. I´d like as admin of the site be able to edit anything written or added at the site. May it be that a player has left a team and has to be removed from the roster or some changes in regard of our sponsors or the management of the team. I guess that´s all a coding question and not a design issue. So basicly the site would need a new platform but with the same updated design. The forum: Our forum is working well but since the server migration of the website some things seams to be off and I have not been able to switch them back to how it supposed to be. Probably easy for someone who got the experience which I sadly do not. Just minor stuff which can not take alot of time. Our wish - Our own tournament system: This is probably the most advanced part of the whole site. We´d like our own tournament system to our tounaments that we´ll start to host once again. It doesnt need to be as fancy as craftcup´s or TLs. We just need a proper, enough good looking bracket system for the tournaments. The price I were offered from a designer who have shown great interest is 1500 USD . That does not include the tournament system, just the coding and design upgrade of the site. I thought at first it was a bit much but when I thought some more on it I realized that must be a standard price for a professional designer which he is. That´s why I´d like a student or "hobby" designer to accept the project. Not only that it would be cheaper, also to make the designer want to upgrade and work with the site for his/her own benefit. To be able to learn and work with us through regular payment for every task on the long term. I don´t know. Maybe I just have to increase our budget?
To help you a bit.
For the design:
I´d want the design of our website to more "professional looking". The previoous designer had no experience from building website before so it has still the touch of trial and error over it. There´s no need for a totally new design, we just want the design we got reworked and "refreshed". A gentle touch by someone more experienced from other projects.
Front-end Webdesigner if you want new look.
The content of the site:
I guess some mix of the design adds in here but anyway.
As it stands today I cannot add or remove any content on the site except for the news. I cannot add anything to our roster page (which looks horrible at the moment) or at any other information page. I´d like as admin of the site be able to edit anything written or added at the site. May it be that a player has left a team and has to be removed from the roster or some changes in regard of our sponsors or the management of the team.
I guess that´s all a coding question and not a design issue. So basicly the site would need a new platform but with the same updated design.
Use an open source CMS like Wordpress or Drupal.
The forum:
Our forum is working well but since the server migration of the website some things seams to be off and I have not been able to switch them back to how it supposed to be. Probably easy for someone who got the experience which I sadly do not. Just minor stuff which can not take alot of time.
Not sure what you're asking here. As far as I understand you basically want to revert things before the server migration? Which in that case is just to use a backup of the database the forum is using.
Our wish - Our own tournament system:
This is probably the most advanced part of the whole site. We´d like our own tournament system to our tounaments that we´ll start to host once again. It doesnt need to be as fancy as craftcup´s or TLs. We just need a proper, enough good looking bracket system for the tournaments.
Custom feature -> Back-end web development. It could be very basic to very advanced so you gotta be even more specific in this case. Like do users have to fill in scores like that one website and does it have to be automated as in once a score is determined it will automatically show the next match for a user etc.
The price I were offered from a designer who have shown great interest is 1500 USD . That does not include the tournament system, just the coding and design upgrade of the site. I thought at first it was a bit much but when I thought some more on it I realized that must be a standard price for a professional designer which he is.
Without the tournament system is probably too high imo. But if he was talking about a completely new design (different then the original one) then I'd say it's about right from my own experience (just design alone would cost my brother for about 450 euro/~600USD).
Obviously everyone has their own standards and one is cheaper/expensive than the other.
The above is all from my own experience and things like the frond-end and back-end can be done by 1 person but that guy is probably going to be a very experienced guy so it won't be cheap if you don't know one
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On February 01 2012 07:15 TBone- wrote:
I had no idea about the web designers were so difficult. I'm majoring in web design at my college, and I recently contacted a competitive sc2 player about making him a website, he said yes, I hit my road blocks yes, but I went to a place called w3schools, and will soon achieve victory :D.
But to aspiring web designers, start out doing basic html 5 web sites for really basic things. And when you get stuck w3chools is the answer :D.
The things he is asking for is definitely NOT at a level that is easily made through the w3schools, unfortunately. And it surpasses the HTML/CSS field by a long shot. If he wants to make it for himself, he would have to study intensely for a year or so just to get it to work, let alone work well and secure. Most people, especially busy ones, don't have that luxury so they have to look for proffessionals that do know what to do.
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EPT
