Any serious freelance web designers here?

[kami]

I'm in college and would like to do a little of it on the side. I have the skills and everything, blah blah. I am just wondering what a good rate would be, so if any serious freelancers could PM me on how much you'd charge for a site such as this (only I'd do a helluva lot better than that catastrophe) I'd appreciate it.

thanks

 

[Phuz]

Well Kami, to be honest your going to have to work at it a little more first. The market/industry is huge, and everyone and their uncle claims they can design websites. Us designers are a dime a dozen, unless you have the skills.. and even then, there are SO many skilled artists.

Taking that website for example, the extra effort you put into with the evil eyecandy bevels and shadow, actually made it look worse. The minimalistic 2d/flat sort of frame look that was there b4 the bevels would have looked better. Less is more in this case.


Having said that, you could still get jobs.

There is no fixed rates. You have to charge what you feel they can afford because webdesign has and always will be pretty expensive.. the prices have only been getting higher and higher as multimedia and newmedia gets pushed farther. Animation becoming a standard in most websites doesn't help either.

I charge around $25/hr. Its hard to put a time limit on creativity though.. somtimes I'll sit there and stare, and sometimes I won't stop for hours on end.. it depends how the juices are flowing.

Things to take into consideration when settling your price..

-Creative Freedom - This is a big one.. so I'll just discuss for a second. There is two ways you'll be doing GFX for someone. With creative control, or without. If you have creative freedom then obviously you are incharge of all the cosmetics. Design/colours/feel/navigation, ect. This is EASIER because its not forced creativity.. its just, your work. If you don't have the freedom however, the job becomes a lot harder. You'll end up with many retries and variations to give them, since you are designing their ideas without their mind.
-Code? (Just html, or is there a code that actually requires some effort/knowledge, PHP?)
-Images (NOT graphics, did you have to scan images/take pictures ect, touch of photos)
-Graphics (The website itself)
-Content (Whos writing the content, you or them?)
-Animation (Even just basic imageready (gif) animation is still very effective if used write)

Blah, I can't think of all this right now..
Good luck, and keep at it!

 

[kami]

Thanks for the long reply Phuz, but I guess I should've put down some more info

-Before coming to college I worked as a full time designer for 10 months
-I'm in a multimedia design & production program at college
-I already have 3 jobs lined up

I'm just wondering what to charge since I've never done freelance before

But your points about image scanning and writing content are something I've looked over and I'll have to contact them about it. The first job is for a readymix company like the URL I posted, and they said they want the same type of stuff on their site. He also said he doesn't care if i charge a flat rate or an hourly rate. And I am kinda thinking flat rate since a site like that wouldn't take me too long to cook up! Does $500 sound too much/too little? Back where I worked I handled none of the finances so I dunno where I'm going with this.

thanks again

 

[rootaxs]

YGPM!

 

[Phuz]

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