Sat, 2004-04-17 08:02
I'm just getting into writing web pages for businesses, and now it's starting to get more serious i need to know all sorts of things a web designer should know/require to know before accepting a project professionally.
Stuff like:
-
What questions i should ask the person.
Deciding whether i need to implement php or just plain html or what not.
How should i charge.
Design decisions based on what content the client is looking at.
Can any of you help me on this or know any resources i can get some advice from?
Thanks.
Dan.
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Sat, 2004-04-17 12:22
#1
Web Designer Skills
Phew, where to start...
Firstly, make sure you get paid before anything is uploaded as finished!
I spotted a good set of PDF downloads a few weeks back, from Sitepoint... http://www.sitepoint.com/books/freelance1/
It costs a lot, but there are two sample chapters which are very good. Check them out.
Personally, I will no longer design a site with a view to getting the work later on (pitching). We nearly went bust a few years back doing 3 of these over a period of 2-months.
If I have time later, I'll post some more thoughts, gotta go out now. 
Fri, 2004-07-23 00:53
#2
Web Designer Skills
bout the design decision:
first of all you need to know what he wants with the site, does he want to sell anything etc. (duh, I knew that!)
Second I always like 2 see if the company has a logo, a mascotte or anything at all which you can conclude in the site (animated or not)
Don't use too much animation, depending on the business and kind of site you are creating, visitors with low i-net speed try to reach the site. If it takes too long they think what the heck and you lose visitors! Personally I don't like looping animations, only if it's nicely done and not too much of an eye-catcher. This will also start to irritate.
Third tip: Keep the menu simple!! Lots of people want to create an nice menu with lots of submenu's which will cause a new visitor to get lost in all the submenu's etc. If you can't avoid this make a small description of the main menu which will pop up on mouseover to inform the viewer about the stuff to find there.
Last tip: Don't you extremely light colors for your background, they easily make your eyes tired. And if anyone visits ur site in the middle of the night, pop's the site open and gets 30 different shiny colors blasted in his/her face...
Good luck on designing! 