Originally Posted by cj_purve

I think it all depends on what the client is looking for ...
If I were trying to find a budget solution for 1000's of galleries I might not mind 'our womans good sex do' as the sell text - or no sell text at all.

The graphics you can get for $2 an hour are amazing, but the marketing and conversion aspect is usually lacking imho.

If I were a webmaster building my own galleries to submit and generate traffic, i'd probably go the budget option & get simple graphical headers and use sponsor banners as the sell text.

But if I were an affiliate program providing fhg's or templates for my affiliates, I wouldn't choose my designer based on price, I'd be wanting perfect galleries.

>>I'm sure most US designers are dealing with the pressing issue of losing work to non-us designers who undercut us for what seems like chump change.

I'm an Australian based designer, but I align my prices with the US ... I have not really noticed a huge impact ... I guess because budget design and quality design could be seen as 2 different products ... both with a valuable place in the market.

I have however seen a large increase in webmasters hiring designers for work. It used to be that affiliate programs and only big webmasters had designers, now hiring a designer can be done with pocket money, I think the budget market almost created its own customer base.