Quote:
Originally Posted by Deej
Harvey... no one asked for secrets, truths and common sense...
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I don't do it anymore
by the way, I was thinking about this: just a couple days ago I was thinking "damn, how I wish to get some DESIGN ONLY work... " . Seriously. I love to design, that's why I'm doing it even though I studied something else (related, but not exact). Now, taking a look at our last 10 projects:
- Carma skinning and customization
- NATS skinning and customization
- Tour design (phewww!) and Elevated-X integration + customization
- Flash video player skinning
- Flash video player customization
- Media delivery PHP script
- XHTML conversion of existing tour
- Marketing strategy + design (yipeee!) + custom social media site and community
- Tour design (ecstatic!) with custom PHP coding
- Set of custom join pages with NATS integration
- Custom WP CMS
- Custom WP CMS + community + billers integration + media delivery integration
Of course I won't complain of having work, but I was wondering how a designer can survive nowadays with just design skills. And let alone trying to charge custom coding on top, most people considers that a given. What I mean is that I had a pretty decent skill set when I started, and with that skill set, I'd get like 1 task every 2-3 months.
So I had to go back to build an office again, hire people, pay them, pay more taxes and so on, and I don't think we'd last long with adult only, so I understand when designers go desperate and do work for beans.
Now, think about this: in order to work for beans, the only way a designer can make a living is to do lots of work, so he/she will make out in the quantity.. Hence, the client will get whatever takes the designer less time. It's not uncommon that the client will need to pay TWICE (once for the "great cheap opportunity" and once for the real work), I know that because around 25/30% of our workload is to solve "cheap ass" fuck ups.
But really: can you complain about that? People needs to eat, if you pay $50 for a custom WP theme, you may expect $50 quality (at best).
And don't come with the "Filipino price" until you show me 1 (one) site designed by a Filipino designer/company that converts at least barely decent .
Another thing: due to this situation, some designers with nose for business and a knack for PR decided to outsource work (mostly coding but design as well) and make it pass as their own. Thus, you can see people paying outrageous prices for work that the designer/coder does for 20-30 or 50% of the price. And that affects the business as well, because people is paying for just PR, then they get burned, then they go to the "$50 guy". After all, they'll get the same for a fraction of the price, right? Or even worse, clients go to non-outsourcing design firms looking to have everything fixed and they don't want to pay the full price again.. because they paid before! Even though what they paid doesn't work! I'm not saying all the companies that outsource are like this, just giving an example on real situations we face on a weekly basis with a few of these companies
so yeah, it's a really fucked up situation for designers (and content providers, and coders, and....)