Computerlove™

May 1st, 2008

$10 Website - WTF - I EAT RAMEN EVERY DAY!

As if being a freelancer or trying to start your own studio isn't tough enough dealing with flakey clients, people walking on bills, stupid revisions and constantly wondering where you're going to get the cash to pay your electric bil, there are now people doing websites for 10 bucks.

$10 Budget for a website? Seriously? Are you really telling me that my time is worth roughly 0.25 an hour?
What's worse is that there are people out there humoring these individuals.

We at Easily Amused are on the Ramen diet. Plain oatmeal for breakfast, and Ramen for lunch and dinner. No Joke. Tomorrow I'll post a picture of our food supply. We carpool and stay at one another's houses to save gas, drink only tap water, and most of the furniture in our studio is stuff we found. And, although times are really tough right now, we are happy because we are doing what we enjoy. But are we really? It's hard to enjoy yourself when you work from 8:30 am until . . . 11PM. You take a break to watch TRS, and maybe to have a cup of really watery Foldgers without sugar or a cup-o-noodles, and then back to work.

And now, when I'm looking through the job boards, I'm seeing people with $10 budgets, sometimes they are big spenders and have $200. Wow.

You know, I can't post on CL and say "Hey, I need my car fixed (and i do, actually) and I only have a budget of $10. Who's wiling to put my car in their mechanic portfolio?"

That will never happen.

And infact, I hate the word freelancer.

Nothing we do, ever, is free. Except consultation, but try explaining that to a client.

Infact, the other month we met with some clients who were very interested in using us, and wanted to wait a month untill they had the funds for their project. We met with them and gave them an estimate on the project. We also got excited and gave them some great marketing advice and ideas, and just suggested things they could do to be successfull with their business that they never even thought of. We even agreed to set them up on a payment schedule, seeing as how the proejct was really large, and they agreed. They were more than happy to listen to our ideas, jot them down and make notes, and see that someone was excited about their project. We contacted them every week, just saying hi and checking in. Things seemed fine. We were happy, they were happy, we were both excited to get going. . . . then, one week no reply. No phone answering. And another week.

By the end of the second week we called them. They decided to go with another studio. Which, is fine.
I just wish we had been given a heads up. I felt cheated - like when you get dumped by a GF. But, with design. And with money. But, they are the client and can do whatever they want.

However, did we see one scent from our consultation? And what about the ideas and solutions we offered?

I just can't see any client actually paying for consulting, not unless your Clear Left or National Forest.

As of this year we have also had to take on projects with very small budgets, with our clients knowing what it would cost if they went anywhere else - and our client would turn around and broker the work for three times as much. We fired him after the third project. But still. We were out thousands of dollars. But we had to take it - just to survive. Oh, and by the way - I couldn't even pay my rent of 500 bucks this month.

OUR CLIENTS
And, it's not like we are rinky-dinky no bodies. We have all done work for high-level companies, and unfortunately can't really say so in our portfolio website. But I will here . . .

We essentially built and programmed Sprint.com, Sprint.net. I, personally, did all of the advertisments and promotions for this entire year for The Army National Guard. Oh, not to mention their entire Casey Mears Victory campaign. I have even designed an entire teaching curriculum, complete with all collateral, presentations, teacher materials and advertising campaigns and collateral. I've designed for companies like Merrill Lynch, Toyota, Dennys, Autonation, and many many others.

But when you become a studio, that doesn't count for anything. Of course we give a client list to those who ask, and only those who ask. Maybe that's not ethical, but right now, I don't really know what is.

We all really do love this industry. I personally love design. I've been designing since the age of 15, and the fellows I work with have done so accordingly as well--but with programing. It's just hard to not be jaded when faced with such opposition.

In fact, tonite I had a client who was unavailable all week come to me and say they needed their site completely finished by Saturday morning. I guess I can kiss my plans of going to my friends birthday party goodbye.

I didn't go into business for myself to starve, or be called upon on a whim by any client at their discression. I went into this to make the design around me better. I am doing this because I want to not to have to answer to anyone else. Because, when it comes to design decisions, I really do know better.

Maybe I've gone really off topic with this whole thing . . .but I can't help but think back to the $10 website. I guess my conclusion is this:

The internet is so accessible, websites and online presence are so "your next breath" that they don't even really seem to have any value at all. The online industry is so new that people don't really know the value of the products and services we offer. Our only chance is to educate people. To let them know the real value of what we do - that websites just aren't "there." That they were created by real people--real people programing them, and designing them. Real people thinking about the user and caring for them. Real people with families to feed and bills to pay. Real people, in real life, that are really fighting to make the world just a little bit better, in the best way that they know that they can.

April 29th, 2008

Click to your guns---or rather, keep a good process in mind

One of the most important things a designer can do is create comps. With tight deadlines and budget restrictions, it's easy to justify jumping into a project before doing the necessary prep work. But, in the long run, you'll just be stealing from yourself, and quite possibly even wasting your clients budget.

Ask any designer and they will tell you what their process is. First draw, then comp then mock up, then submit for approval. Give them a tight deadline, and see how quickly that process is thrown out the door. But it's that process that will ultimately save your butt.

By not sticking to your prescribed process, you stand to waste more time than if you just took an hour to draw up your ideas. As tempting as it is to just jump right into InDesign, you're just putting a noose around your neck.

From my own experience, most of my initial comps on the computer turn out pretty derivative. And usually after I've pitched a fit, I get out my pencils and paper and pens and draw out my design. Then and only then do I come up with something good. But the cost this time was not just my clients time, but my studio's time too. Keep doing this and you'll find you piss off your boss faster than you can spit.

James Caruso
Creative Director
Easily Amused, Inc.