The Problem With Freelance Web Design

Time:2010-09-03 18:21:38 Source:Ezinearticles Author:Curtis Calloway

Thinking of going freelance?
If you are a web designer and you are thinking about taking the step into the freelance arena this article may be of interest to you.

Until fairly recently I worked as a freelance web designer and developer although now I mainly focus on affiliate marketing. After many years of working in dead-end jobs I decided that I wanted to be a web designer, as many people do. What attracted me to the role was that the job had both creative and technical elements and I felt like it was something I could excel at. Not only that but I wanted a job where there would be an opportunity to work freelance. I had a vision of a perfect job. Now, after several years I have realised how much stress can be involved in working as a freelance web designer. Everyday I'm having to deal with ignorant, self-important and unprofessional customers that lack any sense of integrity.

I spend most of my time hustling, negotiating, quoting, working for mates-rates, chasing payments, waiting for content, clarifying poorly implemented briefs, reluctantly providing free technical support, waiting for customers to return from unscheduled camping trips in order hear their feedback on a design. I have many customers with absolutely no creative talent yet insist on involving themselves in every step of the design process. Sometimes there are customers who have messed around with software such as Dreamweaver or Photoshop and therefore think they can do my job. When I try to explain the importance of factors such as design flexibility, usability, accessibility, cross-browser compatibility, search engine optimisation etc. They make subtle insinuations that I am trying to "pull the wool over their eyes" in order to make a few extra quid.

Some customers have suggested that working on their "exciting" project will be a good opportunity for me as it will provide publicity for my services as well as look good on my portfolio. It is as if they think I'm a college student trying to get my foot in the door. They will then try to tell me that If all goes well there should be plenty more work available. By that they mean uploading some photos to their website once a month or perhaps they know a friend of a friend who is thinking of having a website built for their band.

Often customers will approach many web design companies requesting not only a detailed quote but also a mock-up of the design before they make a decision. This is understandable if they are reputed company with large budget to work with. However more often than not the contractors have a budget of around £500 and expect everyone to gladly knock-up some design ideas in the event that they might get the once-in-a-life-time opportunity to work on their so called "exciting" project.

I have customers that want to set-up online stores for selling products. However, they make the assumption that it's solely the web designers job to make decisions about shipping, packaging, taxes, refund and return policies, privacy statements etc.

I'm sure its not only designers and developers who experience these sort of issues. I expect that much of this kind of ignorance is tolerated in all technical professions. I also accept that many of the issues I face are due to my lack of general business experience. It is frustrating none-the-less.

So how can freelance web designers avoid some of these issues?

After some time of working long hours for little reward I decided to start looking at ways in which I could cut costs, increase productivity and essentially earn a living from being a freelance web designer. Of course the use of content management systems and various development frameworks have helped speed things up over the last few years.

Although I am a competent Joomla template developer, I decided to start messing around with some of the commercial Joomla templates available. I put together a site for a client who was on a very tight budget and I told him that I would have to use a template. After a small time messing around with one of the

Rocket Theme templates called Crystalline, I started realising how powerful these templates were. I have tried customising templates in the past and although they do cut the development time to an extent they're are often very inflexible.

Rocket Theme templates however, are much different. Rocket Theme have developed a specialised framework called the Gantry Framework which cleverly implements the 960 grid CSS framework and is soon to be available for distribution under the General Public Licence (GNU).

Previously I had avoided using the 960 CSS framework due to some of the possible design restrictions. However, when used in conjunction with both the core Joomla templating framework and the Gantry framework it opens up many doors. The Crystalline template has many features available for tweaking the design and layout of the site.

I started to feel that my job as a web designer was in jeopardy since these templates can be customised with minimal technical or creative skills. In fact I actually gave my customer the opportunity to play around with the template parameters. This seemed to work nicely and also alleviated me of the painful task of pouring my creativity into something only to be forced into making changes against my judgement.

Since discovering these templates, It has not only helped me speed up the design process but it has also inspired me to slip into the world of affiliate marketing and promote their products. Affiliate marketing is a slow process of course. However, the best thing about affiliate marketing is that I do not need to talk to customers! They're not my problem. I do not directly sell products or make any kind of transactions via my site.

Basically, my conclusion is this. Forget about spending countless hours dealing with cross-browser compatibility issues. Forget about sending your carefully crafted design mock-up to a customer only for them to tell you that they want the colours to "pop out" a bit more. Give your customers the input and control they want without you wanting to pull your hair out!

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Curtis_Calloway

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