Questions and Praise

[hotnuts21]

I was sent here by naramation a friend of mine and a good bloke!

I really like the site and the look and feel of it, a nice earthy colour the designer has done a really good job!

I am setting up www.sankesolutions.co.uk, in this area of the world the local Govnt are trying to help small business thrive, providing lots of start up assistance and grants, there is a lot of potential and small business locally looking to make a go of it. I am hoping to offer a service to these people and offer good value web sites.

My personal experience is in managment of projects, SEO, marketing, and the whole ethos behind websites as well as a bit of design and programming.

Ive been looking around and the work here is stunning, and i was asking is it ok for businesses like me to outsource my work to Design post? I am going to be working mostly with OS commerce, so it will be headers, logos, box heading and the like.

Hope this is ok with you all.

[Palmer]

Sure, we have a few firms that are doing that already. As long as the money's deposited first we don't care who it's for :P We're happy to help the "design challenged" people of the world :)

[hotnuts21]

Thats great to know!

I have had one thought though, I have been asked for portfolios of my design teams work! Of course if im going to be using you guys to do my design work, i havent got a portfolio.

Do any of you have any images or will you give me permission to use some images to fill my portfolio, with under each logo "Logo X by one of our design team - Palmer"

Maybe use some logos that didnt get picked for winners??

let me know your thoughts!

Many thanks

[Palmer]

Well this may be a matter of semantics but I would have a problem with you calling us "Your design team". I wouldn't have a problem with you saying you would use the services of the Design Team at Design Outpost.com.

Does that make sense? I take a lot of pride in the talent we've asembled here from countless applications. Having some other firm or company take ownership of the team doesn't rub me the right way :)

Keeping that in mind, you may use our gallery here as a portfolio of the abilities of the members of the team. Here's a link...
http://www.designoutpost.com/gallery/

You may also give them a link to any template or logo on the forum by right clicking then selecting properties for the url address to that image.

[Zoe]

Sorry, but I don't really want websites other than Designoutpost linking to images I have uploaded to my site. It uses bandwidth and I would like to know who is linking to these images.

[Palmer]

That's fine, didn't think it would cause a big bandwidth surge to put a link to an image in some kind of proposal to another company.

But that's perfectly understandable.

Ok, you may link to either the gallery or any of the contests in the forum but not to individual images on other people's servers. Understand? :blink:

[hotnuts21]

Yeah I understand fully what you are saying!

The only problem from my point of view is that im trying to portray a proffessional image as a company that can provide quality design work.

I understand that you are proud of the site and want to advertise it, but I dont want my potential customers coming here from my site, and using you instead of going through me. They might then go away all together, dont get me wrong, whatever i pay you guys i would pass straight onto the customer, but it would be nice to offer a full package, im not looking to make money on you guys.

Also I wouldnt have linked to other peoples sites, I would have uploaded them on my server.

Dont get me wrong this is why I asked in the first place i didnt want to offend anybody. :)

The only other thing, is that im hoping a lot of my clients will be local so i will visit them onsite, and I was hoping to be able to take examples of work with me, but i wont do that either.

Now heres a way i can annoy Palmer
Well this may be a matter of semantics but I would have a problem with you calling us "Your design team".
Well if i pay a group of individuals to work on a project for me, technically they are whilst working on that project a design team working for me, so my desing team ;) Im just being pedantic :rolleyes: No offense meant!

Any more thoughts on this?

[Palmer]

Technically you're not "paying" the group to work for you. You would be offering a prize to the individual team member that designs the best logo/template for you.

I know how it is trying to reflect a professional image to your potential clients. You say that you want to be looked at as a company that can provide quality design work. You are. What you are doing is done very often in this industry, it's called outsourcing.

I do it all the time for programming work. I don't claim to any of my clients that I am a great programmer. I do tell them I can get the job done efficiently, quickly and professionally. When I need programming done, I ask someone if they can do it, then I pay them :)

Personally I don't think it's a major infraction to use samples from some of the contests on the forum to show the quality of the work your clients can expect. As long as you don't take credit for having been the creator of those images, the freelance designers that you work with are. In addition I would ask that you use our site exclusively for your design work. I think we can work something out.

I would like to hear the opinion of the Design Team on this as well. Please feel free to voice any concerns you may have.

I kind of know this sort of thing is going to be happening quite often as the site grows and gets better known. I know there are a lot of companies that do ok designing web sites but they could really use some help to make them look even better. I think this site offers that service. As I said earlier, the biggest problem I would have is if someone had a web design site and in any way implied that the logos or site designs were made by them.

[hotnuts21]

Technically you're not "paying" the group to work for you. You would be offering a prize to the individual team member that designs the best logo/template for you.
You seem like a pretty stand up guy from Naramation has told me, so I thought i would wind you up and have a joke see if you bit......you did! :D

Using you guys as my sole designers, seems ok to me, I have one other designer, but he hardly ever emails me and he is a bit useless in communication, so unless he rears his head. Yes I will use you exclusively.

My site www.sankesolutions.co.uk does actually need a logo itself, and maybe a whole new look I havent deciced, but the green name is something i whipped up in about 20 seconds in photoshop so something that needs replacing. Once some money starts coming in that will probably be my first job.

As I said earlier, the biggest problem I would have is if someone had a web design site and in any way implied that the logos or site designs were made by them.
I totally agree and had no intention of doing that!

Your right, you mentioned in another post you need a thumbs up smiley :unsure:

I will get a page done and see what you guys think, if you like it you can use it as a demo for other sites to follow the same guidelines.

[Palmer]

Sounds good. Thanks for checking in and getting approval before you did anything without asking. :)

[hotnuts21]

Right I have a page HERE (http://www.sankesolutions.co.uk/web_design_portfolio.php)

It is just a demo page and i borrowed two of Palmers logos as he seemed ok about the idea, and this is all just an idea. If say 6 people donated a logo or two to be used, the same logos could be used by anyone outsourcing like me :D

As you can see its clear where the designers are coming from and your name and copyright will go under each logo.

Anyone think of any better ideas let me know!

[Palmer]

Looks fine to me. I don't have a problem with that at all. Thanks for the demo. You're quick, I see you got past that right-click block as well ;)

(ps-that came as a part of the script)

[hotnuts21]

Well my introduction to websites is my main site which sells mounted and framed F1 and WRC photos. Now the problem I have is that I need to show the latest photos as quickly as possible, and my supplier puts them up on his site first, lets me "borrow" them. Problem is high res photos he didnt want anyone just right clicking and taking them so he right click disabled. Took me ages to find a work around!

Anyway its easy [admin edit: contact Palmer if you must know] Errr, feel free to delete what i just said if you feel its a s security risk for your site.

Ok then do we have any takers for providing some advertising logos, or layouts etc?

You're quick :angry: You been talkin to the missess too <_<

[Palmer]

Originally posted by hotnuts21@Mar 21 2003, 11:40 PM
Well my introduction to websites is my main site which sells mounted and framed F1 and WRC photos.
I know, I made a logo for your contest :P I thought it was pretty creative...
http://www.morningstarwebdesigns.com/logo5.htm
Buginajar is very good, he deserved to win. I'm looking forward to his spring break so he can enter more contests here.


Errr, feel free to delete what i just said if you feel its a security risk for your site.

Will do, as soon as I write down the workaround :D

[Zoe]

I think this isn't a bad idea.

I woud be interested to know how you will work it.

Would you have your clients come to this site to see the progress of the competitions or would you be taking the examples posted and send them to the client?

What will happen if a client of yours decided that they wanted a particular designer to work on their project? (palmer this question is for you also)

[Palmer]

Originally posted by Demex@Mar 22 2003, 12:15 AM
What will happen if a client of yours decided that they wanted a particular designer to work on their project? (palmer this question is for you also)
I've always said and hoped that the members of the Design Team would be "discovered" here and find more work to do for other clients. If the client chooses to go with one designer and not run a contest, that's their prerogative <--(that's spelled right) :) I'm happy when I hear of members of the Design Team getting individual projects either with a contest holder or simply by visitors appreciating your work in the gallery or seeing it on the forum.

[hotnuts21]

With me it will depend on the Client. If its a client that I have to visit, who is getting on the web then i will probably have to print the logos off. I will try to get them on photo paper, as i have a red hot printer. Then take them to the clients to show them, I know this isnt ideal but it will be the only way to deal with those clients who i have to visit at home or work.

As for the logos i havent decided if i will link to them and set up a page on my site where the client can log in and view the entries so far, although this might be a real headache for me, so it might be i just forward them here. I dont really want to do that though, as they will see I am paying $60 for a logo and they will convert it in there head to GBP the price im charging them will be different and they wont include the 10% fee thats taken. So i am not sure what to do with these, however most of my clients I will visit.

Palmer, bugs logo was great but not my favourite, the first entry was my favourite but it didnt work how i wanted it too, and he wouldnt do any mods unless i upped the fee by another $30. I remember your entry now, it was a good idea, there was just something that didnt grab me, but it was better than some that were just plain crap!!

Glad you liked my little tip! ;)

[Mike]

Of course, I have no objections with any of this :D ;)

[Palmer]

Just in case anyone was following this thread, what we've come up with is what's called a reseller plan...

http://www.designoutpost.com/forums/index....t=ST&f=14&t=547 (http://www.designoutpost.com/forums/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=14&t=547)

[hotnuts21]

I like the idea of this its just the prices putting me off slightly.

Not that i dont think the designers are working but a lot of my clients wouldnt be able to stretch to $250 for a template. The ones that will only come along rarely and so i might as well just post that in the main forum.

just my 2$

[platinum]

$250 is not a bad price for a fully coded template :) In the "real world" :P That's really very very cheap.

[Palmer]

That's understandable. Do you think $200 would be more reasonable as a minimum? I'm sure I won't go any lower than that seeing as that is a bargain price anyway for the designs that are being produced here.

If you're typically getting around $2,000-$3000 for a web site, $200 is a very small chunk and the quality of the site will only bring in that many more clients.

I guess it all depends on how much the budget is for the project.