So I started working on a concept for the new Priority web site today. I ended up going in a different direction then I originally planned, but I like it so far. I originally intended to do a more flexible design, but this came to me in a dream last night (quite literally) and I needed to give it a try. You can click the “P” logo to see the design. The yellowish screen thing at the top with the logo in upper left hand corner will have some flash animations in it, probably a different one for every page eventually. The flash could also help to present things like sermons or videos from different events. Basically the flash part of the site will serve to present different types of media so it really will have a practical side to it. The general navigation will be on that brick tower thing out the left hand side. Though I expect there will be secondary navigation for more specific parts of the site. The lower white box will house the main, text base content. I realize that I need to resize some things and make sure it works in smaller windows, and that will be done. But for now I figured I would get some critiques. If you have any questions as to how parts will function or whatever, let me know. I look forward to some good suggestions.

You know, I find that I get tired of site design very quickly. And I feel that the time has come for the company site to be refurbished. Ive been playing around with some ideas. You can view them below, each links to a bigger picture.

I feel like the first one is just to… dirty looking. I like the second one but to be honest the conept is not mine. John Hicks I basically liked his concept a lot because of how simple it was. Easy to navigate. Alas I wouldn’t feel right about using it. I would feel like a second rate designer if I used someone elses concept. So I shall keep working on, but I wanted to share. Comments and suggestions are by all means welcome. PLEASE, GIVE ME YOUR IDEAS!!!

A big part of my job is educating my customers. For those of you who don’t know, I am a web designer. I built the very site you are looking at. Anywho, back to what I was talking about. A big part of my job is telling the customer what they want, because most of the time they don’t know what they want. They think they do, but in reality, they have almost no clue about what can be done with a website, or what makes a good site. Things have to be taken into consideration. Who is your audience? What kind of information are you presenting to your audience? Do you want your audience to be able to use your site and not just view it (i.e. e-commerce, user accounts…). And then there is the cost to do all this custom. Even for a small site (5 pages) it can take a lot of time. For a basic site, after meeting with customers, working on the design of the site, coding it up, testing it, and launching I will usually have at-least 40 (usually more) hours of work involved. It’s not an easy thing to do a full custom site. So when I give a customer a quote, usually much less than my competitors, they are still often shocked. Again, this is because the idea of web design is so new that most people have no clue what it takes and what it costs.

So, I spend a great deal of time educating my clients. And for the most part it’s not so bad. I enjoy getting the caught up and teaching them about what it is exactly that I do. But every-now and then you get these people who just don’t understand and thing your full of bull crap, that your over charging them and that they can go somewhere else and get what you are offering them for much, much cheaper. I had one of these about a week ago. The client had no education in computers in general. They had no idea about web design and what it takes. They wanted an e-commerce site for their business and they wanted it to be awesome and better than all of their competitors sites, but they didn’t want to pay very much. The entire time I felt like I was haggling with them. I cut them some deals, tried to meet them half way. In the end I guess they went with some guy who said he could do what I was offering for less, even though he had no clue what I was offering. It was all a little frustrating.

At the end of the day though I guess that is just the way my line of work. Anytime you are doing custom design work for people you are going to half to educate them. And whenever you are educating people, you are going to encounter those students who are stubborn, and just don’t want to listen. I’m just going to have to get used to it.