I am only slightly familar with creating web sites. Do you know of any companies that might do this?

Please let me know. You can get ahold of me at:

1-866-620-0871 (toll free) or csdfairbanks@yahoo.com

Thanks,

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It's very hard to find a _good_ web developer. By this, I mean someone who creates attractive, readable, easily navigated, maintainable pages which comply with W3C standards and work in all reasonable browsers (from Lynx to MSIE to Mozilla) and "gracefully degrade" in older browsers and which aren't dependent upon client-side tricks like Javascript.

If Joe is interested in doing some side work have him get ahold of me. There should be 3 or 4 websites to be done with in the next few months. Probably more. I am currently consulting for a few companies that NEED there website updated.

I am also going to either need someone to maintain them, or I will need to be taught to update things. I do have a bit of computer knowledge so it won't be very difficult to teach me.

Joe... let me know...

If you need servers, let me know and I'll set you up.

Thanks for the info... I have emailed you the specifics of what I am looking for. I also will email Joe.

Thanks all.. any other info you guys have let me know.

On top of that, the rank-amateur standards of graphic design style used on so many web sites has badly influenced many areas of print design. Further, some web builder folks passing themselves off as graphic artists low-ball bid away print design work from talented (but more expensive) professional graphic artists. So, much of the graphics landscape in America looks terrible.

20 years ago, the United States pretty well commanded the lead in terms of innovative graphic design. Now I think the better quality stuff is being done in places like Europe. One of the reasons for that is graphic designers there usually live in countries that corral young students into vocations at an early age and go on from there. So someone in Germany setting type professionally has probably been learning the craft before he hit puberty.

Here in the United States, someone rotating tires for a living can download cracked versions of Photoshop and Dreamweaver off of KaZaa and then start doing "professional website development" from his home as a hobby and charge little, if anything, for it.

A book called "Web Design Workshop" by Robin Williams and John Tollett had a great little article that starts out with this old guy saying, "anyone can design a web page, my kid can put one together in five minutes." Sure, anyone can design web pages just like anyone can play basketball. But most people don't play with the skill level of Michael Jordan. Many have this attitude that the computer does all the work, so they don't consider the individual skill of the designer.

The best web development firms are going to have both formally trained graphic artists to make things look great and the programmers to do the technical work required of any big database driven site.

I disagree that you have to have formal training. I have had some formal training. Most of what I learned is from actual "doing."

Here is one of my most recent "designs"

I do think that there are a lot of poorly designed websites and graphics out there. People don't take the time to see what people like and don't like.

Sorry to hair-split, but the general rule of thumb is to never use more than 3 fonts on a design. And really, two should be the max if possible. I count several different typefaces in your submitted design ranging from various weights of Verdana, Adobe Jenson, ITC Eras to Palatino and Copperplate Gothic, and the bottom line looks like a Roman weight of Tahoma. Too many fonts, and conflicting styles on top of that. The ad might have looked more balanced had you used only the Verdana and Palatino families.

Sure, it might sound a bit cruel to take apart a design like that, but that is what anyone working on an art degree deals with. Lots of my classmates were the best artists in their high schools and always given lots of praise. I was no different. When they got to School of Visual Arts, fellow students and teachers would mercilessly slice apart their work no matter how proud they were of it. Some of the criticism would come from Society of Illustrators Gold Medal winners who did movie posters and Omni magazine covers. The humbling experience is painful, but it makes you grow.

Anyway, I typically avoid doing freelance web design work. I might be willing to put together a nice banner ad or an interface design for a friend. But maintaining websites is for the birds. Most customers don't want to pay squat for it. The job demands too much time, has too many headaches, and it amortizes out to hamburger flipping pay thanks to all the amateurs getting into it and calling themselves artists and doing things "for the honor of getting published" (which is a total jerk-off).

It's all part of the ignorance about all things "digital". People believe the bullshit cliché they see in the movies when someone just clatters away on the keyboard like crazy and paints together the identity of a killer, invents transparant aluminum, or hacks into NORAD --all within just a few seconds. Customers believe that crap when it comes to web page design or any kind of computer graphic design. They think anyone can just hit a few buttons and automatically produce top quality work. But it isn't that easy. So I mainly stick with print related stuff for freelance graphics work since more customers in that area seem more grounded by reality.

To put it another way, buy an "analog" oil paint set and canvas and plop that right into the hands of anyone just walking down the street. Many think they can design web pages, but not so many want to tackle oils. A blank page in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop really is not fundamentally different than a blank canvas waiting for the first few strokes of paint. The sad and very true thing about the graphics business is very few appreciate any real talent and most just want to pay the least amount of money to just barely get by. And that's why America's lead in the graphics business has largely slipped away to other more disciplined countries. We want to have our fucking secretary slap together the brouchure rather than paying someone who knows what he is doing to get the job done right.

Come to think of it, that "just getting by" as cheap as possible thing affect, rather badly, the film exhibition industry. When you take pride in doing your job well (to the point where you think you're better at it than most), it is aggravating to find many others in your field screwing things up and ruining film prints of "Frida."

Thanks for your input. I am always looking to get better. I know that I am not a "Professional" when it comes to graphic design. But I am still better then a lot of people out there.

I completely agree with your other comments. I am actually looking to bring on a full time graphic artist. That is just a part of what me and my company do.

It is still small, but I am not good at thinking small. Currently (mentioned in another thread) I am working out a deal with some village school districts to rent Gyms at different schools and bringing Movies to the Bush (as it's called here in Alaska.)

Also we do management consulting... I have worked on a few businesses in my home town in this area.

Currently I am also in the middle of coordinating a concert/outdoor festival for June 2003. It will be 3-4 days long. Probably 30 groups/artists. (this is being done through my non-profit org.)

I always appreciate constructive critcism (sp?). I know it is hard for most people to take that stuff. I know is some circles you can be the best at something, but there is usually someone better. Or there is some one that know's better tricks. I am eager and willing to learn. Any advice is GREATLY appreciated.

What is vital on a website is that you don't waste time, and your site visitors' patience, with the latest trendy multimedia thing requiring a plug-in that no-one has, resulting in a blank screen on most people's PCs. I use a little JavaScript for very basic things like image swap or browser resize then all the rest is made of Perl CGI scripts (once they work on the server there will never be a problem on the websurfer's side) and also CFML (ColdFusion scripts) for databases mostly. Once they work on the server there won't be any problem on the users PC as well. Multimedia requires RealPlayer or QuickTime. For the time being, I still refuse to insert Flash and Java.

To create sites not requiring compatibility (e.g. corporate intranets) I use FrontPage which is very easy to manage a site. However it often generates lousy HTML (e.g. page margins and paragraphs) so for more public sites I use WebExpert. Anyway, each person calling herself a professional webdesigner should know HTML and be able to "manually" create a website with simple programs like Notepad or Vi.

Sounds easy but I have been to many sites wondering "what's the point?"

There are many different approaches that you can bring to designing any graphic piece from scratch -- the blank canvas -- whether it is a brochure, a corporate logo or a web page. I've worked for years with print quite a number of designers for our brochures. Some translated our ideas very well to the pages and with some it was like pulling teeth, fighting us down to the last proof. In the end it doesn't matter how good the designer is if he can't transform the customer's ideas into a close graphic representation of them; and he's got to do this even when the customer may have a lousy graphic sense. Joshua's page might have more fonts than they teach you to use in graphic design 101, but the client he designed it for might just think the final look is the cat's meow and EXACTLY what he wanted. In the end the designer has to bow to the vision of the client. I have found plenty of high priced designers can't or won't do that.

We found these kids who are young and haven't done much work before and perhaps don't have the credentials that Bobby is talking about, but we liked their work, we especially like their work ethic and bottom line, we can afford them. They are the kids on the court with the raw talent who may one day grow into the Michael Jordans of the web world, but right now they are affordable. I am sure there are award-winning web designers from prestigious design schools out there and web design companies that have won all sorts of awards, but, give me a break, most small business have budgets. And I am sorry the designers who work cheap louse it up for the "artist" who would like to make a fortune instead what they could get from flipping burgers, but you know what, that's called the market place. It's up to the guy who has to hire the designer to look for the best he can get for what he can afford. Quite frankly, I don't mind the competition.

Sure, customers must be happy with the end product. But I am one of those graphics people who will fight to keep a customer from making a bad mistake. I deal with this all the time in sign design and outdoor advertising. Customers want to load up a sign with tons of copy, phone numbers and other junk no can read (or will even care to read) when speeding by at 60mph. If they insist on having all that copy up there, I'll make the final design as they dictate. But I will also tell them that it will not be our fault when they find their display doesn't "read" well at all. Believe me, I've had a few of those, "Bob, you know you were right" conversations.

Visual taste is another matter. I've worked hard on some jobs only to see a no-talent under-bidder group take it away. Below is a sign design I put together for a bank who ultimately went with someone else who put up a crappy looking sign.

On occaision, I'll win a few battles. This little GIF image is from a non-illuminated sign we just sold on Friday. I thought for sure we had lost the project to a low bidder. But their school board liked our original design so much (particularly my hand-drawn and digitized Florida Panther) they were willing to spend a few bucks more for something much more cool looking.