I would say that there IS a future for web designer as these days the usage of internet has tremendously increased and there will be more and more demand for new websites for industries such as advertising and business applications. Heck, you could probably say that the importance of the internet will overtake television broadcasting in the next 10 to 15 years.

I have to agree with etsuko on "Future - its up to you because you make your future." There are practically too many self claim professional web designers out there and they are screwing up the market out there with their lack of experiences and very, VERY competitive pricing. You need to stand out among them. Always improve your portfolio and your knowledge in websites. You don't have to mastered a programming language or so, but at least learn the basic or the fundamental on how the system will work or flow.

What I think a good web designer needs are:
1. Passion to constantly improve yourself in terms of designing skill, personality and always keep an open mind.
2. A good and complete portfolio, portfolio and I repeat... PORTFOLIO.
3. Able to accept criticisms because you're designing a website for others to view and enjoy, NOT only yourself.
4. Don't only limit yourself to designing only...like that etsuko has mention; get some knowledge on basic web programming knowledge and SEO.

You will gradually gain people's confidence when:
1. Your portfolio is impressive
2. The client you service are from big industries because till the day you tell people, "hey guys, i design McDonald's website" i'm very sure people will have alot of confidence in you.

Always remember to start small and then gradually grow to bigger projects and never give up.

I'm not a web designer but I'm looking for a web designer to help to creat a company web site, I looking freelance or student cause limited budget. anyone sifu over here interesting can PM me, thank you... Location PJ, Sel Malaysia..

can you provide more details and i think here is not the right place for this. search the thread around

This thread is pinned not for seeking freelancers so please keep this clean.

Mod, if possible - move to Job Enlistments or create new topic under Arts & Design.

Thanks.

yeah it isn't that way, not in Malaysia i think.

however etsuko, you're RIGHT on that part (bolded).

even before i graduate, i love web design. during those days it was just HTML and a bit of flash here and there.

here am i doing web-design business, i'm VERY far from being the best designer in the world but i think God that i'm able to survive and live happily with this profession.

i didn't even study web-design, my degree is said to be a multi-media major but sad to say "that place" didn't teach enough of any thing to make you even a quarter of what a designer student should be.

there wasn't CSS then. many things weren't there, a lot of things that i have to pickup - but nevertheless the effort put into the work is not just design but to ensure that you actually help the customer achieve their goal and that they're happy.

a fine example would be our own ikram_zidane (yes, and guys like etsuko and many others too), which i personally found to be a really great web-designer material.

IMO coming from my experience, being a web-designer is more than just being able to design something that WOW people.

EDITED : on a side note, i do not have moderating rights in this forum.

This post has been edited by goldfries: Apr 4 2007, 11:54 PM

i dunno whether this is the right place to ask... then again. what the heck...

now, i am doing my degree in acc... had an assignment recently doing an e-commerce website... then, later i found out that i kinda like doing it... i mean, working with all those software... (i only use front page & photoshop though.. )...

i have an idea of building my "AD" skills, hopefully, someday, i could generate income from it.. do a freelance business or smtg...

though i think it need a lot of hard work... since the knowledge i have now, is merely enough for ppl to call me newbie in art&design....

i am just wandering, how much time do u think i need to learn about this stuff before i can promote my service.... considering i'll begin my journey next month (holiday).. with 2 months of holiday... would it be enough...


with my study and all... i dunno whether i can make it or not... but i really think, i have interest in it... technology really impress me..

AD skills? Advanced Diploma?

Well, using Frontpage is 1 thing. Building a website so that it helps generate more business to a company is another. There are numerous vendors around who offer cheap e-commerce packages. Some as low as even RM1500-2000 inclusive of a domain and hosting which to me is mad.

The Malaysia market is huge however like in business, you need to know your market segment and are you targeting quantity or quality.

As to how long you will take to learn the whole e-commerce thing, it depends on you and how far do you want to go. Is it inclusive of design? Is it with the sales? Is it including marketing? Is it also to know programming?

Each of this topic covers a lot of ground so it really depends on you.

wow. darn cheap. they're killing the market.

i always go based on the amount of work and the complexity of the project. i charge what's worth my time & effort.

i might give a little discount here and there and that's it.

someone recently told me they saw those cheapo 'over-night-hang-there-without-permission-lousy-type' signboard that says web-design for RM 500. sheesh.

and yeah, i often come by people ask me how much i charge per page.

AD? i assume that's Art & Design.

Its good to know you have interest gush...coz with interest and some hard work, you'll probably learn and master the skill of web design and development even faster.

If you wanna know whether if your good enough to make web designing a side income? Well, its simple. Design and develop yourself a website. It could be a personal website and added on as a small portfolio website too. Then, tell people about your website. Spread the word among your friends and relatives and if you do get alot of good positive feedbacks, then i guess you are ready to do freelance but always remember to start small but if the feedback is bad, then its back to the drawing board for you or you might reconsider to venture this line as a career.

I have to agree that there are alot of designers who are killing the market price out there. I myself have to slash down my price due to this circumstances but i guess this is only temporary coz once you are recognize for your work and you deliver a good service, you can start to charge higher

Well, if you're passionate about this. You should persevere until there is no hope and you realize you'll end up dying than living. Some give up easily because they imagine earning RM10k+ per month easy doing the business. But in whatever business, there's a high and low season.

Me and my team have grown past that. We've politely informed many clients our services do not meet their budget or if they don't reply to us, we would follow up and get an answer our prices are too high. Well, it doesn't really matter to us because that goes to show they weren't our target market.

some times they are your target market, just that the management / decision maker could be a cheapskate.

ok la cheapskate not such a nice word to use, it's just that they don't understand that web-designing is not something as they though.

usually they'll say stuff like "your work very easy only ma. design something then put inside the information".

just make sure you know how to justify your pricing. and of course, always be professional - that can command some bit of $$$ as people are quite willing to pay for service where they find the people serving them are professional.

Me and my team have grown past that. We've politely informed many clients our services do not meet their budget or if they don't reply to us, we would follow up and get an answer our prices are too high. Well, it doesn't really matter to us because that goes to show they weren't our target market.

[/quote]

Well, at the end of the day it comes to your company reputation. If you are well establish and have served many good customers, then definitely you will aim higher. Anyway, congrats to you since you team have grown pass that.





I agree with goldfries that you always have to justify your pricing and the most important thing of them all also try to educate our potential customers. They might not understand why we charge at a certain amount for our service.

While i have experience with some customers which they really like to have good website but they just lack of budget for it, and me and my team will try our best to provide a price which they can be happy with, coz its worth it at the end of the day to see them happy. Likewise, we as an artist or designers would love to see more of our work publish out there. It's not all about the money. Wel,, maybe 80% money and 20% passion? haha..who knows..

if you guys happen to be around Manjalara area (Kepong side of town) you might see this company called SM Skills (www.smskills.com) charging RM 500 per website.

they aggressively promote (un-ethical way of posting on lamp-post / traffic lights) their service but with printed stuff hanging on posts and charging such a cheap fee, i can't help but think that they're just desperate for business and have not much $$$ to invest in promotion / marketing.

people like to use that as a comparison.

the problem is that people do not understand web site is not just a step - 1, step - 2, step - 3 kinda thing.

every designer is different, provided service and all are different.

Damn... RM500 for 7 pages? This is seriously very VERY competitive pricing. Anyway, i'm from kepong too..Taman Bukit Maluri to be exact but never come across their adds on the lamp-post or traffic light. Maybe i'm not observative enough.

For all i know smskill.com could be a one man show operation and his operation cost should be very low and if customers start to use their price as a comparison, then it will really ruin the market price for web design/development.

1 man show and low operation cost is not a problem.

even if he's a 1 man show, IMO the pricing should be set in such a way that it doesn't kill the market.

Afternoon.

I am not quite sure if this is the correct place to be posting please. If it is not, please do kindly inform me the correct location so i can move my topic there.

I am looking for web hosting to host a new website. But I am at my wits end of where to locate for a good place to host it. Nor am I sure what do i need before getting my website hosted.

Can you guys advice?

I am also looking for web designer. Anyone interested do kindly pm me with your details. rate and a few website that were designed by yourself.

Thank you

I've been working with websites..coding HTML and CSS and stuff like that. I'm basically a programmer but I want to get my hands wet in web design. I don't know if I'm good enough or not..but I'm just starting out. The pointers given in this thread has been superb and it's been a great inspiration to me.

I have a question though. When a client says he wants something but you don't exactly know how to do it, do you still tell the client that you can do it or be honest and just say you don't know how but you will try to? Then because you been researching and trying to fix it but you don't meet the deadline..can ask for more time or normally the client not happy with this?

I seen my friend who's thinking about becoming a free lancer - she's good at design..and mixing colours..but her layouts are just horrible. I see her blog.. have to scroll horizontally which I feel is a huge design mistake. I think that being a web designer is so much more than designing nice looking websites. It's also got to be usable and user friendly right?

Maybe some of you can help me evaluate my design? It's in another topic: http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/448892



This post has been edited by Tereno: Apr 27 2007, 11:53 PM

Well, a good salesperson never says "I don't know" as their reply but instead "I will try to find the solution for you" . Never the less you have to be honest yet convincing enough.

Like the movie "Persuit of Happiness", there is a very good scene where by Chris Gardner replying his interviewer with this power phrase "I'm a type of person if you ask me the answer, and I don't know the answer, I'm going to tell you I don't know, but I bet my life that I will find you the answer and I will find the answer"... pretty convincing eh?

Anyway, to play safe tell your client that you will get back to them after 1 or 3 days later and you will go do the research first and make before actually agree to accept the project from your client and always include in a couple extra days into your project timeframe just in case of liability reason. For example if you estimate your project can be completed in 2 weeks or 14 days, tell your client that you would need 16 days to complete it. Its better give your client a longer waiting period rather then to disappoint them. If you do complete the project before the date you proposed to your client, I bet they will be even happier with your service and work.

telling them "i don't know" isn't that nice. it doesn't reflect that well on you, but then again it depends on the situation.

see, the thing is whether you REALLY don't know that thing and all. or you know about such a thing and it's beyond your skill.

if you really don't know, then you could just say something like "i'm not familiar with this thing you requested, but let me have a quick look at it and i'll get back to you on this matter."

if it's some thing you know about you know it's beyond your ability, just politely say . "i'm sorry, this thing you requested is not something we can provide at this point of time." at least it's still better than a straight "i don't know." if you can't do it, don't agree on it because you'll be in deep shit if you can produce it.

you could also propose some alternatives if there are any.




oh. this is not good lor. that's why don't jump into something that you don't know how long you'll take to tackle the issue.

in your project timeline, you cannot plan it to be EXACT - you need to set some buffer time for emergencies / add-ons / sudden requests.




yes. it's about usability.

that's why i don't quite like fancy looking flash sites. sure it's nice to see those effects when you move the mouse around and it's impressive but i just don't like it because it requires flash plug-in and some loading.

flash intro are nice but not important, that's why there's a SKIP button there. if it was important then you wouldn't want anyone to skip it. haha.

This post has been edited by goldfries: Apr 28 2007, 03:18 PM

Just going to add a little bit of my own thoughts..

Well, I always tell my team to run an open book policy. If we can't do it, we'll admit it but of course not say the taboo - it's impossible. If we need time to do it, it's best to bring forth before signing on the agreed proposed timeline.

In Malaysia, we've alot of qualified designers but very few designers with usability or web standard minded practitioners. It's not difficult to learn it and like Steve Krugg says, it's really common sense.

But I think the challenge in this business here in Malaysia is do you do it to satisfy the client and close the project or to improve the level of website quality and value in Malaysia.