Could do with some help...

As wonderful as Berry's site is I would encourage you to allow me to work with you to explore the best options for you and your brand. However yes, it can be a similar layout and have the functionality that you requested. I can't give you an exact quote until you've managed to narrow down exactly what you want from the site, but it would be in the region of £500 - £700 depending on how advanced the site is going to be. You will find people who can do it for a cheaper price than that, but it's up to you whether or not you want to risk the overall build quality of your site. I can also provide UK based web hosting, maintenance and technical support so you can just get on with running your business, without having to worry about your site or dealing with lots of different people.
Have a think about how many pages you're going to want on the site, roughly what you want on each one and any features such as animations, content sliders, web forms and anything else you can think of.
 
Sean Lee-Amies said:
As wonderful as Berry's site is I would encourage you to allow me to work with you to explore the best options for you and your brand. However yes, it can be a similar layout and have the functionality that you requested. I can't give you an exact quote until you've managed to narrow down exactly what you want from the site, but it would be in the region of £500 - £700 depending on how advanced the site is going to be. You will find people who can do it for a cheaper price than that, but it's up to you whether or not you want to risk the overall build quality of your site. I can also provide UK based web hosting, maintenance and technical support so you can just get on with running your business, without having to worry about your site or dealing with lots of different people.
Have a think about how many pages you're going to want on the site, roughly what you want on each one and any features such as animations, content sliders, web forms and anything else you can think of.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I am just starting up designing and launching a new brand, but would like the website to be fresh. I really like Love Digital, but maybe some more text etc.
There will definitely need to be:
- Home: With the headers of what I do, a welcome message (perhaps) and some other details (perhaps a gallery). I like the Canny Creative homepage too. (My current idea and brand has a hot pink and lime green colour scheme).
- About
- Clients and Portfolio. Maybe click on the client image and drop down with images of case study with text and testimonial?
- Contact (With form submission/maybe a modern looking map etc.)
- And the blog (modern and fresh).
Possibly an extra page maximum I think -- But can't think of anything really to add? But want it to be top class and modern. With the menu I mentioned earlier if that would work etc.
I think I would also like a greyed out/black footer (perhaps) along with shortcuts and social icons (created by the designer and looking modern). I really like the links in Love Digital, but the yellow animation would have to match my colour scheme if in this style.
There are other points, but I can go in to more details if that helps narrow down costings or when I have got all the funds and idea planned out...

But does that help?
Cheers
 
Sounds interesting, I've emailed you now anyway but yeah it's all possible. Whether you're going to be working with me or another company, I would strongly recommend involving them as soon as possible, before you start planning things out too heavily. It massively complicates the process if you've made half of the decisions already :)
 
Cheers, will get back to you soon and maybe pop you the logo and post it on here for feedback before I have finalised that.
Thanks Again
Ben
 
Hi Ben,

Just to get involved a little here. Both Mark and Sean are great at what they do and will give you cracking service.

I possibly wouldn't try and base your entire site around Berry's although it is lovely, I think he might get a little mad ;) Ever seen Themeforest? Head over and check out the themes and PSD's on offer. Now, you don't have to use them, but it's a great place to get a ton of inspiration from at once!

Regarding CMS, have you used anything like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal or ModX before? Going with something you know is probably a good idea.

Do you really want to design the whole site yourself on top of the other things you've got to be doing? I'd strongly recommend working alongside someone and getting things sorted together, it'll take a lot of the pressure off starting up :)
If you need anything, just give me a shout!
 
Tony Hardy said:
Hi Ben,

Just to get involved a little here. Both Mark and Sean are great at what they do and will give you cracking service.

I possibly wouldn't try and base your entire site around Berry's although it is lovely, I think he might get a little mad ;) Ever seen Themeforest? Head over and check out the themes and PSD's on offer. Now, you don't have to use them, but it's a great place to get a ton of inspiration from at once!

Regarding CMS, have you used anything like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal or ModX before? Going with something you know is probably a good idea.

Do you really want to design the whole site yourself on top of the other things you've got to be doing? I'd strongly recommend working alongside someone and getting things sorted together, it'll take a lot of the pressure off starting up :)
If you need anything, just give me a shout!
Click to expand...
Cheers Tony, I definitely don't intend to copy Berry's site, It's just the best site alongside http://mark-sims.co.uk/ I can find for inspiration, but I obviously do not want to have a site copying someone else's. I have been talking to Sean about the site in more detail too, so I hope he is beginning to narrow down what I am looking for.
As I said earlier, I am not too experienced in the sector at all, so I am looking for the opinion of web professionals about the CMS side of the job. It seems it will be about £300-400 if I design it, but balanced alongside my other client work and the studies I am currently completing for qualifications unrelated to graphic design, it seems that if someone designs it for me, it would increase the cost to around £600-700 -- I presume that is a good price for the quality work I am sure Sean or Mark would provide if I went with him ;) I haven't had much of a chance to look around yet.
Cheers
Ben
 
Thanks for sharing themeforest Tony too...
If I purchased a template for x amount -- some are like $10?! And receive a psd file (layered). Hold on, let me give you an example :)

---
I am looking at a template which is a layered psd featuring 16 Pages. Would someone be able to code this for me. If it is a layered PSD can it become a CMS compatible one which I can edit as it includes a blog and more (which I want to edit). If I got the PSD and added the content I needed in the site etc. How much would it cost to get coded and up and running and can it become editable once live (CMS etc.).
Sorry if I am not clear, I will be more than happy to answer any of your additional questions.
*EDIT*
Some of the 16 pages are the same page but different layouts, but in total including a blog page there are around 6 I think that would need coding
 
Ben.
The berry website is a stock theme from themeforest which has had a very small amount of modification to the styling.
If you're not specifically a web designer there is nothing wrong with simply using a template from themeforest for you website. But like i say the best thing to do is email people to get quotes from them regarding the project.
 
Hi Mark
If I purchased a stock template, would you have an idea about what I would need to fork out to get the design up and running and coded (and will it be CMS?).
Cheers (I may have additional questions after your response).
Ben
 
If you purchase a theme it is ready simply be uploaded and will be ready for you to simply add your content to. You would need no knowledge of coding unless you want to alter the functionality or layout/styling of the theme.
 
Oh okay, I just find it amazing that there are websites ready for $10.
If it is a .PSD, can I edit it in photoshop, and how would I then get it live in CMS?
 
If you just by the PSD then you would have to pay someone to then code it up into a CMS, this will not come cheap.
If you buy a full theme (usually around $45) it will often come with a PSD as well you can edit to get the design how you want. Then you can hand it over to a developer to 'tweak' the theme to match your new design.
That's the cheapest way to get a full CMS site that's unique to you.
 
Yes. That is a fully functioning CMS website in a box.
Note it doesn't have a PSD file though. So redesigning it will be slightly more awkward as you would have to do it from flat jpegs or restyle it straight with the CSS/HTML
 
Themes are a good way to get a lower cost website setup quickly but the only downside is your website will be the same as dozens (or even hundeds) of other websites out there. Customisations can be made to themes but any significant changes in functionality can start to really effect how solid the theme is (i.e it would need to be retested and bug fixed) and conflict with any future updates the developer may make to the theme. They can be cheap but I would recommend finding a theme that is almost exactly what you want with maybe just a few colours, background images and font styling you might want to change (i.e minor amends). Then your not hacking something too much - otherwise the time would be better spent building a bespoke theme which would turn out more solid as it was built from the ground up, rather than backwards...!
I usually design and build fully bespoke themes since it means you can design the site exactly how you want but then build only that functionality as part of the theme. It costs more, but you then can be sure (providing the design is good) your website would look and feel unique and not the same as a lot of other similar websites out there. Having said that I have also worked with off the shelf themes and customisations.
Feel free to send me a message if you want to make an enquiry.
Cheers
Rich
 
Would it be an idea to *maybe* try and create some price guidelines? As a web designer I get asked this a lot and it's a hard thing to try to explain. But I think there are ways to show a guideline, say based on a fully designed website, built in house, with CMS, hosting etc - this will cost you in the region of £....
Just a thought, I know it's difficult to gauge, but if there's some kind of Sticky you could direct people to then it might help. However I understand my prices may differ from Jack Blogs down the road, but I think among most 'reputable' developers/designers you would all come to the same average price. Don't you think? I may just be rambling. Not slept in a long while! :p
 
Oh and based on what you've said Ben., if say you were approaching me as a developer and asked for a LoveDigital-type site with just four pages, CMS et al, I would be looking to charge you around £500-£800. Possibly more depending on other things like hosting, domain name (which you may already have, I skimmed the post ;) ), ongoing support etc.
Heck I've done one-page sites for up to £450, but like I said it's all dependent on your requirements and needs, likes and dislikes. Ultimately you have control, and can mostly control the direction and features. Although every designer/developer should be able to guide you in the right direction, and point out any obvious bad choices.
Wordpress is a great CMS though, and there are many others, but each can work differently in different cases again depending on your requirements. But Wordpress is a good place to start.
 
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