Just designs?

HippySunshine

Senior Member
As a web designer, am I just responsible for web designs or will I be asked upon to provide services such as hosting, CMS, etc etc?

Can I (for now) just get away with just doing the designs?

Oh and print aswell, when designing business cards etc, am I responsible for getting them printed too?
 
I charge for that stuff and make a few extra quid of it.

It can get annoying though if the hosting service isn't too good because you'll be the one who gets blamed.

If it's just designs you may end up a lot customers looking for package deals and won't be able to charge decent prices for the average client... :)
 
Yeah Tim's right, there's money to be made. Especially on the print side. If you find a company that you're happy with. Generally if you use them enough, you'll get a nice discount which you can then use to add some mark up on their costings. Likewise this should apply to web hosting although I'm not 100% sure.

Look as it as part of your service, to get them connected or to get their brochure or whatever printed properly. Most people would rather keep it as simple a process as possible.

Tim's point about using a substandard hosting service shouldn't happen because you should have done your research first to make sure you've gone with someone reliable. There's a thread on here somewhere.

:D
 
haha ofc :p

but you see what im saying- anything that happens, like maintenance on servers or servers get hacked or something strange means that you get the **** on your head for it.
 
tim said:
haha ofc :p

but you see what im saying- anything that happens, like maintenance on servers or servers get hacked or something strange means that you get the **** on your head for it.


Lol, yeah I see what your saying :D

Unavoidable things happen, these will be covered in the T&C's for the host, and should make it into yours too.

What's ofc?

Oxford Farming conference? Optical Fibre Communication?

:D
 
HippySunshine said:
As a web designer, am I just responsible for web designs or will I be asked upon to provide services such as hosting, CMS, etc etc?

Can I (for now) just get away with just doing the designs?

Oh and print aswell, when designing business cards etc, am I responsible for getting them printed too?

It depends what you want to be responsible for, I would say as a web designer you should at the very least have basic knowledge of how websites work, how hosting works, and how to upload a site using FTP. If you did want to focus solely on the front end design you would need to have some contacts to recommend your clients to for the website development, and you would need to make it crystal clear how the client would take your design to a developer to get the site coded.

In my experience most small companies will want one person/company to handle the web design and development, so if you wasn't comfortable with development/coding you'll need to outsource it and add these costs to your quotes.

As for hosting you may find that some clients will already have hosting arranged, you could opt for a reseller hosting account and manage that for them, but again you will need to have experience with hosting and FTP, and you will be responsible for that, so if there's a problem they will be calling you! The safer option I would think at this stage is for you to recommend a hosting company to your client/s.

As for printing, I personally say I can get printing quotes from preferred suppliers for clients or I can supply the print ready files for them to arrange their own. There is room for some markup on the printing you organise for your clients, as a print management service, but again remember you will be the one held responsible if something goes wrong.

Be careful thinking these decisions through, I've seen a lot of new freelancers rush in with the belief that they can make some extra £ in marking up these services, but then come un-stuck when something out of their control has gone wrong, and they've been held responsible.
 
Greg said:
As for printing, I personally say I can get printing quotes from preferred suppliers for clients or I can supply the print ready files for them to arrange their own. There is room for some markup on the printing you organise for your clients, as a print management service, but again remember you will be the one held responsible if something goes wrong.


Yes, I just typed out a long reply how we put a load of bound books in hand, about 150 copies. but firefox crashed so I lost it. Basically we had 3 days to get it approved and run it. The approval was from 3 people in three different countries. Once approved we uploaded it and put it in hand with the digital printer. Somewhere along the line (was OK on approved pdf and paper proofs) all the full stops dissappeared, we think probably a font corruption. So the client had signed everything off with full stops, we saved the final hi-res pdf checked through it but didn't notice the absense of the stops, sent it off (ftp without paper proofs) and got it printed. Got them back from the printers, looked lovely, then we noticed, checked all the artwork down the line, and realised this time it was down to us. Ended up loosing money on the job getting it printed twice an all and was a load of effort for seemingly nothing.

Had we only amended the indesign file for them to get printed we wouldn't have had this risk.

But since then we've done lots more work for them and more than got covered the loss, they're more than happy with the service we offer and trust us.

So, adding a mark-up isn't just free cash, it's payment for a service and your expertise ensuring a smooth process. It may just win you the work over someone else too.

:up:
 
When it comes to printing, I am always happy to offer advice on where to go, as we all know good printers, but I don't want the headache unless I'm being paid extra!

This has worked ok, however one recent bad print job has upset me a bit.
 
Chances are the people you will be dealing with will have little/no knowledge of things such as code/hosting/domains etc etc.. its probably good to arrange the services for them for a small fee - that way you (someone who understands the business) can find the best deals and efefctivly manage the project.

The art of business is being a good middle man.
 
Its nice to have a reseller account so I can offer my customers that something extra when they have thier projects or websites done. I point this out to them in the contract at the end abour further requirements, keeps them interested if it helps them get everything up and running, basically they get the site done, and all the messing around of getting it online, labelled and SEO'ed it sorted for them @ the same time...You might want to look into some type of reseller package for those reason.
 
glenwheeler said:
Its nice to have a reseller account so I can offer my customers that something extra when they have thier projects or websites done. You might want to look into some type of reseller package for those reason.
How does that exactly work... Do you charge your clients yearly for that or is it just a one time fee they have to pay up? You can't keep hosting unlimited client sites for multiple years with a one-time payment, can you?
 
No No, it works in the way that I create that website..ie design them and code them, then I also sell them a hosting plan for their new site. That comes as a yearly fee as you pointed out
 
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