We get a lot of request for freelance work and some website designers display different standards to our own, we nearly always ask more about someone when they ask for design or development work and sometimes we end up coaching and training a ‘professional’ website designer as this following exchange demonstrates:
[Freelance Website Designer] Just a quick email to introduce myself, I am a freelance website designer based in Essex.I’m currently looking to form mutually beneficial business relationships with people like yourselves. I have been building websites from scratch using Adobe Fireworks to design, Notepad++ then integrating it into WordPress and Joomla! (CMS). I have been in the business since 2009 and have been working as a senior web designer in a company for the last 2 years. I recently left this company as I felt I would progress further as a freelance designer, my intention to work with some of the top companies in the country and creating a portfolio for myself. Some of the most recent work I have done can be found in my portfolio on this site which is a website designed and built by me along with all the contents by myself. It would be great to have a response from you and to work alongside you in the near future. Kind Regards, Web Designer/Developer
[Delicious Webdesign] We are a busy and growing company with the majority of our developers working from their home offices, we get loads of requests for work but initially your standard of work stands out for me. What are you expecting in terms of payment for work / projects? We will not be considering to employ on the back of this one email you but would possibly consider a freelance project by project type contract if your work standard is of an appropriate level. If you pass our interview and entrance test we have some existing projects ready to give the correct designer / developer and looking at a couple of your previous website projects its possible that you would be a great asset for us if you wanted to do work for us. One thing I see the websites on your portfolio have at least 2 different other website designer links on them, did you create these websites while working with them? Also using a specific website you created that we like it but have some concerns:
1 Did you know the image moves / jumps ever rotation
2 The website code isn’t w3c compliant (one of our pre-requisites)
3 Basic SEO hasnt been completed on the site (unique headers / page titles / page descriptions / appropriate image names / use of alt tags on images)
if you understand and fix these points we would be:
1 Impressed
2 Happy that you can meet our standards
3 Liable to arrange a meeting and give you our entrance test and if you pass then would consider you for work in the future
[Freelance Website Designer] Thank you for your quick reply. I am definitely interested in working alongside you as a freelancer with immediate effect. In terms of payment, please find details on my website as guide of what I would like, but would be open to any suggestions/figures you have in mind. Yes the websites with different designer links are for the company I used to work for. (Brentwood Visual Media, Basildon Website Designs formed an alliance and now work in the same office hence their being 2 different links). Regarding the website example, I have fixed this so now should meet all of your requirements. Look forward to hearing from you.
[Delicious Webdesign] Are you sure you have addressed the 3 concerns as there are still w3c coding errors and the images still jump and the site doesn’t have unique page titles or other SEO basics taken care of.
[Freelance Website Designer] Can I ask what browser you are using to view the guide website? I have checked this and it works fine my end. When you say jumps I assume you mean that the image moves up/down slightly. This will probably be due to image size as the images in the slider have been placed in there by the client (One of the great features of the content management system is that they can change stuff with ease!) Is there any other errors other than image size that I should be aware of?
[Delicious Webdesign] Have tried 4 different browsers and same behaviour noted on all 4. As I said previously w3c compliance needs to be looked at as its one of our pre-requisites for website development. Letting the client change the images via a CMS system is one thing but it simply looks ‘broken’ and should be fixed. I am surprised the client hasn’t mentioned this and surprised you have let this go live without appropriate testing.
[Freelance Website Designer] In order for me to fix the one remaining w3c compliance error I would need FTP access which for that particular client I do not have currently as its not on my server, but details have been requested and I will be dealing with it as soon as possible. Personally I can’t say that I have paid 100% attention to W3C compliance before now but rest assured I am fully aware of what is needed to be done to meet its requirements and will on all future websites make certain that everything meets that standard and your companies standards. I would hugely appreciate the opportunity to work with you for a least one project to showcase my capability. Look forward to hearing from you.
[Delicious Webdesign] Would have expected you to have had FTP access for your own site and see the 3 points haven’t been addressed and cant see any benefit it continuing this exchange as its clear you wont meet our standards of technical know how and knowledge of website technologies. Thanks and good luck.
[Freelance Website Designer] Finally received FTP for the website and have fixed all w3c compliance issues. Please find link below for confirmation! Apologises for sending 2 emails to you, I clicked the shortcut for send instead of pasting the link. Would be good to hear from you to find out where we go from here! Thanks.
[Delicious Webdesign] Feel like im being critical of you now but there are w3c html warnings that we wouldn’t allow also the image still jumps. Regarding your services and costs How much would you expect for a 10 -15 page website with a customised blog / image slider / bespoke design / logo / unique page titles / headers / descriptions ? Typically we will give the project brief with an estimated pay for the designer depending on accuracy / speed and skills required for the task ahead of them. Could you confirm that you can created a customised blog / wordpress design (that matches the website)
[Freelance Website Designer] Thank you for replying. I can not see these warnings on w3.org so I cannot see what you are referring to. Regarding the jumping image slider, I actually don’t know what you mean as I’ve checked this in multiple browsers, on windows 7 & 8 and both seem to be fine (taking note that there was a slight jump on windows 8 but I resolved that issue the other day through the admin panel of the website). I’m not sure why this is but if you have a quick solution for this I would be happy to listen and learn. Regarding the estimated cost for a 10-15 page website requested – I can do all requirements below with the one minor detail that I use Joomla not wordpress to build my websites! I find wordpress is very restricted whereas Joomla allows you to do much more. For a bespoke design, image slider, logo, blog and unique meta information required for each of the pages I would accept the wages that you saw fit to pay me for me services and would be willing to work on a trial project initially and going forward would be open to negotiation for wages depending on how you value my work.
[Delicious Webdesign] To be brutally honest the fact it has taken you so long to fix the W3C coding errors and can’t see the warnings or know how to find out about them and you cant see the revolving images jumping means you are not at a standard we need so good luck in trying to find website design work.
