Why did I Agree to Design a Website for my Company!?

Oh, lordy.

I built a little personal 4-page website and told my company about it. We are unhappy with our current cookie-cutter one (which has been 'down' for the last 4 days because they let our domain name elapse...idiots).

So I basically offer that I could probably put something together.

Why, oh, why?

I'm on my third piece of software. The templates look like a preschooler's design, and I don't have any experience except that I read several chapters of "Websites for Dummies".

Anyone know where I can get free professional-looking website layouts? Hell, anyone want to volunteer to finish this? I just need something simple and professional looking. All I really need is a good theme and some templates then I can fill in the content.

Bahh.

EasyT

I know HTML after taking a class, but that's it. I don't know the finer points of designing a webpage for the most part.

Why don't you PM ttanaka or Eric?

Did you try MS's Frontpage?

I know lots of html, javascript, asp, and .NET, but I have ZERO artisitic talent, so I suck at designing things (I just take what looks pretty and make it work).

I learned HTML a while back to an extent, but I have found it's much easier to just hire that kind of work out.

If you don't really know what you are doing, the simplest things are huge timesinks. I would take a look at www.freewebtemplates.com. Can't you just tell your company that you aren't a web designer and they shouldn't be cheapasses and should just hire that shit out to a professional? :D

If not, just put together some piece of shit, but do it quick so they have time to realize that you are an employee, not a web designer...

The only thing you can do is go into your boss' office, take a huge dump on his desk and put a sign in it that reads 'You' on the off chance he find this hilarious and gives you a raise and a secretary who knows web design.

-'rilla

http://oswd.org/

http://openwebdesign.org/

I just now installed a collection of Macromedia stuff. Dreamweaver, Flash MX, and more. It's awesome But I dunno how good at it I'll be.

use dreamweaver.
Better yet, get me to do it

Edit: not literally. but I'll help you with dreamweaver stuff if you decide to use it

Just play around in dreamweaver until you find something you like. Designing a website is no easy task. It's supposed to take on the order of months, and at nearly $300 a page at the cheapest places. Tell them to give you time, or else actually hire this work out. Usually, they'll be able to find some college student to do it for about $250-$350, because college students tend to have lots of time on their hands and $250 is a lot to them.

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Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

The only thing you can do is go into your boss' office, take a huge dump on his desk and put a sign in it that reads 'You' on the off chance he find this hilarious and gives you a raise and a secretary who knows web design.

-'rilla

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ROFL with Les_Worm's avatar.

Hire someone else.

Seriously, there's no more common horrible mistake made by small businesses than to put up a web site that the whole world can see, made by somebody who once made a Geocities site.

Would you place a magazine ad designed by someone whose qualifications were that they drew a picture for their mom once?

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Originally Posted by ekillian

I just now installed a collection of Macromedia stuff. Dreamweaver, Flash MX, and more. It's awesome But I dunno how good at it I'll be.

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Flash MX is very hard to learn to use.

Thanks for your inputs. I'll post a link of what I come up with (before advertising the web address) and you guys can comment on it/tell me it is completely unacceptable. Then I'll go from there.

I'm using the latest version of FrontPage. It's going slow, but steady.

why you ROFL with LesWorms av?? Mine's way much gooder!

Update.

My harddrive "died" and I lost everything I "worked" on. Which was very little work and a lot of procrastinating.

So I re-started, and I just published somthing...a semi-finished site with minimal content.

www.RentPFE.com

Is this:
1) A Good Start?
2) Ugly but Acceptable?
3) A Complete Disgrace...get it off the net before someone sees it and thinks your company is run by gradeschoolers?

EasyT

I agree with TylerK.

2 and 3

Thank you. I knew I could count on you for good old-fashioned brutal honesty.

FYI, my boss's real estate friend designed a website herself which he was "very impressed" with...so this is what I'm measuring up to (ie the local competition)--
http://www.jabcorealty.com/

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Originally Posted by EasyT

Oh, lordy.

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I know the feeling. I've created my own website and a couple for my family. I decided to try and make some money off it once and said I would do one for my friend's father's company - so not only was it this big corporate thing, it was coming between me, my friend, and his father.

Of course - back and forth and back and forth... and ultimately I just relegated the whole project over to someone else who seemed to know what they wanted better than I did, and had a better raport with my friends father.

It can be a nightmare. It can also be rewarding if you do it right (diplomatically).

I started this one http://www.labelsinc.com like 6 months ago, and I never get chunks of time to complete it. I'm opposite from you. I am good at the artistic design part, but technically I'm a mess.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EasyT

Update.

My harddrive "died" and I lost everything I "worked" on. Which was very little work and a lot of procrastinating.

So I re-started, and I just published somthing...a semi-finished site with minimal content.

www.RentPFE.com

Is this:
1) A Good Start?
2) Ugly but Acceptable?
3) A Complete Disgrace...get it off the net before someone sees it and thinks your company is run by gradeschoolers?

EasyT

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Make the website narrower (so there is empty space on the far left and far right areas of the screen) and change the background to something plainer.. maybe an off-white and I'd give it a solid 2.

those backgrounds are horrible. lose the tiled pic and go with just color. keep it simple and graphics will not have to updated every 2 weeks when u get tired of looking at it. park forest + green = good. park forest + trees = ugly. you can have too much of one color. the site needs to be balanced with lighter values.

my input. pm me if u want more specifics. (im an art major)

rondavu, good layout but the blue "stone" looking thing in the background is not needed/good. other graphics/ logo stuff looks good though

Erm. I've done a good bit of web design as well as flash work. My suggestion is to find a template and use it. Really. There are some templates out there that are entirely flash based and will only run you $10 or so. Theres whole companies devoted to making "fill in the blank" websites for cheap.

Find one. Pay the $10.

EasyT, I see nothing wrong with what youve done. Looks as good as the one your competing against. Ive messed around with some html and made a baseball site for a team I coached. But nothing on the serious side.

Remove the background, work on the contrasts. Reading a bunch of text in that color vs that background is gonna be hard.
The "Renting Apartments, Houses and Townhouses in STATE COLLEGE, PA" should be put elsewhere and in another style more in line with the rest of the page. Why not on the "home page", after the customer comes to the home page he probably understands that the houses are for rent in State college, pa and you don't need to have that information showing on every page.

The address information moves around alot, does it have to be on every page? Maybe make a seperate page with contact information?

Don't even considering doing it in flash.
Flash pages are often slower & harder (or atleast more annoying) to navigate. It gives an unprofessional image. And some people don't even have the flash plugin installed.

Make the title space smaller, remove the "welcome to..." message - people know they're at your website.

Use text links with a background image for the menu on the left - if someone has a default text size that they browse in that's larger than the average person's, then they're not going to be able to read your links.

Ditch the background behind text - it muddles everything.

You have some content that's left-justified and some that's centered. It looks weird.

On the plus side, I like the way you put the 4 most-visited sections in the center of the homepage.

DO NOT USE FLASH. Not because of what Ake said on the amount of users that don;'t have the plugin (97% of users have flash), but he's right on about usability.

Also if you look into some templates, you'll probably find something you like for not that much money.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

Lots to work on then.....
1. Remove Background image.
2. Smaller Header.
3. More space on sides.
4. Add "Contact Info" page, and eliminate address on other pages.
5. Change to Text links.
6. Balance colors: light/dark.

I'll work on this tomorrow and then re-publish to see if you think it's improved.

Thanks again everyone for the inputs!

EasyT

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Originally Posted by Rondavu

I started this one http://www.labelsinc.com like 6 months ago, and I never get chunks of time to complete it. I'm opposite from you. I am good at the artistic design part, but technically I'm a mess.

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That fits. Your game is the same. You seem good at the art side of poker.
[I am not trying to imply that you suck at the technical parts of poker.]

8 months later, I LOL at rilla

Ya, I am pretty priceless. That joke wasn't all me though.

You don't want me to help with web design, anyone who saw the first version of FTR can attest to that.

Myself personally......I would have probably hired someone else, paid out of pocket, and then absorbed all the praise from my boss and co workers in regards to the "Awesome Job" I did on the site....but thats just me...lol

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Originally Posted by EricE

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rondavu

I started this one http://www.labelsinc.com like 6 months ago, and I never get chunks of time to complete it. I'm opposite from you. I am good at the artistic design part, but technically I'm a mess.

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That fits. Your game is the same. You seem good at the art side of poker.
[I am not trying to imply that you suck at the technical parts of poker.]

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But I do suck at the technical aspect

OK.

I scrapped this site and re-built again from the ground up.

www.RentPFE.com

I hope this is better, but am still very open to advice.

{btw...I lost the page titles...trying to fix this now - every page just says "page")

EasyT

Looks alot better than the last one...... However, there is a TON of dead space on the right side of my screen. I know nothing about web design though, so it may differ depending on the viewing resolution.

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Originally Posted by badandy519

Looks alot better than the last one...... However, there is a TON of dead space on the right side of my screen. I know nothing about web design though, so it may differ depending on the viewing resolution.

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You have one of those 6-table moniters, don't you? :)

The content is there, short and sweet, easily viewable under the banner. If there is too much dead space on the right, please someone suggest how to balance the page.

I'm scratching my head on the Titles, too. On my "preview" it looks fine. But disappears at the published site. Anyone know what I did wrong?

EasyT

LOL, i wish....
I only have a 19" CRT on 1024x768.... so I'm thinking someone set at 1600x1200 or a widescreen would see even more dead space. Other than that, I like this one with the monotone background better than the last one.