UKC

I'd like to set up a company which makes custom waterproof clothing for climbers.

I'm thinking about setting up a website along the lines of PHD's design your own sleeping bag site. http://www.phdesigns.co.uk/dyosleepingbag/

Does anyone know if it is possible to do this myself? Or if not how much it would cost to get a similar site made. Can any one recommend any good web designers?

The site doesn't need to be particularly flash, just functional.

Cheers,

CG

In reply to Captain Gear:
Really? You want a website like that??
That is one of the most annoying websites i have ever visited

As for costs for 'normal' website design well, a few years back i paid around £500 to have a site designed. This was for about 15-20 webpages

In reply to kieran b:

Ha - I don't want one like that then, I want one that does what the phd site does.

bump

In reply to Captain Gear:

Well the PHD site is in flash, but is the opposite of functional. It's terrible. And most likely illegal too (in terms of accessibility) - so whatever you do don't get a copy of that!

But I think I see what you're getting at - a sort of wizard to help people select or specify their custom clothing?

I expect you could do something simpler yourself, like a simple one-page form. Unless you're willing to put in some (or quite a lot) of time to learn then anything like the PHD site would be difficult I'd say. I'd expect to pay more than £500 to get the job done properly as it could be quite a large task for whoever does it.

In reply to Captain Gear:

Have a look at 1and1. I use their website builder and it is really simple but you can do some quite powerful stuff. Prices varying depending on how much you want to do but worth a look.

In reply to Captain Gear:

My mate runs A1 Digital Media, and his websites seem pretty good. If you give them a call and ask for Aiden, I could see if you could get a discount with them?

There is a portfolio on the site so you can see some designs they have done in the past.

Let me know if this would be of use to you & I'll let him know to expect a call from you!

http://www.a1digitalmedia.com/

In reply to Captain Gear:
yhm with some thoughts.

In reply to Captain Gear:


Yes. Almost anything in IT can and is often done by hobbyists, often better than by professionals.

In reply to Captain Gear: best way is go look at elance.com.......post a description of what you want (use the parts of the example sites you like too) and then see what your quoted...just make sure you choose someone with good history and specify they must use open source program like joolma or wordpress (basically use something that you can edit yourself once they have finished or easily take to someone else to work on incase your designer becomes expensive or vanishes)...

In reply to timmy a:

To add to that - if you're going to use elance.com/peopleperhour.com etc, don't just go with the cheapest rate. A lot of those sites are populated by people prepared to work for £5/hour, which doesn't really help anyone in the long run.

In reply to Captain Gear:

Drop me an email if you like, I'm a freelance web designer/ developer

In reply to Nexonen:

It ain't illegal, because you can get their phone number from the main site (which is plain HTML after all) and give them a bell and get the same service. You don't have to do much to avoid the Equality Act (which replace the Disability Discrimination Act), just provide some alternative means to access the same information. Government sites are held to higher standards.

Anyway, with regards to the OP: I used to make sites for people for £600 back in the day; I certainly wouldn't charge that little now, but I've no doubt there are plenty of foolish or desperate folk who'll sell you stuff that cheaply in the UK. Buying overseas labour online can be dead cheap, but I've never met anyone who's been happy with the result.

You should go chat with a competent graphic designer first, because there are lots of website "designers" who are actually programmers and haven't an artistic bone in their body... but conversely, no shortage of graphic designers who wouldn't recognise a user-friendly website if it bit them in the chuff. Ask for some examples of previous work!

In reply to needvert:

If the hobbyist is as good as you claim then that would make them a professional would it not. You dont need to be qualified to be a professional - you just need to be a professional.

In reply to Captain Gear:

I'm out! £400 upwards for the website though.

In reply to EeeByGum: PS - if you simply want a shop type site, you can buy off-the-shelf products that can do it for you, but obviously they won't be as customisable as a paid jobbie.

In reply to Milesy:

bit of an ambiguous claim but there is some truth in there hidden!

'Professionals' will often churn out lots of almost identical sites as it's faster and they can make more money that way. Your site ideas will be shoehorned in to something pre-built. A 'hobbyist' may be more likely to give it care and attention and think more about providing a good site.

Also 'professionals' are often companies that then sell the contract on to people using things like PeoplePerHour who may or may not be any good depending on how careful the selection is.

I would say though that
a 'professional' just means someone engaged or qualified in a vocation, and often has the connotation of meaning they do it for money. There's a lot of great part time designers out there but it varies on how much effort they put in. Keeping up with what's fashionable and new, keeping up with best practice, new developments etc takes a lot of effort so quite often the 'professional' will be more up to date.

In reply to Scarab9:

I'd disagree completely with that I've worked both for myself and in permanent roles and have never come across that.

What you are describing is the minority who are just bad at their job / out for nothing but the money. Which is true in pretty much all industries.