Web sites are flexible beasts that can be constructed quickly with one designer or developed and revised through an extensive process and a larger creative team. On either end of the spectrum it’s possible to create a useful, beautiful, and elegantly coded site that works just as it should – the decisions about how much to put into it are all up to you. In customizing your project, we’ll go over the audience and goals of the site, your design preferences, and how the site will function.
There are three distinct components to the project:
CONTENT: All the sections of the site, the site map (relationship of each page to the others), and the words/images/links/etc that go on each page
DESIGN: The look and feel of the site, how the content is presented – things like creating and organizing all the background images and colors, and customizing them for each page
CODING: Bringing the design and content together in a smooth way so that the user has a great experience on the site – this is the invisible, behind-the-scenes part of each web page – things like accessibility, writing code that works with multiple web browsers, making the site so it’s as easy as possible to update, and other interactive features
The Website Creation Process
QUESTIONNAIRE: You'll fill out the Site Definition Questionnaire to help us clarify the project scope and details. Feel free to download a copy of it here to help you get started. If appropriate we can also create a more customized version of the questionnaire for your particular project.
PROJECT TIMELINE AND BUDGET: We agree on the scope of the project, when I’ll have the drafts of the design ready, when the site map will be completed, when the final content for the pages will be delivered to me, and when the finished site will be completed and online.
PROJECT TONE AND FOCUS: We agree on the basic design ideas, the structure of the site (the site map), all of the features/interactivity of the site, and the process for getting the content for the specific pages to me. I need this all at the beginning because the content, structure, and features will affect how I approach the design. We’ll work together on this and I’ll suggest things to help you get just what will work best for the project.
BUILDING THE SITE: I’ll start designing and coding, and we’ll go through a revision process until it’s just right. I’ll check in with you as I reach certain design points and cost points; however it’s most comfortable for you.
SERVER SPACE: Depending on the type of site we create, we can either design the site using a testing server, or I can develop it on the actual server space that the final version will use. Before I can make it fully interactive, I’ll need access to the actual server space.
DELIVERY: When the site is finished I’ll make sure it’s all set up on your server. I’ll also deliver to you all of the files necessary to maintain the site and its graphics.
Budget Variables
Rates are accurate as of May 2010
We can work out some combination of these approaches to come up with a budget, depending on what fits the project needs best: (a) Establishing a total budget for the entire site-building process; (b) Approaching the project more in stages and working out a budget for each of these stages as they come up; or (c) Defining the tasks that need to be done and tracking time with an hourly rate.
My base hourly rate for graphic design, web design, coding, and updates is $100, and the rate for consulting and project management is $125.
Here are some ballpark figures for project budgets, which can be fine-tuned depending on the specific features and design elements of the site:
THE BASIC HTML-BASED SITE: Starting at $1000, this would involve one overall design. A small number of multimedia files (like audio, video, and images) could be embedded in the site for the base rate, and there could be Paypal shopping cart buttons so people could buy things through the Paypal server. This would include custom creating the overall design and layout and going through a couple of revisions to fine-tune it. The content for each page would be composed and proof-read by you in advance, so my focus on building the site is more on making everything look good and work well, rather than on the content.
EXAMPLE: A Dancing Tree: Intuitive Dance
ADD-ONS: Customized additions might include a calendar system, a custom Flash video player or video jukebox, an audio jukebox, photo gallery, Flash animation, or an email newsletter system. Rates depend on how much time they take to implement, and generally run from around $100 to $500. (note: the “quick and basic” site might include one of these elements in the base cost of the site, but additional elements would be add-ons)
THE MORE INTERACTIVE AND CUSTOMIZED SITE: Starting at around $2000, this would involve creating more customized graphics and buttons, more pages, more visual customization for different pages, more interactivity and more multimedia. A site at this level might incorporate Flash design and coding, or more a more complex html/php structure. It may be built around a Content Management System (CMS) like Joomla or WordPress, that would make it so that you can update the content of the website yourself through a web browser.
HTML-BASED SITE EXAMPLE: Inner Passage: Adventure in Everything
FLASH-BASED SITE EXAMPLE: Janeane Garofalo Official Site and the Bigbite Productions site (where you are now)
JOOMLA-BASED SITE WITH FULL CMS EXAMPLE: Monkey Business Institute: Live Improv and Blame Society Productions
THE MORE FULLY CUSTOMIZED MULTIMEDIA AND/OR E-COMMERCE SITE: Starting at around $5000, this would involve the features mentioned above, but there would be a higher level of customization and testing, possibly involving some combination of things like a more complex CMS, a dedicated server, the ability to accept credit cards and handle transactions on your own server, live audio and video streaming, a more customized interface for you to update your own site; things like that. This level incorporates more features that would require a larger web development team – additional programmers and specialists to help get everything set up just right. Extensive sites with a marketing/programming team behind them can require several times this starting budget to fully design, create, and test, so it’s really up to you and how big you want to make it.
LOGO DESIGN:Logos range from $500 to $2000 or more, depending on the research, design process and creative team you would like to involve. Basic logo design starts at $500 for up to a couple revisions and one color scheme. This includes the creation of a scalable vector-art logo image that can be used on your site and in other formats. For additional research, revisions and variations on the core theme, we’ll work with my hourly design rate and/or agree on the overall project budget up front. For a more intense research and revision process, we will involve a team of collaborators to polish everything just right. Because logos are more precisely fine-tuned than other design elements, I approach them separately from the rest of your site. Of course, if you already have a logo or other particular images that you want to incorporate into the web design, we’ll work with those.