Brett wrote:
>.. Not going to pay to have the color of the text on the icons changed,
>or a background layer altered, over the long term when I can do it
>myself in 3 minutes.
Please bear with me while expand a bit on my previous answer to Brett's
comments. Having never worked with Brett, I have no idea what his
capabilities in regard to modifying an artist's work are, so please don't
take this personally. It's just a general comment.
We, like many artists, have a multitude of tendencies, talents, preferences
and habits that combine to make up our own individual work style, that give
our work a distinctive look and feel. It is this individual look and feel,
hopefully, that clients are buying when they hire Stephens Design to design
a Web site. If a client fully understood all the subtleties that make up
our style, there would indeed be no reason for the client to hire us,
because that client would be fully capable of imitating our style himself
or herself.
I would think it would be impossible for any client to somehow intuitively
grasp and understand the totality of our work style. It's made up of a lot
of little subtleties that combine to make a whole: We tend to use rich,
multi-layered Photoshop effects. We avoid dry corporate-looking
template-based pages. We use more rich and varied color combinations than
many other designers. We prefer to use small type, and avoid type over size
-1 unless made as a Photoshop graphic. We never use <h> style headline
type. We use curly quotes instead of inch marks in both graphics and text,
etc. ......the list goes on and on.
I think it is presumptious for a client to assume he or she can make little
changes without risking altering our work so much that we would no longer
proudly claim it to be our own. If the client is so skilled and so capable
of making these creative decisions on his own, why did he hire us in the
first place? This is a situation unique to the Web, and one I see mentioned
by designers on other lists frequently. It seems like a poor economy to
spend thousands of dollars hiring a designer to do a site, then making
alterations in-house. Sort of dollar wise and penny foolish. I think
compromises should be worked out where if the client knows he'll want to
update a page himself, the designer creates an easily modifiable page
template, such as I've done with TLC's Buzz and Links pages. I don't care
about making these frequent updates myself and the client wants to do them.
So, I designed them with the client's minimal skills in mind.
If we design a site for a client, then the client later makes noticeable
changes on his own, then the site is no longer our work. Every graphic
designer's work is only as good as the last project he or she can show. If
the last project no longer reflects the quality and style of our work
because the client has been mucking around with it, then we have lost a
valuable asset in our portfolio. Gaining a portfolio piece is an important
part of our compensation, because our careers are built on our portfolios.
Consequently, losing a portfolio piece is much like a financial loss.
Imagine, if you would, a plastic surgeon who creates a gorgeous new nose
for a patient. Then the patient stands in front of the mirror and does a
little carving on it herself. Would the good doctor then want to show off
the patient as an example of his work? No way! Suppose the Web site I do
for you is my first project: if you mess around with it, then I no longer
have a portfolio or any work history to sell from. I can't say to a
prospective client or employee, "Well, I designed a Web site for XYZ. Take
my word for it, it used to be really pretty ubtil the client started
messing around with it."
Furthermore, not that the average client would care, but if I turn to
something I've designed and see something that's been done to it
differently than the way I would have done it myself, it's like someone has
stabbed me in the heart with a knife. It takes the joy out of having done
the work.
Suz
Suzanne Stephens, Dave Stephens Design; Ashland, Oregon
541-552-1190, 541-1192 http://www.KickassDesign.com/
CyberCircus Grand Prize Winners http://www.thecybercircus.com/
Web Page Design for Designers: http://www.wpdfd.com/wpdres.htm
Clip Art: http://www.freeimages.com/artists/
Tender Loving Care Interactive DVD movie: http://tenderlovingcare.cc/
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