How To Choose A Web Design Firm.

[gaybucks_chip]

I appreciate a lot of what Chris has written (as well as the effort he put into writing it), but it looks like it was generically written for business seeking websites, not to adult content or membership site builders. Therefore, I'd like to perhaps offer an alternative viewpoint on several key issues. My view comes from having been on both sides of the transaction, as a technical sales liason for a firm that offered design services (mainstream, not adult), and having been a buyer of graphic design services (web and print) for well over 20 years.

From my perspective, the first and foremost factor in choosing a web design firm is not price, "customer service" and certainly not what other services are offered by the firm, but instead WHO IS GOING TO BE DOING YOUR DESIGN. In a lot of larger firms (particularly offshore ones), you'll see fabulous designs in the portfolio... but the designer who did them is either out of the price range for your job, doesn't work there, or is unavailable. For my money, I want to see the actual designs that the designer working on my site has done, and even more importantly, I want to speak with him/her on the phone, over IM, or (preferably) in person.

We recently had an experience with a graphic design firm that has high visibility in the gay adult industry. While said firm supposedly had a good reputation, it's principal designer was absolutely the most arrogant, self-important, uncooperative designer I've ever worked with, and had I met him before the project started, we absolutely would not have used this firm. (As it was, after three rounds of comps that were completely nonresponsive to the notes we'd sent, we dropped the firm and a much less known designer did an incredible job for about 1/4 of the cost quoted by the larger firm.)

Secondly, while price can have a strong correlation to what you get in many fields, in the field of web design, I've found that isn't always the case. Two of the most talented designers we've ever used are recently out of school and very inexpensive, yet they do far more creative/innovative/quality work than many of the established firms I've used. They're also very flexible about delivering what we want, and work hard to deliver on time. Likewise, there are several designers active on GWW, one of whom we've worked with, who do excellent work yet are not part of big firms and don't charge a bazillion dollars for their work.

Third, I don't recommend bundling hosting with design. Web designers generally don't know how to maintain server networks well, and network techs generally suck at design. Although there are exceptions, firms that try to do both often aren't great at either. Let each group shine in its own area of specialty by choosing the best vendors in each field. You'll probably save money as well, as design firms are often just marking up a service they are buying from elsewhere. And if you're going to be in the adult biz, you really need to learn at least some *basic* site admin stuff yourself.

Fourth, on the support issue... again, I VERY HIGHLY recommend working only with a firm where you can speak directly with the designer that's working on your job. Otherwise, you will often find it will take 3 or 4 tries to get something done because messages get screwed up as they are passed from one person to another. If you insist in working with an offshore designer to save money, you may be forced to go through a third party due to a language barrier... but with the many talented designers in the US, some of whom are 18 or 19 but have been designing for 10 years already, you can, with a little effort, find a firm that employs great people (or a talented individual) that won't charge you a fortune.

Fifth, adult is an unusual business, so choosing a designer that has no experience in adult can be risky. Getting tours to convert, understanding the importance of specific design issues, creating sites with back-end technology (or, just image and code optimization) that can support thousands of simultaneous users -- if that's the growth path you're aiming for -- is crucial to your success. At the same time, if you're willing to work with a designer that hasn't done much adult work, you may find that your sites will have a fresher, less formulaic look that will appeal to your surfers *because* it's different. And there's no reason you can't hire one person or firm to do design, and somebody else to do search engine optimization, as long as the two parties talk... once again, leaving each person doing what they do best. Particularly with SEO, this is really important... someone who *thinks* they know what they're doing can cause you far more harm than good.

I hope that the above suggestions are helpful to anyone new to the industry.

[MidwestMale]

Yeah no Joke. We are on our 2nd Design team for my website the first one well was taking WAY to much time to complete the project the site was very unprofessional looking and well the database(s) would not link up correctly. There was many entry errors and well the temp site he made for us just was not the style or anything eles we wanted plus he just copied text and stuff from my temp / example pages i needed for the pages.

Offshore DESIGN = Cheeper but well quality sucks Or is Great (hit or miss)
USA BASED DESIGN = Expensive as hell but quality is excellent.

OFFSHORE Database Configurations = Cheeper and they are good
USA BASED Database Configurations = Expensive and good.

The team i have now is very good at both things the frontend design person i have is located in Kentucky his website is

http://www.niccodamani.com he is really good at design his backend team he uses his name is Ankit www.swiftthoughts.com they both can do great things for you.