Someone that does work of quality along the lines of Webinc, Dickman, etc?
We have dedicated gay hosts, traffic brokers, content providers but, no dedicated gay designer.
You would have thought in the last few years someone would have stepped up to the plate and filled this void in the gay industry.
Regards,
Lee
Egypt from BlueFly will help you out...check his thread here http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...ad.php?t=19198 for a discount and to see his portfolio. He's done some nice work for us
cheers,
Luke
I would hazzard a guess that it's because the adult business doesn't pay as far as design goes. I used to do corporate web design and I could get $5,000 for a fairly simple web design project. Why would I take on an adult job when people want to pay $100 for 20 banners or a few hundred for a paysite design when I could make several times that doing a corporate design?
Unfortunately, it's a matter of getting what you pay for. Generally speaking I find labouring in the adult business is cheap labour. Sites want you to write reviews for $10 or $20 or maybe $25 a review, but I could make several times that writing for mainstream.
So I would say that the good designers have either moved on to bigger and better things, or they're doing it for themselves. What's left behind are a couple of good designers willing to stick it out in adult because they make a decent living by pumping out quantity. But for me, it's just not worth my time to take on design work, I'd rather build a new site for myself.
I find it all rather interesting because a paysite has the potential of making the site owner thousands of dollars, so does good writing, but for some reason most of the people who work in the adult business are cheap and don't want to pay a good wage -- they want the moon for what they do pay, but they don't want to pay much. And then you get off-shore Asians willing to cut the price even further and a local designer just can't compete with that.
Cheers,
Michael
WORD! I do a lot of design work but with the time that goes into a quality site - I can design a magazine or promo poster for a client (well in less time) and make 8 to 10 times more.Originally Posted by Dzinerbear
Design is more than just the end result.
Be Who You Are!
I beg to differ.
Design is all about the end result... No matter whether you work in the adult or any other industry segment.
If it wasnt all about the end result, why would designers have samples of their previous works in their portfolios?
Regards,
Lee
If it's the End result you are working for then the Work it takes to GET the end result is Fuck all?
Be Who You Are!
As far as i am concerned as the client? Absolutely.
Thats what the designer gets paid to do, i dont care about how much or how little work the designer puts in to something so long as what is expected for the end result is delivered.
From a designers perspective im sure how much work goes in to the end result is an important factor however, as the client i really dont care one way or the other how hard a designer has to work in order to deliver me a design that i paid $800 for... If the designer thinks their time and work is worth more than $800, then they should charge more.
Bottom line for me, im paying for a product, as long as the product delivers, im fine with that.
Do you care how much work goes in to creating a music album? No. You buy the album because you like the end product - The music, not because of how many hours the artist sat in a recording studio, sat writing the lyrics, sat playing the instruments, etc.
Regards,
Lee
I agree as well - And yes - From Designer to Client side, The view of process and end result mean nothing more than the Client happy and the designer paid.
Be Who You Are!
But you and the industry won't pay what a design is worth. Designers realized that and moved to more lucrative markets, so what you end up with ... well, you asked the question, so you already know.
Michael
The problem isnt the pricing, its the quality you get for the pricing, as you also already know.
I could go to Webinc and get an affiliate program design for $1500 or, i could go to one of these Phillipino designers and get one for $300, both types of design are usable however, the higher priced one is a much higher quality... Which is what i would be paying for (The quality)... As im sure many others do on a monthly basis.
As of right now in the industry, there are only 2 design firms that i know of that havent changed their pricing structure in the last 5 years, because they deliver a quality product and their clients know this.
Supply and demand shouldnt dictate the pricing of designers in the adult industry but, unfortunately, anyone that had Photoshop calls themselves a designer these days and, because they are 'cheap' they get work.
However, going back to my original question, how many dedicated gay design firms are there in the industry and, how many of them deliver a high quality product similar to that of Webinc or AAA Adult Design quality?
We [the gay side of the industry] desperately need a designer that focuses purely on gay website design, that are quality peices of work and, not necessarily 'cheap' but affordable prices for the quality being delivered.
I guarantee if a company stepped up to the plate and offered such a service they would clean up.
Instead, depending on the type of work you need, you have to go to sometimes upwards of 8 different designers, one for the affiliate site, one for the paysites, one for another type of paysite layout, another for promo tools and another for FHGs, etc..
On the other hand, you can go to Webinc or Sharky and get everything done by the one design company, at a price that is equal to their quality.
Regards,
Lee
We use a single design company for all our design needs - business cards to advertising print ads, banner ads, all of our websites, any graphics we might need, screen printing, tradeshow material, promotional products.
We love them because they handle all of our stuff from start to finish, through and through. They don't use templates or stuff like that for site designs. They design a site from scratch, with our needs and requests guiding everything, are willing to provide us with an endless number of comps until things are exactly how we want them to be. They handle printing of flyers, business cards, etc along with the actual design of them. They track the deadlines and artwork specs of any advertising we do in a host of publications.
They handled the very first redesign of our site. They handled the second redesign of our site, as well as branding our sites and designing our brand new one.
One of the best things we've ever done is establish a relationship with this company, as they have flawlessly performed for us and have always left us happy with the end result.
Whether it's calling them up for a single 120x60 button for a particular affiliate or a complete design overhaul of our sites, they're who we use, and they get us what we want on time.
And we don't feel we're paying an arm and a leg for it either.
And we know they have several other gay adult clients.
So... there is at least one high quality gay designer that we know of!
CorbinFisher's Amateur College Men
I am in the process of doing the 3rd version of my sites designs, i like to update and re-design my home page, tours, and members area every 2 years or so. I am fortunate to have found a very good gay designer, several years ago, however he had never done an adult site, he specialized in design for the music industry ( electronic house music) I had been looking for a high quality, talented designer for allmost a year. before i found one with the talent i was looking for. I looked at allot of different design companies, big and small, as well as posted on craigslist etc. I found that most of them lacked imagination, and did not have a great deal of design knowledge or skill. I did find some that were talented, but did not share the same design ideas or influences that i was looking for. I agree with the fact that there is alot of bad design out, there, i feel that after good content should be good design, they go hand in hand. Surfers today are getting more demanding all the time, most of them have seen good design, somewhere on the net. They want quality content, yes ,but they also want the site to pull them in with interesting design, . I feel a good site should be designed, like a fine German car or a Lexus, everything is in the proper place and it looks like it should be there, the site should have flow, and be easy to navigate.Design along with bodybuilding have allways been a passion, so i sweat the small details, with design. Allot of my members appreciate the extra effort, as i said good models and giving your clients what they want to see is the most important aspect of operating a successful web site, however i feel you should not overlook the design, and put the time in to find a designer that can do it right. even if it takes a year.I would not limit myself to designers that only do adult. Ifound most of the really good ones, had never done an adult site. So the next hurdle may be to get them to, as some are not interested. Some of you may want to check out one of my new sites www.jockbutt.com and see what you think, i just put up this new design on Friday and still need to add about 50 more models to the model profile page, i only have 12 up now, but it will give you an idea, of what my sites are all about. I should have it all complete by the end of the week. I try and make my sites totally unique, for example the type fonts i am using are custom, no other site will have that exact font, you may find something similar, but not the same. It helps my sites stand appart from the competition, call me crazy and a waist of time, but i do enjoy the design process, and i think allot of surfers appreciate the extra effort and cost.
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