Last spring we printed a limited edition of The Crane tees to show support for Japan earthquake victims. On that occasion we learned about the tee printing process in detail and the idea of designing non-digital products was born. Putting up the online store was the natural next step and I’m very curious to see how this side project grows.

Apart from T-shirts, we are planning to develop and release some other (physical) products for designers and developers, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise just yet.

The shop itself runs at Big Cartel, a simple shopping system for artists and designers. It’s super easy to customize, (if you don’t mind the basic Django/Python syntax).

Typetester Tee is now available for all screen type geeks.

It takes time to educate companies. Even if you could educate them, that will not change the company culture. In most companies even the in-house web experts are fighting against windmills most of the time.

We, the people in web industry are extremely passionate. That’s why we are pushing so hard to bring the best possible results to our employers or clients.

However, if we didn’t receive enough affection and recognition back, we would feel exhausted and tired. Of course, a pat on the back is not enough. We really need to see the result of our effort. If we had done our part the best we could, we would have expected no less from other parties involved in the process.

I’m just speculating here, but it could be that the primary reason for leaving companies and client work has something to do with the outcomes that — despite all our efforts — didn’t turn exactly as we planned.

Being your own boss means having the whole process under your control and opportunity to apply an insane level of obsession over the tiniest details, a typical tendency of top experts in the field. I wonder what would happen if all the best of breed experts started building their own brands.

A major shift perhaps?

Due to the nature of the Internet and a broad range of possibilities for any given project, it’s impossible to provide the clients with a fixed quote based on an e-mail with five bullets.

What can you do?

Respond with the best guess estimates instead of proposals, simply to encourage agile development and deal with unavoidable scope changes up-front.

Tip for the clients: unavoidable scope changes develop frustrations on both ends. The frustration is caused by fixed contract or limited budget. Consequently — production delays occur and the quality of work suffers.

With estimates clients get better picture about how overall scope and tight deadline affect the budget and can plan costs for each step accordingly. I found it that for clients it’s easier to decide about the priorities when they have better picture about what they really need.

The benefit of abstract estimates is that you usually end up doing the essential features first, and rethinking add-ons later.

Essentials vs. Add-ons

The best possible investment for clients is to hire pro photographer and/or copywriter to take care of the essential content first. Products, services and about information is a must.

Office photo gallery or office furniture, newsletter system or custom made contact form, blog or forum is an add-on. User comments might be essential, but user registration or activity log is an add-on. Simple send video link form is essential, but custom made video uploader is an add-on (the later will also produce hosting/bandwidth costs, since you have to store those uploads somewhere).

Tip for web producers: The quickest way to filter serious projects is to simply reply with a ballpark costs, for instance:

“Such sites usually cost between X and Y hundreds, thousands or millions <insert prefered currency here>.”

Production of community based interactive web site with file uploads based on WordPress can indeed take from a week to a couple of months. And if it’s urgent, that means doubling the agency staff and raising overall costs.

Web design packages

But don’t offer packages, that’s irresponsible. We are not in a car industry. You don’t manufacture 1000 pieces of the same model each year, so you can’t create equipment packages. You couldn’t possibly analyze the costs of every single optional feature with a dozen (or two) projects a year. The sample is too small and the variety of options is too wide.

When buying a car you don’t go to a car factory and negotiate about wether the logo should be bigger or a little bit more on the left. You only get what’s offered. That’s unless you are a buyer who’s not asking about the price.

With cars it’s easy to create packages and set the prices, but with web sites virtually everything is an option. Except the domain name, of course.

A few tips for wasting web designer’s time.

This is how-not-to make the first contact with a web design agency:

1. Promise more work later on, as a compensation for limited budget
2. Copy and paste response e-mail to competing agencies and forget to change the recipients name
3. Offer a share in a project
4. Not having budget at all

Promise more work later on

Instead of planning future projects and future marketing and future additions to the current project, it’s better to focus on doing what you do right now. And do it the best you can. If your current task is to create the best possible web site, then you better create the best possible web site.

If your budget is limited, do the single best thing that fits your money. A single feature done right is way better than fully featured nonsense.

Forget recipients name

This is obvious. For starters, stop copy/paste your e-mails.

Next, don’t collect proposals from many different agencies all at the same time. We are in custom tailored service business, not mass production. Many Most of us don’t copy and paste web sites, so we can’t provide you with a discount based on lower production costs.

If you’re looking for the cheapest option, go grab some templates.

Offer a share

Would you share your house with a tiler or carpenter who built it?

Shares only make sense if the project is something that attracts that particular agency or freelancer in contexts other than merely building a web site. If they find the project interesting, they will usually offer to do it for alternative kinds of compensation.

Not having money, only great ideas

If you don’t have money, earn it. Earning money actually helps. It puts you in reality perspective. Working (instead of dreaming) usually allows some room to rethink your next revolutionary idea.

In my experience there are rarely features worth the upgrade in new software versions — take a look at MS Office. The flip side is usually bloated code, overcrowded interface and poor performance.

New Photoshop tools are mostly useful for repetitive tasks, such as removing stains on 100+ batches or image stretching. But seriously, how often do you need that? Will you now start working with crappy images, just because your new software allows you to fix it? How about firing a photographer and tell clients to send you their mobile camera shots? I mean, you have the software, right?

Does an actor comes to a set with filthy hands and after the shooting they force some unfortunate soul with Photoshop to make it award winning scene?

…

Large companies upgrade their software regularly, because of large multi-seat license discounts and perhaps to stay up to date with other businesses who already upgraded. And sometimes it’s the matter of a company’s public image.

However, for a small or tiny creative agency with experienced users (at least with regard to the tools of trade), new amazing “where have you been all my life” features are not really essential. It is much more useful to teach people basics about using computers, than to offer magical bullet.

With tough economics why not wait and skip at least one major release. Your business is not going to suffer because of it.

The latest technology doesn’t make a master. Skills and experience do.

For occasional photo retouching or web/UI design you’re quite good with CS4 or even CS3. So save your money and buy it on Amazon. They sell CS4 Student edition for under $400.

Clients are usually not familiar with the complexity of certain features. Something that occupies small area on the interface — for instance, a newsletter subscription form or “send to a friend” — might be more complex than the rest of the site.

RFP full of features

When glancing over the request for a proposal that is full of tiny little add-ons, you already know — it will boost the quote up to the sky. Most of the functionalities are in their original form simple and straight-forward, but each project has it’s own twists. Ideally, each detail have to be tailored to perfectly fit the rest of the site.

When the prospect is able to bare her requirements down to absolutely essential parts, the “core”, you are half way there.

This is not a single player match. We as an experienced professionals should help and educate clients — and finally: make them confident in our abilities.

Depending on the nature of the relationship with the client, ask simple questions:

— “If you’d ask someone to create a web site as a favor, what would be the absolutely necessary parts?”.

Break it by milestones

It is a win-win situation. Quoting a Must-have list is so much easier! When you’re both settled with the features/price, call it a milestone, a phase in a process.

During the first phase, you’re about to show the client that you are worth her money. Release this first “essential” version. If she’s satisfied with the results, price and timeline, you gained the trust.

From that point on, discussing the Nice-to-have features is a breeze.

Why now?

Tin is now 4 months old and has been diagnosed dystonia. It’s nothing as fatal as it sounds, but we still need to stay focused and keep up with the physical therapy. If we do, everything should be fine by his first birthday.

Apart from being a web enthusiast, I’m also a kinesiologist. While Mrs is a genuine super-mom who handles both of our boys well, I need to help as much as I can to develop Tin’s motor abilities. And who fits better than his own father?

Going freelance will hopefully provide more schedule flexibility, in opposite to company lifestyle, where you’re expected to be available nine to five.

What’s next?

I’m not leaving Adria Media Zagreb completely, though. We managed to find a win-win relationship. I will still collaborate on a new projects to join the company blockbusters Croportal, Roditelji and Story.

If you are from Croatia and find the above sites exciting, check out the 2 new job openings.

I also have an extensive list of faithful clients from all around the globe, which should keep the cash flow steady. If you can see me helping your project, shoot me a message.

Last, but not least, I’d love to finally bring to life some of the ideas that have been laying around for a while. A couple of pro-bono PSDs are also waiting for a chop.

— Bring it on!

When I land to a site, I’m interested to first read About us section, so I can visualize author while browsing her showcase. It helps me better remember people, and more easily get back when I need to. Authentic copy helps. Photo, too. Don’t make it generic.

Don’t copy and paste sentences and phrases you found on other sites. Don’t claim you’re something, you’re not, hoping that such facts would bring you more work. Rather than that — show us what would you like to be sometimes in the future, and someone might give you a chance.

It’s okay if you don’t have experience, it stinks if you provide false or generic information.

The quantity of experience is not the essential part of your resume. It’s the progress, and the current state of you. If you have tendency to develop new professional interests and enhance personal grow over time, then you have an advantage over a person who sticks at the same level over years, just switching companies.

If you are your own copywriter, let friends and colleagues randomly describe you. You’ll have enough raw material to chop off the interesting chunks of text and spice it up with your own writing style.

I want to run faster.
Get brief. Set goals. Score. Get out.
Wet dreams.

Experts are cursed. In my experience — the more a person knows, the more she is unsure when asked for an approximation in terms of time for the task at hand.

This can be quite challenging situation, since the majority of clients/investors are not able to deliver fully developed specs. Most of the time, they just tell you what they envision in general, and you’ll have to figure it all out by yourself. If you are not reacting promptly, in many cases you loose a prospect.

In fact, prospects are right. They hire you to create magic from their random thoughts. The only problem is — you can’t charge your know-how separately. But I digress.

All professions on the web are infected by the correct estimate syndrome. Perhaps because I’m at the front-end side of things, I perceive back-end people are more into this epidemic than designers or front-end developers. I rarely ask front-end people, since I already know what can be done at what cost and in what time. So take my claims with a grain of salt.

Designers as a more irrational people are giving the estimate by their gut feeling or quite often already have established prices for various deliverables.

Programmers are rational and concrete, so they are always trying to give the exact estimate. I dare to send a message: we need such a precision only and exclusively in your work. The time programmer spends on discovering how things work, should be calculated in the estimate. I strongly believe that anything can be disassembled in matter of days, if not hours.

Features that clients request are almost always invented before. Clients are occasionally surprisingly informed and educated, but very rarely with a true authentic concept. My logic tells me — we are re-factoring what have already being adopted on the web. We should be familiar with 95% of the requested features or tasks.

Unless it’s something completely new. People are telling me The new things are fun to work with. I hear that all the time. So I have a second-guess that the estimate in terms of billable hours is not applicable here.

As I see it — you work repetitive tasks for money, while you innovate for fun and personal growth (and so you can make more money later, when the feature becomes popular request or part of a standard package).

For any task, there is the worst case estimate, the super-optimistic case estimate and the estimate by experience. Experienced expert should know:

• what can go wrong
• how fast she can do it, if she is in the right mood
• how much time and effort some similar task(s) took her in the past

This is, of course, my point of view. What’s your approach on this?

Addenum

Snook lists the most common tasks a true web developer has to go through in A Web Developer’s Personal Projects.

Please continue the list…

Occasionally, people ask me to create XHTML/CSS template based on provided .PSDs. Most of the time, such projects are pretty straight-forward — I tell the hourly rate and the estimated hours. The prospective client then accepts the offer or not.

It could be zillion reasons why clients reject offers and I’m used to some neutral (read: polite) arguments, like “It exceeds our budget” or something like that. However, today I received an interesting response:

“You are a little-bit too expensive, XXX is an hourly rate for a programmer.”

Funny, huh? Or sad?

Why on Earth would anyone compare client-side coding with programming. What is it that people (or just this particular client) think some cog of the same engine should be valued more than others?

Is it because the work of accessibility consultant, CSS coder, SEO engineer or usability expert is not something you can point your finger at? Or is it ‘cause people tend to care for web standards in a way of questionably increased initial exposure on endless, but completely irrelevant CSS showcase lists?…