ozg works

The design process begins with the discovery phase. You find me through this website, or one of the websites I have designed, or a friend or a relative. You contact me and typically we would meet either at my office (or a Starbucks, etc) to discuss the scope of your project. During this brief discussion I will ask you questions to determine your needs with respect to marketing your product or service. I will give you a copy of my Creative Brief to help you get started thinking about what you'd like to see from the finished web site. I will also give you a copy of my Creative Services Agreement.

If we have already discussed particulars of the project over the phone or via email, I will often accept a deposit and begin work right away. A deposit and a signed contract are required to begin working on the project; spec work is just not something in which professional designers and developers participate. Depending on the size of the project, I may present you with a formal proposal detailing the work according to the project scope we've developed. The deposit is typically 1/3 of the overall project cost.

Also, hosting will have to be accounted for, preferably sooner than later. "Hosting" is simply leasing space on someone's server to store your website in a publicly accessible place; the domain name is your "website.com" that points to the files that I create for you. I will assist you through every part of setting up hosting and securing your domain name. You can expect to pay between $5-10 per month for hosting and roughly $5-10 per year for a domain name. That part is relatively inexpensive and the affordability of "getting started" unfortunately tricks a lot of people into thinking that web design is equally inexpensive. Read more about the cost of web design .

During the creative phase, I will take the notes from our meeting and from my own case studies and market research and begin designing the visual elements of your website. This may include a logo or other branding, but it will always include at least two "mockups" or concepts for us to build from. During this phase, you get to do some homework. I always think in pictures and analogies, so let me present it to you like this: if a website were a house, my part of this phase is to design the house and draw up the blueprint; your part is to approve my concepts and start thinking about the color of the carpet and what kind of cabinets you want in the kitchen. It's easy to say, "I need a website." However, there's a lot of work and a lot of content to create, not just on my part but yours as well. I won't know your business process or your history. You have to provide that information to me. You'll also have to provide me with any photos you want in the site (of course, stock photography is always an option, but it's not always the best solution).

This is also where I begin thinking about all the boring technical stuff you don't want to know about. Here's where I'll create the sitemap, database schema, domain and DNS setup, etc. Boooooring, but my work here is extremely valuable.

Here's where we both get busy. I will begin building your site, but I'll need your content. I'll need you to outline your content in a very clear manner; it is not very time/cost effective for me to have to call or write you ten times to figure out what you're trying to say and/or where you want to say it. Typically, you can follow this example and give it to me via email in a Word document or whatever format you prefer (just as long as it's electronic) :

Homepage:

This is my homepage. My vision, mission, and values are this :

• point a
• point b
• point c

Services Page:
These are our services. We offer :

• service 1
• service 2
• service 3

Contact:
These are our hours: 8AM - 5 PM Monday through Friday.
Address and Phone Number

Obviously, you're going to have more content than that, so just dummy-proof it for me; again, I do not know anything about your business or your business processes. Even before I have your final content/copy, I will be working on the code, setting in place the necessary elements for search engine optimization, and refining images. I will also be working on core functionality, like forms, surveys, and the content management system's back end. Here's also where I deal with security, performance, setting up email, and analytics. This is usually the point where I get really steamed about all of the designers on Craigslist that wrote you and told you they could build your website for $100...they don't even know what they aren't doing for you! Here's also where I drink a lot of coffee and stay up late writing code with the television on mute. Lastly, you can expect a milestone payment in this phase; that is, a previously agreed upon spot where enough of the work is accomplished to warrant the second of three overall payments: the deposit, the milestone, and the final delivery.

Here's the good part! All of the hard work that I put in for you really shows through here. You'll quickly find out that I have over-delivered on my promises. In this brief and final phase, you review my work, pay the final installment of the agreed upon project cost, and I make all of the arrangements for your site to "go live." Setting up the domain name can take some time (sometimes several days), so this is not quite like flipping a switch. I'll test everything to make sure it works perfectly, especially in all different browsers. During the design process, I constantly check my designs in Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer7 and Firefox on my Windows machine in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome on my MAC. This is very important! Browsers are quirky little beasts and a deadbeat designer can miss alot of browser-compatibility issues if they're not careful.

Finally, the domain resolves and your site is live! Go celebrate your new powerful, relevant, professional website!