Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#1

Post by flipacoin » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 2:38 PM UTC

I'm due to quit my job this week to work full-time on my startup. I've done much of the back end work over the past year in my free time but I'll need help with the front end.

It's a pretty standard web app focused on a narrow vertical in the cargo industry. I've contacted several designers I found on dribbble /sortfolio and received quotes between $50 and $120 per hour with estimates of between 20 and 40 hours per page. That would make the cheapest page $1000. Let's say I need 10 pages for the web app (which I could then use as templates for other pages). I'm looking at a minimum of $10000 and probably much more.

I've read many many posts about how boot-strapped businesses got off the ground and to my knowledge I've never heard of any startup paying such a high amount for design, so how did they do it? Are there places besides sortfolio and dribbble that I can find designers?

Re: Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#2

Post by patio11 » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 2:45 PM UTC

I've used a few approaches:

1) BCC (old design): Grabbed an appropriate template from oswd.org. Chopped the heck out of it. Cost: free, but spent quite a bit of time. Quality: it didn't scare people?

2) BCC (new design): Found a very talented young lady in India on elance. Cost: a few hundred bucks. Quality: I won't win most-beautiful-site-ever awards, but the cost performance was outstanding.

3) Appointment Reminder: WooThemes template, lightly customized with a logo from 99Designs and a central image that a designer friend made for me. Cost: $169 + what the designer charged. He asked me not to say, but suffice it to say that it is much less than you are contemplating. Quality: The app itself doesn't knock socks off, but the front page does.

I don't begrudge the high-end designers their fees -- some of them produce very nice work indeed. However, I don't know if that's necessarily the best place to put $10k to work for a B2B startup.

Re: Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#3

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 2:47 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #2

I've used a few approaches: 1) BCC (old design): Grabbed an appropriate template from oswd.org. Chopped the heck out of it. Cost: free, but spent quite a bit of time. Quality: it didn't scare people? 2) BCC (new design): Found a very talented young lady in India on elance. Cost: a few hundred bucks. Quality: I won't win most-beautiful-site-ever awards, but the cost performance was outstanding. 3) Appointment Reminder…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#4

Post by iworkforthem » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 3:30 PM UTC

I am not much of a designer myself too.

What I did was to get a WordPress theme from ThemeForest (http://themeforest.net) for my project's main web page, I just added pages for login, register and pricing.

After login, my users will be redirected to my app's UI. Downside is that I have to update WordPress ever once awhile.

Re: Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#5

Post by limedaring » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 3:34 PM UTC

20 to 40 hours per page? That absolutely baffles me. I used to freelance design, was charging $100+ per hour, but that's based on the fact that a 1 page website would be around $1000 (10 or so hours to nail down a wireframe/design/build the CSS framework) then 4 or so hours per page after, depending on how intense they are.

I'm not a super duper awesome designer though, but 20-40 hours per page seems absolutely ridiculous.

As for finding a designer, I know of people who ping startups and ask them who did their websites, then if they used a freelancer, they'd set up an intro. Perhaps try that, and you'll reach designers more used to working with cash-strapped startups.

Re: Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#6

Post by NextGenAviator » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 3:37 PM UTC

These days, few things beat WordPress as a platform to build a Webiste - quickly. ElegantThemes.com has a suite of templates for $39. StudioPress and WooThemes are a bit more expensive, but well worth it. You get a wide range of designs, and a day of hacking the CSS will get you a custom design. 99Designs is great for finding logo designers - had great success with that. oDesk and vWorker (formerly RentACoder) are also good sources - though quality may be a bit hit or miss. I'd use WordPress, buy a stock template, and customize it to my needs.

Re: Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#7

Post by limedaring » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 3:41 PM UTC

limedaring wrote: post #5

20 to 40 hours per page? That absolutely baffles me. I used to freelance design, was charging $100+ per hour, but that's based on the fact that a 1 page website would be around $1000 (10 or so hours to nail down a wireframe/design/build the CSS framework) then 4 or so hours per page after, depending on how intense they are. I'm not a super duper awesome designer though, but 20-40 hours per page seems absolutely ridic…

Another idea: Can you scrounge up a design on your own? Yes, it won't be awesome/perfect/high-converting (for now), but you'll get your app out and eyes looking at it before worrying about the perfect design. After it's launched, you can start iterating on the design on your own, as well as worrying about getting a professional designer. Whatever you have to do to launch quickly, imho.

Re: Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#8

Post by rch » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 3:41 PM UTC

I've worked with a lot of designers and have found a dramatic disconnect between the value they provide and the cost of their services. It is staggering.

Be sure to check around for services like 99designs.com (I'm sure there are others - try a search on HN too).

Also remember that there are tons of graphic designers, at least here in Houston. The same guy being billed out at $140 an hour might also work at the Kinkos around the corner. You might even try to hire an independent at $30/hr at your local co-working spaces, AIGA meetings, Open Coffee, etc...

You get cleaned out paying for the whole project by the hour, and a per-project quote is likely to be made-up nonsense. Just pay hourly, but pick a day of the week to review progress and cut a check. Be ruthless and switch designers if you don't like how it is going.

Re: Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#9

Post by ThomPete » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 3:42 PM UTC

What do you think the google front page is worth? Do you think it took a long time to design it?

What I am saying is that you shouldn't look at what a page cost you but how much it's worth to you.

If you want cheap, don't go to dribble go to 99designs.

There you can find plenty of mediocre and sometimes good designers who will do it for much less.

Re: Ask HN: you want HOW much for the design?

#10

Post by lachyg » Sun, Mar 20, 2011, 3:42 PM UTC

My partners a pretty top notch designer, do you have an email that I could put you in touch with? He's currently building a portfolio . I imagine his quote would be more in lieu with what limedaring said.