Havoc Inspired

My study

First off, I should tell you that I’m not a full time freelancer at the moment. I take on freelance work alongside my full time job as a Web Developer in Leeds.

When working freelance I focus primarily on design and front-end development, however as most freelancers in this industry have to be, I’m quite flexible.

When an enquiry comes in I gather as much information as possible. I ask the client to forward me any leaflets, brochures, photos, business cards, current website, anything that can give me a feel for what there company/business is about.

I also try and find out as much information as possible about their expectations. What do they specifically want the site to convey? Who are their competitors? What’s there target audience? Are there any specific features they require for example a contact form. I then typically get back to them with a quote once I have an idea of how long it’s going to take etc. Depending on the client I will ask what their budget is, however this can be dodgy ground I’ve found, as clients can often think that your simply trying to get the most out of them and not that your trying to find out if they’re being realistic.

Once everything is agreed upon I ask for content before I even put pencil to paper or mouse pointer to Photoshop. This is one of my personal rules and I’m quite strict about it. The reason being you can’t design a good site without knowing what content is going into it. For example I had client that initial told me they wanted a 5 page website, fair enough, so I asked them to send me the content and what I got back was so minimal the site ended up being 1 page!

There’s also a second phase to this content gathering… once I have all the content, I build a non-styled mock up of all the pages of the site, with basic navigation at the top. I’ve found this very useful for a few reasons.

First and most importantly the client doesn’t get lost in the design of the site and focuses purely on the content they’ve provided.

Secondly, because they are focusing purely in the content, they typically think of additional pages they want to add, or entire sections they don’t really want. It’s great to chop and change all this content at the beginning rather than at the end. It’s a real time saver.

And finally, because basic navigation is in place and they can get a feel of how they will move around the site.

Another one of my rules is I never talk about what ideas I have about the design until I actually have a draft I’m happy with. I will ask the client what ideas they have, make notes about colour schemes etc, but I won’t say “right I’ve got this idea” because I’ve never completed a site design that was anything close to my initial idea and it can be misleading if the client is expecting something that they don’t end up getting.

As for coming up with a design, I’ll start off on paper, then move on the Photoshop. I’m a Photoshop purist I’m afraid. I’ve never even used Fireworks, but I’m quite fast in Photoshop so I don’t see any reason to change.

I’m also still using Dreamweaver, code editor only of course. I’ve tried a few others and they seem fine, but the little green icon attracts my eye too much on a morning and it’s what I always seem to end up using.

I’ve also very recently come across cushycms thanks to my good mate Anna. It’s fantastic as a very basic CMS for clients who can’t afford to fork out for a more heavy duty one to be integrated, or if simply the site doesn’t call for it.

I’m also PC based (duel display), though I’m saving up for a Macbook. PC’s are what I’ve known for years, so my mail client of choice is good old Outlook through which I manage my contacts, calendar and obviously mail, all synced to my iPhone.