Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $50,000, I make them a web design

Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $50,000, I make them a web design(speakinteractive.com)

40 points by gbissett 15 years ago | 8 comments

donniefitz2 15 years ago |

This is a great response to the other post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1983141). I think the work of web designers is vastly undervalued and to say a quality design is worth only $15.00 is pretty absurd. 50K, okay, it's a bit of hyperbole but point well made.

fredoliveira 15 years ago | |

I think it's a point well made, and I actually enjoy sarcasm, but this is certainly not the kind of thing I expect to see on HN. I too agree that $15 for a "web design" is absurd (heck, even the sentence "a web design" alone is). Quality work depends on the designer diving into the business of the client, which certainly will not happen in this case.

That being said, I would actually love to see an actual articulation of the points motivating this "response" rather than a page that can simply (and quite likely will) be perceived as arrogant.

storborg 15 years ago | |

Why hate on the $15 dude? He's into doing quick designs and he'll probably have a steady stream of work. Do people feel threatened by that?

sanswork 15 years ago | |

Quality design is worth whatever people are willing to charge for it. Web design on the lower end is extremely saturated with a lot of people just looking for a break and willing to do good enough design for next to no pay. It's not the same as hiring a design company for thousands of dollars but the vast majority of people don't need or want that.

GrandMasterBirt 15 years ago | |

I think his point was, for 15 bucks you "commited" money so you will pay attention to him, if you like it chances are you will hire him to do more than just this 15 bucks worth of crap. Think of it as:

a) Building a portfolio: xyz sites use my designs therefore i rule.

b) Building relationships: xyz site uses my designs therefore i rule, which is why next time they need a design they will call me.

c) Show off: xyz site uses my designs therefore i rule and i will post it on my site, which is why people will see what I do any anytime people want a design i will be a known name and have a portfolio to show for it.

He'd do it for free, but nobody will take him seriously.

Now.

Where was I, oh yes, I will accept this 50 grand challenge. Submit proof that you are worth at least 10 grand.

nhangen 15 years ago |

I don't know...there's a market for everything. If I'm going to hate on the guy that charges $15 for design, then I have to hate on his customers to, and IMO, he's doing us a favor by getting the tire kickers and cheapskates out of the equation.

I think it's lame, but average design is becoming a commodity.

wesgarrison 15 years ago | |

You know, for a fresh design for my personal blog, or another take on something, $15 is great.

Would I use it for client work? Uh, no.

What's the worst that could happen? He gets too busy? He flames out after a couple weeks? Either way he got some experience and learned some stuff and built a portfolio and got paid to do it.

Way more upside than downside.

albahk 15 years ago |

Point made but I think it ignores the underlying reason we have $15 website templates in the market.

The crowd on HN should remember that businesses of all sizes have had it drilled into them for the last 10 years that they need to be "online" and have a website. Economics 101 Supply and Demand says that this explosion in demand cannot be met by full-service web designers or elite design shops. Not many can afford to pay the few guys that write books on CSS and HTML to handcode them a website.

The market met the demand and came up with a method to supply the 80-90% of websites that are simply a presence online. The method was to commoditize the product and churn it out in mass volume. This also happened to RAM, PCs, mobile phones and even houses (in some areas)

This is why we have themes, templates, wordpress, HTML for dummies, Odesk, Elance etc. Its just the market meeting the demand.

ktsoi 15 years ago |

My question is, why are the h1s and h2s images? Is the font really that interesting or is that more sarcasm, lol?