[Imdsm]

Dannyboy997, on 08 August 2010 - 09:38 AM, said:

I made a site for me and my brother, for our freelancing thing(Not really freelancing).
Tell me what you think about the site, I won't be offended.

URL: http://hydrocodedesign.com

The design is not perfect, and the left sidebar is not done. The text in the image on the front page, will be worked on, as it doesn't really fit, and the text really needs to be worked on.

Some links don't fully work. And we took out the sub menu, because of some weird glitch, that I'm working on. Tell me if my color choice is good or not.

Honestly, I'm not feeling the site. It has potential, and it's in the early stages, so keep working on it. A few things I'd do is, with the title text, bring the grey a little lighter, and fix the shadow problems, the shadows on the O is going onto the C of code, which is bad imo. You have closing tags but no opening tags, which from a coders point of view makes me think WRONG WRONG WRONG BUG BUG BUG etc, maybe put a < at the beginning?

As for the colour, I've never been a fan of turquoise/teal, but if they are the colours you want, then that's fine. I don't like the pure black background, or the mass of white, it feels too contrasty. As for sponsors, you shouldn't really have sponsors if you're freelancing, really, should you?

The marketing text is admirable, but could use some work, but I like what you're doing.

I see that you're going for a stretching page, this can sometimes make things a bit iffy with people who maximize with big resolutions. If I can offer you some design advice, choose a width and stick to it, so if you're going for lets say 800 px wide.. make a div called container, and set it's width to 800px and it's margin to 0 auto, this will center it, and put everything in there. An idea could be to have a coloured background which repeats, and a white foreground with a shadow on either side, that can then be repeated downwards.

As for the nav bar, try and make the hover effect a little more noticeable. Also, pay attention to little details such as the distance from the end of the page to the footer, try and keep a gap of 20px at least, and things like the width of the divs being 100%, but then adding padding, which causes the horizontal scrollbar to pop out (BAD BAD BAD etc)

All in all though, not a bad attempt, stick at it, don't be discouraged by my seemingly harsh words, but try again and improve. In a business environment, people don't really care about your feelings, so expect a lot of potential clients or employers to pick up on things like these and hold them against you. Remember, nothings personal from 9 to 5!!!


Good luck kid!

[elsiekins]

your 15 you can start your own business when your older go out have fun ! trust me you wont be able to when your older

[moopet]

Not meaning to be a dick here, but once you've finished your site I would suggest you get someone with a better grasp of spelling and grammar to proofread it. I know a lot of people who read the internet mainly for the pictures and wouldn't care, but there are also a lot of people who would think that your style of writing was an indicator of an amateur company.

Oh yeah, the changes to the design? They're coming along nicely.

This post has been edited by moopet: 24 August 2010 - 11:36 AM

[Elcric]

Hello Daniel,

Quoting you very briefly:

"The way I pitch is the following:

1. I usually talk either in person(not very often), but mostly over the phone."

Based on your comments, your voice is not bestowing confidence to prospective clients.

You should be doing the work, have someone else do the selling for you. Do what you do best and let someone else do what you appear to have a problem doing. Have the salesperson work on commission. The salesperson gets paid when you get paid.

When you spend your time selling you are not completing the work and making money. As your reputation grows most of your selling will become word of mouth. You just need a commissioned salesperson long enough to get the word of mouth sales started.

[Dannyboy997]

To what moopet said:

Most of the time I don't proof read the stuff I wright because I'm too busy with the design of it. So I get my brother to proof read it. (I know I don't have the best spelling) and you weren't being a 'dick'.

To what Elcric said:

Some of the clients that did hire me, thought I was in my 20s. But I do agree on getting someone else to do the selling part.
My brother and I are partnering up, as you is 18 years old we won't have that age problem anymore. He will do the selling part as well as a bit of the design. He is a peoples person.

Thanks for all of the responses.

[creativecoding]

http://puu.sh/dOD


It's broken.


Also, I'm 13. I would say I am a beginner/intermediate. But I wouldn't dare go looking for getting hired until I know I will be able to complete their project.

[Dannyboy997]

The site is down for maintenance and updates.

And I only go for the jobs that I can do.

-Daniel

[FliP1992]

My suggestion is that you do what I did at your age, look for a local design company or development studio and try to get a work experience place there ( they may even pay you for some projects ). This way you can pick up different techniques and methods in design or programming, interact with a range of clients and pick up a understand of how you can develop your business. Depending on your situation this can prove to be a great benefit.
Doing this has helped me alot to get everything set up and trading already.

Thanks,
Tom

[Dannyboy997]

That's a very good Idea. That would be a very good possibility. I will see if there's any companies that would do that.

Thanks,
-Daniel