Freelancers - respect Yourself.
I would like to open up discussion about freelancing. Do You, as a freelancer or similiar value properly Your work? writing about this, because some people were discussing ob Digital Points forums about “crappy quality of work”.
I would like to rethink it myself. Well, for the most part, if I do some designs/coding or any other type of work, I try to do it as best I can. I also know, that most of things require a lot of time to do properly (for example make the design, which will be major browsers compatible,for Internet Explorer 7, Opera and Firefox it can be done pretty quick, but the real pain begins when You want to do it compatible also to Safari, Internet Explorer 6 and some minor browsers) and in the end, when You calcullate Your time spent on project, You see that it took You at least 3-4 more hours than You estimated. But hey, You’re happy knowing that Your deisgn has pretty good coding, and it won’t gonna “go crazy” in some browsers.
So, when the all is done, You want to sell Your hard work right? You post an auction on some forums, with price, that You think You deserve for Your time and then it hits You… someone will do something similiar to Your design (sometimes so similiar, that You think someone stole Your idea) for a half of price, That You want, because he “needs quick money!”. Or You enter the forum and see, that most of designs are selling for 30-40$, which in my opinion is a laughable money for 8-10 hours of good coding/designing ( this means that you worked for 5$/hour, sorry but people working in Mcdonalds makes more - no offense). You studied, and learned many things, spending a lot of time to be good and You get that kind of money for Your effort? Well, in my opinion this is wrong, and the fault for this is only OURS. We make it like that, because, competiton is so big, that some people will sell their designs for penny, “only to sell and get over with it”. This is my plea for all of You, good and reliable designers - do not lower Your prices to compete with yourself so badly.
Remember, that there are a lot of people that are willing to pay for Your work some good money. And remember, than doing something GOOD, is better, than doing it CHEAP.
In conclusion. People, who thinks, that they can buy a portal/well designed Wordpress Theme/ Web 2.0 Homesite for 50$ should be taught a lesson. If they want to buy cheap, then go ahead. Let them buy from peoples offering “Proffesional, Unique and Well coded Design for just 15$!”. Maybe they’ll understand, that You have to pay for a well done project a little more, when they notice, that project they bought for occasional price of 15$ is bugged, looks bad on older web browsers and most elements of the site looks worse after editing it with content. Some elements are missing, some are showed incorrectly and so. All in all, they will have only 2 choices: Turn to good web designer/devlopers for help or live with the fact, that something is not working as it should be.
I believe, that I’m not the best designer in the world, but at least I’m not the worst. I love to do my work good, and I’m happy when the client is satisfied with the product. But to do that i spent much time improving myself, learning different styles/ways to code etc. And I believe I should be paid a decent/good money for my work. Only then both sides (me and a customer) are really satisfied.
What Do You think? Which is more important to You? Do something good, or do something quickly and cheap?
