I personally love when I get to see a company do incredibly creative work and deliver visuals that even I can’t figure out how the hell they did it.  In this demo reel by one of the best visual effects companies in the world we get to see a montage of some of the most impressive and stylistic creative work I’ve seen in a while.  Be sure to watch it the whole way through, truly impressive stuff.

Paul Benninghove Jr.

Designer & Chief Rocka

email: paul@mudbrickcreative.com

http://www.mudbrickcreative.com

“MudBrick Creative, we design, you succeed.”

Posted via email from Paul’s posterous

I’m writing this as more of a caution to business owners who are considering having their website done, than a rant. Although it may come off as a rant.  When making the decision to build a website for your business, or redevelop/redesign your current one it’s always a question of cost, especially in this economy. Often in searching for the best deal a business owner will come across a freelancer that has exceptional pricing.  Sometimes “too good to be true” pricing.  What i want to do with this article is plead a case for the non-freelance design studio’s and why we may be a better fit, even with the additional cost.

The one thing that bothers me more than anything about freelancers who provide web services is the production quality. Don’t get me wrong, i remember being a freelancer and enjoying it.  But i also remember it being difficult to manage a project and deliver a top quality product when the time i had to work and interact with the customer, was after my full time job. The problem’s with using a freelancer are many and the advantages are few, below is a bit of a breakdown:

Problems
1. Time is always a factor, even if the freelancer does strictly their freelance business and doesn’t have a “day job”.  Issues can arise if they take on multiple projects spreading themselves too thin.  This can cuase the cretive to take a nose dive as well as full testing of the site before it launches.  We see it all the time.  Freelancers skimp on testing the application in relevant browsers and things are broken.  Creative and testing phase are two area’s you can cut corners. In the end the quality of the product suffers.

2. Freelancers don’t have anyone to really act as a creative partner to bounce ideas off of and find the best design or development solution. It’s nice to be your own boss, but in the end it’s better to have other people to work with and get feedback from.  Some freelancers do have a network of friends they use for this type of thing, but some don’t.

3.The “Get It Done” mentality.  As a freelancer a lot of times you want to get paid, and with that kind of mind set it’s easy to cut corners, either on the design or development side.  The design suddenly winds up very basic.  You do it with the easiest path to completion possible. And in doing so the customer winds up with uninspired junk.

So there’s a few potential problems with working with a freelancer to do your web project and going the less expensive route.

Now to cap this little article/rant off I’ll dispel some of the feedback we’ll invariably get from Freelancers.  First up, this article doesn’t pertain to all freelancers, just a fairly broad base of them.  Some do have the resources to overcome the problems i eluded to above and for them, awesome.  But for the rest, the much broader group who fall into the ”cousin who does websites”, we know who you are and this Buds for you.  We could provide side by side examples of the difference in work quality between a dedicated team who does web work and a freelancer, but it wouldn’t really change anything.  In the end, cost will always be a deciding factor for some customers.

Finally i’d just like to say this, remember that websites are usually the first impression that a customer gets of your business, so you want to put your absolute best out there.  Balance the cost with quality and make the best decision you can, a passable or “ok” website just won’t cut it.

Customers come to us all the time with a need for a new website, a need for shopping cart functionality, blogging and social media.  Customers want high end design and functionality rolled up with a nice little bow on top.  Rarely do they ever approach us with specific technology in mind however.  Usually they have seen a site or two that they like and want to piggy-back off how it works or looks etc.  So as sales people it’s our job to not only inform them, but also spark their imagination a bit.

We have to show the customer what might be possible that they may not have considered.  Give them a choice of how far they would like to push the envelope on their budget.  Rich Internet Applications (RIA’s) are the top end of the interactive spectrum.  Customers being able to truly interact with your site will bring them back.  Not only will it bring them back but it will get them to recommend a site to others.  And that’s the golden egg. RIA-infused websites can mix dynamically sourced data, video, audio and other rich media creating better user experiences and return on investment for organizations deploying RIA solutions.

So what does having a RIA site give you? For one, a much more intuitive experience for your users if done correctly.  Not only can they interact with the site on a much broader level, but you can delver to them rich media content.  Let the user watch an embedded video in the section they are viewing and make it a seamless piece.  It’s all about engaging the user.  Sleek streamlined interfaces with custom controls and interactive elements to tie them all together.  Why wouldn’t you build a site this way?

Cost, it’s all about the dollars usually.  We’re not here to say it’s cheap, or that this type of site is even for everyone, but if you take a look at the samples below and think about the overall success your site could have it’s worth considering.  The nice part is it only takes a phone call and some discussion to find out just how much this kind of development project will cost and if it fits within your budget.

Some good RIA Examples:

http://nikeid.nike.com
http://www.scion.com/#home
http://www.scion.com/rsxd/
http://www.fastandfuriousmovie.net/index.html
http://www.smallworlds.com
http://listen.grooveshark.com/

-Paul

We’ve been noticing more and more lately, at least on a local level, that some design shops do their best to either downplay Flash or totally avoid it entirely.  They talk to the masses, extoling the virtues of simplicity and a more non-interactive approach.   They speak about it like it’s a bad thing to have high impact graphics or a rich user interface.

Personally when i hear things like this, it brings to mind the old George Carlin comedy bit regarding people who complain about abortion being people you wouldn’t want to sleep with in the first place.  The only reason to downplay this technology that is starting to truly permeate the web, is if you can’t do it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using flash as part of the development of a website.  Many developers will use the SEO angle or lack there-of, to explain away using flash.  That argument holds little or no water anymore (see…http://www.adobe.com/devnet/seo/).  There is plenty of info on making your RIA SEO friendly.

So customers don’t be afraid, MudBrick’s got your back on the Flash side.