bumfluff

The point might not be to get links for PR. It could be simply to drive traffic to a site, get the hits up and then say to a customer "look how well we've done with your site, you've got loads of visitors now!" Yeah, they're not buying anything, but if you've just got your shiny new website (with reflected text and everything), you probably wouldn't be too into conversion rates and stuff at that point.

Best bet would be to contact a professional data recovery company rather than a local PC shop. Bloody amazing what they can do - but it will probably cost a lot. I guess it depends on what value you place on the drive contents. Ontrack are pretty well known for this sort of thing. ::edit:: looks like they'll give you a free quote

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So why are you in this business?? You say you know nothing and your allowing your quality bar to be set by people who also know nothing. It's like the blind leading the blind..

Oh, I don't know. I think there was more than enough there to help me decide

<-- likes it shadows look slightly funky, though.. was that deliberate?

Bastard Operator from Hell?

Whichever one you makes you happiest.

I don't suppose you have a live version, do you? You can PM it if you don't want the link to go out public

If the designer were an employee of the company, the copyright belongs to the company. If he/she were a freelancer, the copyright for the design belongs to the designer. That's the kind've 'default' ownership status if there's no contract or other agreement that negates it. Payment to a freelancer, whether by gift certificate or whatever, doesn't change this - payment, again by 'default' is for useage, not ownership, so it would be considered to be payment for the useage of the design. The actual design still belongs to the designer (assuming they weren't working for the company as an employee). With regards to the copyright notice, in my opinion it's not a factor. The notice does not itself confer copyright ownership, it is a notice to say who the copyright owners are. Still, you could argue that it implies that there was an agreement for the company to own all rights to the completed design but without a contract, I doubt that would count for much. Basically, if the designer did the work as anything other than an employee of the company, you need to prove what the terms of the agreement were. A contract would normally be the way to do this, but you could do it by providing supporting emails or other correspondence if they mention terms/rights etc.

Was there some sort of market research conducted that led you to believe there's a gap in the market for a 'retro' web host?

You can't, unless you're using Flash or something. CSS has no facility for resizing backgrounds on the fly.

Personally, I wouldn't pay for something like that. I don't agree with the bid model (in general, not just your proposed site), as I feel it generally develops into a race to the bottom as people try and undercut each other. That then affects quality, as you can't spend a decent amount of time on the work itself. I would also be wary of working with a customer who's main criteria for choosing me is low price (which bid sites encourage). I would rather work with a client who wanted to work with me because they want quality and feel the work I do would suit their project - if there were a site that encouraged this type of mutually beneficial relationship, I would be happy to pay them for leads.

I think that'd depend on the sort of price range you'd be dealing with, which I guess depends a lot on how the site itself works. I would have a few questions about what I'd be paying for before I could say if/how much I'd pay.. off the top of my head, things like: - Are clients referred to specific designers, or is it like a bid site? - Will I be dealing directly with the client? - Is there any sort of vetting of clients or their projects?

Web design is a pretty broad subject.. what exactly is it that interestes you? Programming? Backend systems? Design? If it's design that interests you, I'd always say go to college and take art or graphic design, especially if it's the conceptual/high-end stuff you want to get into.

Good on you. Ask as many questions as you need to. I also want to say that I don't think what you posted was all bad. Technical flaws are to be expected, you're new to making sites. Design-wise, again there are problems, but I do think there's some level of ability there. You do seem to have some understanding of how elements work together, like the background pattern with the main image. To my mind, they don't quite go together, but I think I can see why you chose them in trying to create the overall impression you were going for. Instead of the 'mucking about' that you mentioned, though, maybe go off and do some research on things that give the impression you're trying to give.. maybe period jewellery, wallpaper, costume, different art styles.. just get yourself a load of images that fit the style you're trying to create, work out how (or if) you can use elements of these in your next design.

Top one. Bringing that blue colour into the other two mockups kills the simplicity. Other points: - Not keen on the transparent background to the header graphic. The image cropping and placement of the text (including purple background) needs to be a bit more sensitively done.. right now, it's just slapped on there. Maybe crop the image differently so that it's mostly sky that gets covered or something. - Lots of sharp corners, which don't feel very inviting. Not saying that everything has to be rounded and filled with kittens, but somewhere between the two might portray a balance of professionalism/friendliness. Just feels a little sharp to me atm - Feels cluttered (pointed out before). Hopefully you won't have as much actual copy to go on the front, but I'd start thinking about how to cut it down to just the essentials. A little more padding on the purple boxes would be an improvement too. I'd bold the headlines in the boxes too. - Spacing again.. add a bit above the "want to sell your home?" and "we'll sort out the legal" bits.. those are related to the text that follows them, they should be tied to them visually as well, rather than being spaced halfway between them and the preceding text. Is 'legal' a word in the sense you've used it? Sounds weird.. Wizely? - Logo = craptastic. Make a deal with them.. they don't give you logo ideas, and you don't tell them how to sell houses Overall, I like the direction it's going in. Has a nice feel to it, but needs some details worked on to give it a bit of a lighter touch.

What would the advantage of that approach be?

RESEARCH Research your client Research their competition Research the work they do Research their clients/customers Research their target market Should come across plenty of inspiration if you do those properly

Personally, I'd probbly go for Textpattern. Quick and easy to customise, much less involved than Wordpress etc, but still capable of a lot. User permissions are a bit limited, but that's not an issue if you're doing everything.

I'd use a CMS. If SEO is a priority, that really means that there will probably be ongoing tweaks to content. SEO isn't really 'set and forget', it's kind've a continual process. Which CMS to use depends on a lot of other things, though.. how many people will be updating content, what sort of controls and permissions they'll be needing etc. You could get away without a CMS, but I wouldn't have thought that would be best for the client, which is what the priority should be.

Wot ErisDS sed Was going to write something similar last night but had a splitting headache and wouldn't have come up with anything half as clearly written.

*waves*

It's basically just saying that although you've set a colour for the text, you haven't got any background colour set. This could lead to the text being illegible, so it's advising that you set a background colour so that you have control over what colour the text is displayed against. Easiest fix would be to add this to the body style: body { background: #fff; } That'll set the background to white.