New to rapid weaver and loving it!!!

Swipedigital

Hi Guys and Girls!
Ive been using Rapid Weaver for about one month, I am a professional graphic designer in print and work in advertising in Central London. I have used Dreamweaver before and Flash, but that was a long time ago, and found them very complicated and hard to use. I decided to get back into web design a month ago and created this website after purchasing Rapid weaver and Stacks. This software is magical and I have become addicted!
I also must give a big thanks to Paul Bradforth, who's Rapid weaver 5 book is brilliant and well worth the small price tag! Well done Paul! Fantastic work and well written! And to all those clever people creating Stacks! Especially Joe Workman, all those at SeyDesign, Will Woodgate and all of you that fall into that category! Big pat on the back!

So please feel free to check out my site! Im currently teaching myself web design and CSS and all that jazz and hope to have my own themes up one day, please check out my site for now and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading guys and take care!

AndyC
Swipe Digital!

Here is a link to my brand new website!
www.swipe-digital.com

http://www.swipe-digital.com

boomsticky75

Hey Andy! Glad to hear about you revisiting Rapidweaver. I was also a Dreamweaver and Flash guy back in the day, but Rapidweaver has proven a great alternative when I just want to quit worrying about all that code and focus on creating a great design. One suggestion: watch your page naming conventions. After building such a great site you don't want it to fall between the cracks because of poor SEO. Try renaming those pages with some keywords and search terms in mind and don't forget to use those same tactics to your browser headings as well!

iSights

You have quite a few banners and buttons that say Contact Me or View My Portfolio, but do nothing when clicked.

And are you planning on doing your business strictly on the web, or will you have local clients? If the later, knowing your location might come in handy. Also pull the unfinished pages and links to unfinished pages for now. Nothing is worse than a bunch of "coming soon" pages.

Finally... I don't think you're very professional or honest in your approach. You say here that "Im [I'm] currently teaching myself web design and CSS and all that jazz...", yet on the site you're selling your "advanced" HTML5 and JQuery (not J-Query, btw) skills.

You've created every pixel and graphic on the page... using the seyDoggy Creami3 theme.

Reminds me of the people who'd buy a camera, print business cards, and then show up on a photography forum stating, "I'm a professional shooting a wedding for a client this weekend. What lens do I need to use for the alter shots? Will the kit lens work?"

Personally, I think you should push your graphic design skills (logos, banners) and leave the web site design business alone under you have the ability to create something like your site from scratch.

Swipedigital

Thanks for the comments so far guys! Im gonna optimise my site for SEO properly in the next few days, Im still learning how to do that! I know my banners or page fillers as I like to call them don't link properly ATM but thats because of the content protector stack I currently am using mr grumpy iSights!
ISights did you see ALL the pages I made, or just look at it for three minutes and make your mind up?!!! I have made some pretty cool animations don't you think? and I am ALREADY working on other websites right now. I do take what you say on board but please consider ONLY after four weeks I haven't done too bad. Plus I don't think you realise how much code I have customised to make that theme my own! Just wait until you see what my next upload of my site will bring! Let me see what YOU can do, bet I can beat it!!!! Cosmetically anyway! Guys please stay tuned cos Im gonna improve what I've already done! It my new mission in life!!!! And to make some solid like minded friends! Bye for now!

Thanks again! Take Care

Karate Ducati

ISights is critical.. but thats what you want.. I do agree with everything he said (damn it hurt my feelings ....
My websites went through many transformations from my first ones to now.. and they/I keep changing and advancing....

IMHO.. don't be so... "honest" with your skills, they can see it from your site and eventually your example sites... in short.. be more of a salesman.....

Good luck,

iSights

"ISights did you see ALL the pages I made...."

All four of them? Yep. That's where the "coming soon" comment came from.

"I do take what you say on board but please consider ONLY after four weeks I haven't done too bad."

For a personal site, built off a standard template, it's not bad. But seriously, would you want to hire a professional photographer for your wedding who has a whole "four weeks" worth of practice shooting weddings? A mechanic to fix your car who's still learning how to do a simple tuneup? A doctor? House painter? Roofer? Electrician?

And remember, I said that I liked the logos, banners, and other graphics. I simply think that a whole four weeks worth of experience running a program designed for beginners isn't much basis for advertising professional web site development skills.

Especially with no training or skill sets on the back end. How about PHP? Python? SQL? ColdFusion? ASP? How much do you know about hosting services? E-Commerce offerings? Payment processors? Merchant accounts? Google Analytics? Scalability and high-availability systems? Navigation structures. Requirements planning? Content Management Systems? And on, and on.

Like I said. At this point in time, I would focus on your strengths as a graphic designer, and phase in your "web design" business after you've built more than one web site.

Swipedigital

Actually I have 6 pages! Print Design and Web Design! check them out! There is content in both of those pages, and no coming soon at all! that makes a total of six pages! I think you glanced over the portfolio section of my site and missed the buttons! Check the screen shot!
Any way thanks for the comments any how! Nothing wrong with giving what I do a shot, considering Im currently doing work for the right companies all ready! Go check out my print portfolio! Im sure you'll recognise allot of my work!

Love to know what you think!

seyDoggy

@iSights, I think all @Swipedigital is expressing is the exitement we all expressed when we first fell into RapidWeaver, a discovery that you can do amazing things that you never thought possible and that this might be worth something.

That's exactly what I did back when I discovered RapidWeaver 3.1 almost 7 years ago. I didn't even wait four weeks before I had registered a business name and started advertising my "skills", lol. It's natural, many of us do it and some of us find success. They seyDesign Forum is full of brick layers, electricians and lawyers turned web designer because of RapidWeaver, and that's actually what they do for a living now, sell websites. I was a QA manager and now I'm one of the top 3rd party developers for RapidWeaver.

So don't knock him for his exuberance. That's the joy of discovery with RapidWeaver. @Swipedigital is proud of what he's made and can see a potential living from the web component. Given that he's already got a head start with the design side I think it won't be long before he's found his way about the web side, maybe even themes and stacks.

iSights

@seyDoggy, let's say that you're a small business owner or shopkeeper, and you know you want some kind of web site. Over the last six months, you've scrimped a bit here and there, and saved $2,000 for the job which -- to you -- is a lot of money.

You search the web, and somehow you come across Swipe Designs. You like the site, talk to him a bit, and decide hire him... so you send him a check for $1,000 up front.

Whereupon he lets slip that your project may take a bit longer than planned. Why? Well, apparently he still needs to read up on the CSS needed. Pressing, you find that his professional web design experience is limited to the one web site you visited and four... excuse me... six pages.

Worse, the site that sold you is basically a tweaked web design template, written primarily by someone else.

Now, is your reaction at giving him $1,000:

1) One of exuberance?
2) Oh, shit.

Sorry, but I think his "nothing wrong with giving what I do a shot" attitude is going to cost someone a chunk of their hard earned money, and sooner, rather than later.

Again, I think his print and graphic design skills are great. And yes, he should be proud of them.

But I also think that is what he should sell and stick to those skills UNTIL he's "found his way about the web side" six months or a year from now.

Swipedigital

Thanks Adam for taking the time to make some positive comments! Its your company and a few others that has inspired me to do this! SeyDesign themes rock by the way! Nice clean layouts - lickable design! Great typography! I'd actually offer my graphic design services Free for you guys if you ever wanted anything done (not that you need them)! I am using one of your older themes and I think it's only fair! Hit me up if you want anything done! I want to get as much of my work out there and money is not an object right now, it meeting people in the right places!
iSights I've been working commercially as a graphic designer since the age of 15. Im 34 now. I know when and when not to jump in at the deep end! I know my limits, I won't be taking on any
E-commerse jobs or offering my skills to a banking site!
I am however aiming my skills to small businesses and one man bands for now! I know what I can and can't do! Besides I wouldn't charge somebody thousands of pounds! I'm reasonably cheap. My full time job pays me pretty well, this is bonus cash if anything! Im doing this for the enjoyment and the love of being creative!
Do remember I work for one of the biggest advertising agencies I the UK (Omnicom - American owned company) and there are friends I work with in the web design department who I can ask for help if I did ever get stuck! I am not a con man!
I have just finished an interactive web brochure for Renault cars that I will stick on my site in the next 24 hours for you to look at if you want to.

Thanks for all your comments! Keep up the good work!

iSights

Andy, as I've said, I like your graphic design work.

I simply think you should hold off advertising your skills as a web page developer until you've done more than a few pages on a single site. You have a single hammer in your toolkit. It's named RapidWeaver, and with it everything is going to look like a nail. It's not.

Secondarily, and as I pointed out earlier, the "small businesses and one man bands" are the ones least capable of being able to afford mistakes, both monetarily and to their reputations.

People don't want web sites any more than they actually want to walk into a hardware store and buy a drill. What they want are solutions (e.g. holes in the wall), and I'm afraid that you don't even know the right questions to ask in order to guide their efforts.

Basically, at your current experience level, you don't even know what it is that you don't know.

(And if you want to talk numbers, I've been a software developer for 38 years, and I've been doing web development for 17 years.)

All I'm suggesting is that you work with RW. Build sites. Read books and articles on development and requirements and project planning and web site marketing and usability and accessibility. Hunt down social media tools and e-commerce tools and sites and play with them.

And then... six months from now, print your business cards and hang out your shingle. Your potential clients will be much, much better off if you do, and much more likely to get a solution that actually solves their problems.

Is six months so much to ask? Wouldn't you prefer to hire a carpenter or painter with at LEAST six months worth of experience?

seyDoggy

@iSights I think you might want to do a little search around for web design services. Being in the industry and going to a great many conferences and being very connected with what's going on and what people are doing… I'll tell you that even the guys who have the expert skills are using templates.

It's a matter of logistics. The average person doesn't comprehend the true cost of a custom built web site, therefore they don't understand the value. Everyone wants it cheap, fast, and they want to be able to maintain it themselves. That's where CMS's and templates come in.

There are very few sites sold out there that aren't built on a CMS and a template. There is very little financial reason to reinvent the wheel with every website ever created.

I have little doubt that @SwipeDigital will be able to find help should he ever get in over his head. He'll learn quickly what his site should and shouldn't advertise. But if he doesn't advertise web services he'll never get any practice, probono or otherwise.

Anyhow, I've said my peace.

iSights

@seyDoggy : Of course they. Just go to Template Monster. In fact, many developers build web sites using provided templates or client provided art.

Andy, however, and at the moment, is limited to the set of them that have explicitly converted by someone else to run under RapidWeaver. Nor is he familiar with Joomla or Drupal or WordPress or Typepad or any of a dozen other platforms that use templates and that might have a better fit for his potential clients.

"But if he doesn't advertise web services he'll never get any practice, probono or otherwise."

Please. Practice is just that. Practice. He could build 100 different web sites and designs as practice, before once advertising his "professional" services. He could look at dozens of different sites and designs and try cloning them, or building them from scratch. He could make a dozen personal sites for family photos, vacations, events, blogs, and so on.

You do NOT need a client to practice upon in order to practice.

Are you telling me that you honestly think he's qualified to advertise his professional services as a web site designer when he hasn't even finished building his very FIRST web site?

Read the following post...

iSights

Andy, just checked the site again and saw the portfolio page showing your artwork and ad campaigns. Pretty impressive.

But that just leads me to ask once again, why are you not selling THOSE services???

You put up a banner advertising a cut-rate website-in-a-box, when you could easily demand higher rates doing logo work, graphic work, and print work.

Why are you not playing to your strengths?

t-bone

iSights... Would you mind showing us some of your work?

Would love to see some.

iSights

@t-bone: I'm not a designer. The majority of my work is done creating and programming back-end systems and setting up enterprise-level CMS and e-commerce and donation systems.

Example:
http://www.umcmission.org/
http://www.churchextension.org/
http://www.thinktq.com/

My blogs:
http://www.iSights.org/2012/04/print-its-dead-jim.html
http://www.cfinternals.org/blog/2012/04/contact-forms-and-web-site-usability.html

I was playing with RapidWeaver for the following project, which is why I'm hanging around here for a while...
http://www.smart-grips.com/index.html

t-bone

Thanks.

You say you're not a designer, but you seem to have plenty to say when critiques are requested (which I agree with most you have to say), however I think your feedback would be better taken if you toned down your delivery.

I think you have a lot to offer people here, and I hope you continue to help those who ask.

Tony

PS: I think I'll have to get a set of those grips.

iSights

@t-bone : I'll work on the delivery. Part of it is that I'm constantly pressed for time. And another is that this is a site for critiques.

I'm not a designer... but I have spent decades studying design. And web site design. And UX design. And communications. And marketing.

And -- to be honest -- I'm also considering a set of articles and perhaps even a book on common design mistakes. (grin)

t-bone

@iSights I completely understand, but as a communicator, to get your message across, if that's the goal, we all need to speak in a way that the other person can and will listen / understand.

Not everyone here is as thick skinned as you and I.