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Killersites.com Forum
General Web Design
Business of Web Design
Thread: Portfolio: Friend or Foe? What Consumers Should Know
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Thread Status: Active Thread Type: Sticky Thread Total posts in this thread: 9
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newseed
Advanced Member Joined: Apr 2, 2005 Post Count: 2141 Status: Offline |
Yesterday, I got an email requesting to join together with them in providing web development services. This particular company was not from within the U.S. I will call them East Web. I checked out the East Web site just out of curiousity and looked at their portfolio. They had over 50. Much of it was pretty good visually and some of them even validated. I went one step further. I went to each and everyone of East Web clients' websites and found that serveral of them did not have the 'Site design by East Web' (or something similar). I found two that had it but it wasn't by East Web but instead by two other totally different web companies which was local in the U.S. I emailed those two web companies asking them if these particular websites were developed by them and if so, did they know that they were listed on someone elses portfolio namely East Web? What I found out was that these two other companies have no association with East Web and were thankful for this catch. So in saying, I think it's vitally important for consumers to be aware that when they are looking for a web design service, they need to investigate each company's portfolio that they may possibly want to do business with. So I like to add here some tips that will help consumers choose a web design company that is right for them. It's just off the top of my head. First Impression: 1. Visually, did it impress you? 2. Was it easy to navigate? 3. Was it easy to read? 4. Check for misspelled words. Finding one or two for the entire site is not uncommon but if you find serveral, think twice before using them. Portfolio: 1. Portfolio. If one exist, check to see if they are linked to the actual clients' sites. 2. Check each of the portfolio's sites. Is it the same design? If not, why not? 3. Each of the portfolio's sites may have a link at the very bottom of the page indicating that the site was design by whomever. Check to make sure that each site was designed by the web design company. If one is not listed, you can contact that particular site via email or phone call to ask who developed their site. Contact Info: 1. Do they have a physical address? If not, how do you know where they are really located at? If one exist, verify it by check the address via local directory search (local for country's region). 2. Phone number. If one doesn't exist, move on. Phone number is important form of communications whether it be toll-free or not. Without a phone number contact, what is the point is doing business with them. This is about all the time I have for now. Add your two-cents worth if you like. ---------------------------------------- Success is based on how much you spend. If it's not money, then the alternative is your time. The Kasper Group ---------------------------------------- [Edit 3 times, last edit by newseed at May 27, 2008 2:28:53 PM] |
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LSW
Advanced Member USA Joined: Nov 27, 2003 Post Count: 6287 Status: Offline |
Good catch, good warning. Moving to Business of web design as likely the better place and made sticky. Wondering if you can come up with a title that maybe specifies more so it gets peoples attention "Portfolios are supposed to be YOUR work" or something like that. Cheers ---------------------------------------- Gu.aal kwsh� yak'�i it�akw ijeet wugood�k LSW-WebDesign.com ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by LSW at May 27, 2008 12:45:37 PM] |
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Susie
Advanced Member Ohio, USA Joined: May 30, 2004 Post Count: 2677 Status: Offline |
Contact Info: 1. Do they have a physical address? If not, how do you know where they are really located at? If one exist, verify it by check the address via local directory search (local for country's region). 2. Phone number. If one doesn't exist, move on. Phone number is important form of communications whether it be toll-free or not. Without a phone number contact, what is the point is doing business with them. I don't add this information to my website. I am a freelance work-at-home mom with 3 young children in the house with me. I am willing to give this information once I've had some contact with a potential client, but it's not something I offer to the general public because I don't want just anyone to know where I live. I'm sure I've been passed over since I don't have them listed, but I know that my clients understand. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by Susie at May 27, 2008 12:49:14 PM] |
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newseed
Advanced Member Joined: Apr 2, 2005 Post Count: 2141 Status: Offline |
I don't add this information to my website. I am a freelance work-at-home mom with 3 young children in the house with me. I am willing to give this information once I've had some contact with a potential client, but it's not something I offer to the general public because I don't want just anyone to know where I live. I'm sure I've been passed over since I don't have them listed, but I know that my clients understand. Like you I started out by not having my phone and address on my site. Somewhere down the road you will do yourself justice to get a seperate phone number to use exclusively for your work. Of all the work I have gotten in the past 2 years, only 3 were by email and the rest were by phone calls. Physical address was never a problem for me. Where I live is right next door to some really attractive office buildings. Remember, I don't drive and so a physical address is vitally important for my business. In your stituation, you have kids at home at various times and so displaying your address is probably not ideal since you don't want unexpected drop-ins. ---------------------------------------- Success is based on how much you spend. If it's not money, then the alternative is your time. The Kasper Group ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by newseed at May 27, 2008 2:39:26 PM] |
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LSW
Advanced Member USA Joined: Nov 27, 2003 Post Count: 6287 Status: Offline |
See you changed the title. Works for me. I had my physcal home address there as it leands to professionalism, makes you appear more serious and not hiding anything... Never had a drop in, never got a job by the phone, all jobs were friom friends or email contacts. So yea it is a toss up and what works for one will not for another. ---------------------------------------- Gu.aal kwsh� yak'�i it�akw ijeet wugood�k LSW-WebDesign.com |
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diazmedia
Member Joined: Jul 9, 2007 Post Count: 68 Status: Offline |
In the logo design community, we had a similar thing happen. A company called sleeklogos (and yes that is their real name, and no, I have absolutely no problem calling this company out for what they did) stole several designs from artists that I know and placed them in their logo samples page... claiming that the designs were their own. One of my friends found out because his client found their logo on sleeklogos site, called my friend and asked if he had outsourced sleeklogos to develop their logo. He did not. While browsing through the site we found a large amount of logos that were designed by artist we knew. He contacted these artist to give them a heads up. Everyone contacted this company and threatened legal action if the company did not remove their work. God knows how many logo examples this company has that are left over, that they didn?t design either. They claim to have won this prestigious design award. I wonder if they won it with other designers work, or if the design award is fictitious too. I say don't be afraid of announcing to the world the name of these companies. Don't do them a favor by calling them "east web". People and designers have a right to know. It's hard enough to make legal action worth while to these scammers that are often located halfway around the world. Making their actions evident to as many people as possible does two things: It makes it harder for them to continue illegal actions like this, and it alerts other designers that might not know their work is being ripped off. For web developers I would suggest keeping an eye on your client's traffic. There you can find some of the sites of these scammers. Be ruthless! Don't give these guys a single break. |
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newseed
Advanced Member Joined: Apr 2, 2005 Post Count: 2141 Status: Offline |
I agree that these types of so-called web design companies should be exposed. However, out of respect to Killersites.com forum and it's members, the last thing we need is some angry company that we mentioned here to hit this site with all kinds of hacks. Unless Stef has a start of the art fool proof setup to where he can take the darts thrown at him, I will refrain from listing any business that are on my no-no list. ---------------------------------------- Success is based on how much you spend. If it's not money, then the alternative is your time. The Kasper Group |
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LSW
Advanced Member USA Joined: Nov 27, 2003 Post Count: 6287 Status: Offline |
I would not be affraid of hackers... but certainly legal issues of naming them. ---------------------------------------- Gu.aal kwsh� yak'�i it�akw ijeet wugood�k LSW-WebDesign.com |
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diazmedia
Member Joined: Jul 9, 2007 Post Count: 68 Status: Offline |
Legally there is nothing wrong with warning peers about fraudulent activities from another company. People rate products and services of other companies on public forums all the time. Unless its slander, there is really no basis for legal action and it's very difficult to prove who is liable in that case. And, it isn't considered slander if the statements are true and not false accusations. If there is proof that Company A is a fraud and taking credit for your work. They are in the wrong. You can either decide to take legal action, or you can warn others about Company A. Sometimes it isn't worth the time and effort to take legal action, and often times the threat doing so is enough to force the person in the wrong to, in this case, remove your examples of work from their portfolio. We have had people call our bluff before and we took them to court just for the principal of it. If you keep good records you will always walkout of that situation with some form of gratification, unfortunately it isn't always money.  I never thought about the hacking situation though. It sucks that we have to worry about stuff like that. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by diazmedia at May 28, 2008 6:23:30 PM] |
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