Any sites u guys recommened to make free logos or at least cheap ones? Only read 1st 450 posts sorry if this has been mentioned before

www.fiverr.com Lots of cheap guys on there with great logos.

+1 for fiverr.

TY

My website and logo look like **** and I need a new logo and website fast. My boss is willing to spend $500-1k on logo and $1k-2k on the website design+some other money on integration into wordpress. We initially spent $50 on logo and bought a $60 wordpress theme, and we really aren't happy. I want something that really looks professional like smartling.com, but doesn't have to be as unique as theirs is. I'm not happy with the guys who I've found on Elance. I'm thinking of using www.crowdspring.com. Any other recommendations? Really want something that looks awesome, but don't want to pay $10k+.

Re: the logo you really should just get a feel for what you want your logo to be like (by looking at lots of examples of other site's logos that make you happy) and then pay a graphic designer $100 or less to enact your vision that should be pretty simple. Web design that has good UI/UX really is a talent though, if you want something complex it could be costly (REALLY costly). Something really pretty on a $2k budget someone is going to have to hire a lower middle of the road web designer and be extremely specific about what they want otherwise it will likely end up crap. Getting a beautifully done design that is user friendly on $2k budget without anyone tech/design oriented overseeing the project will probably end up with not what you want. Paying someone to enact a concept well is very expensive IME.

Best thing you can do is find a site that has a design you like and figure out how to replicate it / pay someone to replicate it.

Thanks for the good advice. What's the low end for something really good that doesn't require hand holding? $10k? More?

$500 on a logo is a little ridiculous. You can get good work done on various forums for $50-100. Conversely, $2000 is nothing for a good website if it's at all complex.

Very tricky question. Can you tell us more about the scope of the project? Basically a great site design takes 4-5 disciplines but you may not need all of them depending on the scope of your website.

Potentially you need all of these skills:
-Pure graphics/photoshop
-HTML/CSS
-UX/UI
-SEO
-Development

Last time I designed site I handled the HTML/CSS, SEO and UX/UI (outsourced the graphics, used a basic CMS) but knowing that it wouldnt be top notch UX/UI just very simplistic and straight forward. This was extremely cost effective but it wouldnt work for a project where you would be story boarding the UX but I could have hired an expert at that point for $200/hour for say 5 hours and finished the very specific parts of the project that I needed help on. With someone in control you can get expert outsourcing (essentially getting the very best of their fields) and use them for short periods of time for specific aspects of the project. If youre going to pass all that along... You could spend $100k+ for a website with some complexity I would guess. I always always have a project manager in house for my stuff (usually me lol) thats just the way Im going to do it. That same project could be $5k-$10k spent on outsourcing + in house salary. Upper management can really run up the billl too when they arent specific and keep making changes AFTER the site is shown to them. Just my .02 always project manage in house for complex projects that need to be done right. If you arent going to spend the money to bring someone website savvy in house you either need someone else in house to start learning websites or accept that there will be limitations on how well done your stuff can be piecing it together.

any PPCers know what the difference is with regards to these use of symbols for a keyword

"web developer"
[web developer]
+web +developer

etc

This is actually an extremely helpful answer. Thanks very much. Fortunately, our needs are relatively simple.

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw...en&answer=6100

Any specific forum recommendations?

You really should give fiver a try. Spend $25 and get logos from 5 different people. Give a few of them your ideas and don't tell the others anything except "This is my site xyz.com, take a look and make me a great logo".

When you get the logos back see what you like, decide which guy was the best and give him the stuff you like to tweak for another $5.

Some of those guys really are good and I'm constantly amazed by the work i get done there so cheap. Additionally you'll most likely have a new logo by tomorrow.

Even if none of them work for you you'll have a good starting point and some ideas for $25.

I used elance, and came out extremely unhappy after wasting $50. Fiverr is much better? Also, how do I choose a shopping cart to use? I was going to use infusionsoft but looking around it gets some bad reviews.

with a budget like this, 99designs should be the answer. really great work and you get bids from tons of different designers and their bids actually include a near-finished product

99designs and crowdspring are very similar. It sounds like I may be thinking in the right direction then.

wow that 99 designs site is awesome. i'd hate to be a designer nowadays though. sites like these must be driving prices really far down. i remember the relatively obscene amounts my old employer paid for two different website redesigns between 2000 and 2007. with all these design sites popping up though i doubt my old employer would pay 1/10th now what it paid back then.

oh i have a very noobie question about a site like 99 designs.

if i want to create a website using Wordpress but want to get a site designed via 99 designs since i know nothing about color theory/graphics and don't want to spend my time learning it either, what are the technical considerations? like what do i do first? go ahead and set up a Wordpress site with hosting and a domain? or get the design first? or neither? and how do i move that design from 99 designs to wherever i want it to be hosted?

If you're using wordpress you will want to just ask for a theme to be designed.

You will probably want to have your domain chosen before outsourcing the theme. Might as well get hosting as well. Do yourself a favor and don't buy the domain from your host.

You install wordpress yourself. Upload the theme to your ftp. Log into wordpress and choose the theme you had created.

i'm trying a logo on crowdspring right now, i'll let folks know how it goes. for those of you who have used it before, how'd you get the most out of it?

derosnec, is there a reason you want to buy a custom design instead of buying a theme at something like themeforest.net? your first website will probably suck anyway and some of the themes are pretty nice looking/rare enough to feel unique.

you'd have to make sure that the design would be an actual theme, not just a .psd file, in which case you'd have to pay someone else to convert it to a theme. you can run wordpress on your computer without hosting and a domain (I use http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html) and that way you can play around with themes and everything else in wordpress without having to pay for hosting or a domain until you are ready.

very helpful thanks.

so if i'm using WP, then i'm in essence just buying a theme from the 99 design guys, but custom, right? now that i think about it that's pricey for a theme since there are so many good ones for like $50 at themeforest etc.

am i really getting anything else other than a theme by going the 99 designs route?

i think i have the perfect audience / contacts to get a sports social network going, iv not done anything web based before but have found the site: Ning.com which is a platform of which to start a social network site with, i imagine this is like the dreamweaver but for social network sites? how hard would it be for me to learn this stuff and get this up and going? i hear dreamweaver is pretty easy to learn and get going with?

one last noobie question from me for today:

i want to get started on tinkering with a site and play around with WP (.org, not .com) but that means i have to choose a domain name first and host it before i can do anything.

let's say i choose a domain name today but a week later i realize that it's not the best for SEO purposes and i want to change it but by then i might have a site that is halfway complete under the first domain name already. how do i get around this problem?

If you want a new name just buy it and 301 redirect from the old domain to new.