Training manuals?

[fleetwood]

I seem to be the only person `unconvinced`.

with issues like this, its often a case of 'the grass is always greener...'

if you had seen that logo on a competitor site, you probably would have thought it was neat.

I don't think we are ever totally happy with our own designs, not matter what others tell us!

[george]

You have nearly 1500 posts to your name, automatically if anyone has a few hundred posts, they would not be in the "novice" label for me as they will have picked up so much info, far more than they probably realise.

True, but a number of my posts are maybe more in the `general` topics, and many when I first started `tweaking` our site as an unlearned enthusiast.

I think Actinics target customer base has now changed though, possibly being driven towards that semi-(web) pro or better category? Just a thought.

Remember theres much more competition nowadays, even the make your own online 'sites. Not the same, but still a place to start, like many of us did a long time ago (with Actinic).

For people like myself I'd say start with a decent theme, or get one customised if you can afford it,and hopefully you'll learn how to tune it up as you go along the Walk of Actinic.

[leehack]

The football should be a black and white hexagony thing IMO as that is what we all have as an image of a football in our minds and the green in the logo should be a darker green, so that it doesn't look a little mono coloured. Maybe the "O's" in the logo offer themselves to be something a little football related as they are round, however it's nothing like as bad as you seem to think. Fussy sod, never look a gift horse in the mouth.

[george]

Fussy sod, never look a gift horse in the mouth.

I'm not like that mate, rather like yourself perhaps, I just say it like I think it is. Sometimes thats good, often bad, just listen to Mrs G sometimes.

[leehack]

I look forward to the actinic convention one day. I have no idea about you or where you even live, but for some reason i have a picture of a funny scouser who is going to have me in stitches. If those stitches don't materialise, i'm sure Martin will give me a few lol.

[fleetwood]

i have a picture of a funny scouser

having spoken to George on a number of occasions (and strained to understand his accent ), I can assure you he isn't a scouser

[george]

Do I suit this?


No.


*door slams*


wtf? You want me to LIE?

[leehack]

Does this make my bum look big? No it is fkin big.

My missus has never been over 9 stone, she is falling apart having recently scaled the heights of 11 stone.

[leehack]

I just noticed "Mackie", gotta be a Scottich Celtic fan then.

[jont]

Will you all stop winding up the President of the Goat Points ... he will take revenge and deduct points... you have been warned

[msimpson46]

Thanks to Lee and Martin for their comments, hope I didn't cause a fall out!

Think I'll take the middle ground and will focus on Actinics built in designs at the moment, making sure everything runs smoothly and is functional.

I will be learning some CSS and HTML in the meantime - I like a challenge and think its always better to learn how to do something yourself in the long run, even if takes a while.

This time next year I'll be putting those designers to shame - watch this space.....

Thanks again to all your replies, this seems to be an excellent, friendly and professional forum.

Michael

[fleetwood]

Good luck Michael

hope I didn't cause a fall out

nah - just friendly banter and healthy debate from people with strong views

I can't afford to fall out with anyone on here - there's too much good advice to be had.

[pinbrook]

Originally Posted by fleetwood
I must admit that I didn't realise you could get a fully customised professional template design for as little £200-£500 - I thought all web designers made a mint

The V8 integration with dreamweaver should have put paid to expensive templates nowadays, as they are so quick and easy to create. It's not correct to talk about prices in here of course, however a template IMO should be towards the bottom figure in that range. Anything more and it's just plain expensive IMO.

as many of you know I had planned to offer a template service, but have now decided against it..... mainly because of support implications.

to offer a template at £200 is totally unrealistic, unless you do not intend to offer support. If you don't offer support and your purchaser can not install the template - just count the number of posts here about external design and css not integrating correctly - you will be called all names under the sun and generate huge amounts of bad feeling.

Of course if you do offer support, all you need is a couple of customers who are complete novices - and you expect your customers to be novices otherwise they would be doing it themselves - who will eat up the £200 fee in support issues at fast as you can say actinic template.

[leehack]

to offer a template at £200 is totally unrealistic, unless you do not intend to offer support. If you don't offer support and your purchaser can not install the template - just count the number of posts here about external design and css not integrating correctly - you will be called all names under the sun and generate huge amounts of bad feeling.

I understand you point here, however i don't fully agree. If i approached offering templates as a service, i would also insist on a snapshot off the customer. I would then create the dreamweaver design, incorporate the layouts etc. and forward the snapshot back to the client with the design already integrated. Ideally if a snapshot came with products listed already, after integrating it could be loaded up in test mode for the client to see. Ecommerce sites although can be made to look different, there are many similar things across all sites.

Of course if you do offer support, all you need is a couple of customers who are complete novices - and you expect your customers to be novices otherwise they would be doing it themselves - who will eat up the £200 fee in support issues at fast as you can say actinic template.

This is of course a concern which is why each individual case has to be looked at and sorted out accordingly. Experienced actinic users can often understand actinic very well, but have no idea about dreamweaver and CSS or in fact they might not have dreamweaver and prefer the layout to be done by someone in the know and they just do the actinic stuff. In this case, if i was approached by someone i would happily provide such a service within the range previously mentioned.

Each case is different and the ability of the client is important of course, £250 a day seems to be the going rate for designers and i would expect a designer to do the above in 1-2 days, so the prices i quoted are realistic IMO. I would need to have done 10 of the above scenario to be 100% sure, but i wouldn't expect it to be much different if any at all.

[pinbrook]

We are talking about 2 completely different services here, my plan was to offer downloadable themes with zero integration.

Of course to costing is a difficult and risky thing. If for example you decide to create a theme actually takes n hours therefore lets use an example easy round number it costs £1000 to build, how many times do you want to sell it to see a return. How many times do you realistically think you would sell it? Actinic themes are probably never going to sell in the same volume as Template Monster thus you couldn't sell them at £35. In the early days of V8 I was approached by a few people to let them know when my themes were ready, almost all of them wanted to know how many times I would sell the same theme.

Going back to my £1000 example to built and your £200 to sell, ok sell it 5 times to cover your initial cost, sell it 4 times more to cover integration costs, thats 9. How many people will buy a theme that 9 people already have?

or sell it at £500, thats 2 sales to cover build costs, each sale thereafter puts you in profit and you can place your limit of sales at a more realistic level to keep customers happy.

Additionally if you will do the integration, you could also fall into the trap of "oh whilst you are at it, could you move x across by 10 pixels, oh and I'd prefer y to be somewhere else" then you are talking custom site. There is an Actinic developer who has already said this happens almost everytime they sell a theme, the customer wants it to be customised - within the price!

You say 1-2 days to integrate at a ballpark figure of £250 per day plus the cost of developing the theme, that does not quite add up to the bottom end of £200-500.

Anyway thats my Saturday Soapbox over now....