Hi, I need to hire a designer to create a look and feel for my site. The URL doesn't really matter because there's nothing there yet... anyway, it will involve the creation of maybe 4 or 5 pages. Let me explain that a little better.
I want a top bar with logo on the left, a left column for navigation, and a footer bar. These elements can be seen on sites like
http://wamu.com/home.htm and (this one's better looking)
http://www.thinkwave.com/acopyright.html
It needs to load quickly and be simple but elegant. You won't have to worry about any content, you can just use dummy text. I do know what the menu items will be, and I'd like them to not be images so that I can change them later if I need to. They can have an image background or be otherwise enhanced by images though.
You don't have to create all the pages in the site... just create a look and I can take it from there. Extensibility is important, because I'm always tinkering with things. The content of this site will be very similar to the one in my sig. If you look at that site, you can see that it has a nice design but it's not very extensible. When I wanted to make changes, I found that I was pretty "locked in" and couldn't change the content much. That's why on this new site, the content area should be just a place in the HTML where I can put stuff.
Anyway, rather than create all the actual pages that will be in the site, I'd like you to create a look for common page elements. Then, I'll put the actual pages together. More clearly: create a look not only for the dummy text, but put that text into paragraphs and create a look for <h1> tags. Create a look for form elements, unordered lists, etc. In other words, use dummy text, but create a look and feel for that dummy text that includes common webpage elements.
I'd also like some breadcrumbs somewhere, in case I end up going two levels deep with the menu.
That's the first part (so we're talking a couple pages... a page with various page elements and then a form). The second part is to create a look for the user control panel of the content management system. That will basically involve creating two more pages. Here are some screenshots of the generic design that I've been using during development:
So basically you'd be skinning these two pages. The footer bar doesn't have to be that big, this design is for development only (I know, design first, then program... well, I just couldn't wait)
So the end product is four, maybe five pages (I may need a control panel page with only text... but that should be easy). To comply with the posting rules for requests of this type, here's some additional info:
1.
Color scheme
I'm open on this, but I was thinking maybe a couple shades of dark green, black and white... would that end up looking like a chalkboard? (In case I didn't mention it, it's an educational site). If that doesn't work, I like shades of blue... maybe with silver and/or orange.
2.
Type of design (i.e., banner, logo, layout)
Layout... described above
3.
Desired size (i.e., height, width, file size)
Should be optimized for both 800x600 and 1024x768... shouldn't be too hard, the right side just expands.
4.
Prize (if any)
Ah...brass tacks at last. I'm willing to part with $100-$150. There's always that moment where somebody has to trust somebody... I do have a rentacoder account, if you would like to either open an RAC account or already have one, we can make this a private bid request through rentacoder. That way the money transfer is handled by a third party with an arbitration process just in case. They do take a cut of the money though. But that's a safe option as far as payment goes.
5.
Optional Information:
1. Desired font
Here, I've got an example. I like the font on this site:
http://www.regular-expressions.info/grep.html Oh, and their paragraphs are nicely separated. Also, go ahead and mouse over a link and see how it gets a background color. I think that looks great and I'd like links in the body of my site (and maybe even the menu depending on how you do it) to do that when the cursor hovers over it.
2. Location for graphic
N/A
3. Inspirational website or designs
I've mentioned a couple
4. Other relevant information
I'll give details to the person I pick, of course... I really hope there are people here who can take this on, I'm just sort of assuming there are designers here who are looking to pick up small projects. If there's anything I left out, just post here or pm me. I would like to see some portfolio stuff if possible, so links to previous work would definitely help.
I'll keep this thread updated, i.e. I'll post here when I choose somebody or if there are other developments. Thanks, I know this was a very long post to read.
P.S. No templates- you've got to code it yourself. From scratch. In notepad.... Just kidding. But seriuosly, no templates. And I hate ugly dreamweaver code... if you use DW, please clean the code up. Thanks!
