web app almost finished, how much for a design? | Hacker News Reader

web app almost finished, how much for a design?

2 pointssinkorswim4 comments

I've been working on my app for a few months and feature wise, it's ready for a beta. However, due to a) my general hatred for working with css b) my complete lack of css and creative skills, all the output is bare, unstyled html

I have $300 to spend. Is that a realistic budget for hiring someone to skin the app? it's a very data heavy with lots of data tables and graphs, so I'm not looking for a "site design" or branding. I'm looking more for a simple and clean user interface. I'd be happy with a set of styles for standard elements such as forms and tables.

is $300 unrealistic? if so, would people recommend launching (private beta) as-is or wait until I can afford a designer?

I have designed a few web apps for personal use, but I do freelance design (bleikamp.com/work) and $300 would maybe get you 1 mockup from a decent designer - no XHTML/CSS or integration work.

I generally charge $75/hr for design and XHTML/CSS work - so not cheap, but also not nearly as high a rate as the rate as the "rockstar" designers out there ($150+/hr) or a design agency (a hell of a lot/hr) A full design could take anywhere from 40-100 hours, maybe more - it's hard to know, it depends how many individual pages you have or how many unique designs are needed.

Also make sure you know whether the designer includes a logo in his quote - many web designers / usability specialists aren't very good at logo work.

If you want a designer to do the XHTML/CSS with the design, check out the code they have written in the past - a lot of people suck at XHTML/CSS, even with how simple it is compared to OOP...

Generally you get what you pay for, but in your case I would probably try to find some upcoming and/or young designer that will do it for the hell of it, and maybe to get experience and a portfolio.

$300 isn't a lot these days...

You could maybe go with a free or cheap design from oswd until you get enough money or find someone good willing to do it for cheap.

You'd probably be better off adding a little bit of equity to the offer.

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