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Design

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

My first project for first client!

Hey guys! I thought I would keep you all updated on my first project. I will be creating a website for a local psychotherapist/yoga instructor/massage therapist. She is well known around the area and has built a reputation over 22 years of practice. We met at a cafe and she has blessed me with the opportunity of building her website. I have finally (after a painstaking week of going over treehouse business courses!) sent my first project breakdown and pricing estimate and she will get back to me tomorrow.

Please let me know what you guys think of my initial mockups so far! I am going with Nick Pettit 's (thank you for your rapid prototyping blog and workshop!) recommendation of keeping things cheap and opted for pencil-and-paper. I did give balsamiq a go and although I like it, I think beginning with pencil makes for a much faster ride as you can eat through your initial sketches and, as Nick says, not get too invested in them.

So anyway, here is my current progress on Behance!

I've also opted to use Freelancer for my billing and invoicing, I especially love the fact that I can edit invoices with HTML & CSS! How much does that rock!

For communicating with clients I am giving Basecamp a go.

I have been researching what to go with for a few weeks now and these seem like the best choices for me as I am currently solo! (what do you guys think?)

15 Answers

Looks good, I'm assuming you're building everything from scratch and not using something like Bootstrap?

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Yeah definitely, I'm going to, again, take Nick Pettit's advice and hard code everything for this first project. I have already learned a few valuable lessons:

  • establish a budget upfront, no exceptions;
  • establish a means for communication and add it to my workflow (basecamp);
  • educate the client on manners of web beforehand as it will save time in the long run;
  • learn for next time how long thins will take so that you don't offer to add a customized CMS thinking its pfft easy work (sigh! hehe);
  • make sure clients understand that unless they understand some basics (or are willing to be educated), the designer/developer will need to maintain the website on a regular basis (SEO, content uploads etc) and charge a fee;

So far it's been so much fun, I am loving it! It keeps me up very late at night fine-tuning everything!

Looking good Thiago! I'm following you on Behance now, too :) Hope you don't mind if I check in every so often.

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Thanks Zak Erving that's great and ofcourse I don't mind at all! I appreciate any comments and criticisms :D

Nick Pettit
STAFF
Nick Pettit
Treehouse Teacher

Great work! I really love these sketches. Just the right level of detail.

Marcus H
Marcus H
4,267 Points

Subscribed, please update this thread as progress as I'd love to see what the website looks like when it's completed.

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Will do! Thanks so much for your support, I am currently working on setting up a template on Basecamp with a Welcome Pack. Right now I am finishing up on the Creative Brief (contract), deciding what to put in it. I will keep you guys posted!

Marcus H
Marcus H
4,267 Points

Looks like you have a very thorough process, I'm impressed I'm going to try and do something similar if and when I get a job.

I think on your 1st page of the balsamic mockups you should see what it looks like if you left align the 3 paragraphs and their respective titles, just a thought.

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Hey mate, thanks so much for your feedback! Yeah honestly, I have spent MANY MANY hours getting my process right. I think that by doing so I can now focus on design. You should see how much time I have spent setting up accounting software and client relations software... gosh hehe

Thanks for the feedback regarding the mockups, I will do just that and let you know how it goes!!

For the ecommerce platform, depending on the scale Opencart, WooCoomerce, and Magenta Open are all great open source platforms to develop an eCommerce store, or the PHP track is also a great one (I learned alot through them).

I recently did this site using php that I learned from treehouse: www.phoenixgold-beverages.com :)

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Thanks Isaac Sutton ! I will definitely check out those platforms and will check out your website today!

Looking good, dude! Keep going!

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Thanks Nick! Now it's time to begin some preliminary coding! I am just waiting for a go-ahead from my client, so excited!

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Sorry for the lack of activity guys! It's been a busy week and I will be updating some stuff soon. I will keep you posted! It looks like I will have to begin cutting some shifts at the bakery as I have someone else interested, a fitness instructor website is on the horizon! Gosh!

Way to go dude! Sounds like you're starting to pull 'em in! Better start raising your prices soon ;)

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Hey guys! I have some good news and some slightly frustrating news! I'll get the frustration out of the way first: So I was about to make a final decision on what to call my business, finally deciding to not make it too personal by calling it my name I decided to call it 'JB Design Studios'.I was about to buy the domain last week, but when I looked again today, I saw this : jbdesignstudios.co.uk! I looked through it and it looks so annoyingly cheaply made, I mean, there is still a 'Hello World' link at the bottom, not to mention some spelling mistakes.. Also, the person's name is Joe Blow! I guess the domain name wasn't meant to be huh? (I did initially want JB Design Lab, I may go with that! I can think of so many thematic illustrations for it!)

As for the good news, I will have to quit working at the bakery as I am finding more and more locals who want websites, I have 3 potential new clients and I don't even have my portfolio website up yet! I haven't even decided on a business name!

Just a quick question: What hosting provider do you use? I am opting for siteground for now.

Marcus H
Marcus H
4,267 Points

That's brilliant that you can go at this full-time. Do you have any advice on how to find clients seeing as you doing so well already. I'm by no means ready for client work but it would be a nice to have an idea of what steps I'd need to take. Also do you have any examples of websites you've made so far?

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Hey Marcus H ! My advice would be to get involved in your local community, that's what I have done. My current 2 clients are a local cafe owner, for whom I am working through a logo (which is on hold until after her wedding) and a local therapist who I met at that cafe. Today I met someone looking for web work at another local cafe and that's how it has been going. I am privileged enough to be living a town which truly values its local members, especially its artists and I am doing the best I can to network. As of yet I have no example websites because I hadn't even finished all of the Treehouse courses. I say jump right it there. Having clients has FORCED me to learn more and more :) If you'd like, follow me on Behance, I have some sketched wireframes and progress on the logo in there!

Marcus H
Marcus H
4,267 Points

In that case I think I better get myself a macbook/laptop and start drinking coffee ;-)

I'll definitely follow your behance profile, will be fun seeing your progress over time. I've personally been practising on the design side of things and just lately got back into coding and will look to create some websites from my designs over the coming weeks and over course make a portfolio.

https://www.behance.net/mshanda

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Hey guys!I have updated my Behance Portfolio with my first attempt at mockups. I have been using Balsamiq. Please let me know what you think as I would love some feedback! What do you think of them Nick Pettit ?

Nick Pettit
Nick Pettit
Treehouse Teacher

Hi Thiago,

Sorry for the slow reply. It looks really good! I think if you iterate on these a couple times it might get even better. Here's a few blog posts where I've detailed my thoughts on this kind of thing:

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Thanks Nick Pettit ! I've followed all of your blog posts and videos regarding mockups and workflows and find them really helpful. I have spent quite some time setting myself up so that I have a perfect workflow and I find that I have already halved my set-up times between my first client and my second. I am now also working on a larger project involving an e-commerce store for a nutritionist who's business ethics are very closely aligned to my own. Thanks again Treehouse staff and my fellow students for making all of this possible. I will not only keep you guys updated here and on Behance, but I will soon organise all of this into a blog where you can follow my progress and see how achievable all of this is. All you need is some motivation, social skills and a little inner awareness :)

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Hey guys, I have just about completed my first pro-bono side-project. It is a simple website for the South Westcliff Community Group. I was to re-design a 90's website built with tables, I was amazed at the original source code! I was glad to have a go at this as it allowed me to experiment with Scss and Foundation 5! So far I am using a front-end development environment utilising Gulp and BrowserSync to build from the mobile up while seeing what I build as I code. For my current projects I will be attempting a PSD 2 HTML to see how that goes. I think building from code can get quite tiresome as I can imagine how much faster I would accomplish the same aesthetic results in Photoshop or Illustrator.

You can access the website here: South Westcliff Community Group