Committed

My friend Dafni "won" a free website design from a photographer who put up a contest on her blog. (This photographer decided she wanted to get into designing websites in conjunction with her photography. So she decided to design four FREE websites to get her portfolio started.)

Unfortunately—and may I say, as predicted—she had no idea what she was getting into. After Dafni had already purchased a domain, spent time finding a Word Press template and going through several rounds of logo designs with the photographer—we could tell said photographer might be stalling. Sure enough a few days later Dafni received an email saying the project was a "bad" fit and that she decided she "didn't have time" to do web design after all. This left my friend with no logo, a non functioning site, and a few months of lost time = "lost money" during the interim.

First, I am absolutely disgusted with said photographer. What she did to my friend was completely unprofessional and lacked integrity. Had she any honor she'd have found some way to finish her commitment or offer some compensation (I'm not talking monetarily here.)  No harm, no foul. If I were to liken it to HER own profession, would she EVER say "sorry, I got in over my head…working on your wedding photos is too much work and you were a bad fit anyway. I'm not going to give you your wedding photos after all." Can you imagine? I don't care if money wasn't exchanged—find a way keep your commitments or compensate one way or another.

So what's an Anna do? I've muddled through Word Press once before so I figured I could muddle through again. So this is what I've been working on for the past several weeks. After rounds of design and code tweaking (still a few issues to iron out but…)—Dafni has gone live!

Again, some rough, rejected logos. She wanted something clean, organic, feminine but not girly.

I am actually glad for this experience. I have been feeling sorry that I didn't go into web design earlier and take more courses for it. Not knowing how to write code, use Dreamweaver, Flash etc. pigeon holes me. But after working on this site, I am reminded that I don't like it. I think I went a little crazy actually. Can you see my eye twitching? I'll design a website sure…just don't ask me to build it.

Above is a mock up of the landing page.