Kimberly had a really elaborate idea for a costume this year; she wanted to be a peacock. She did most of the planning and the legwork, and I did most of the construction and all of the sewing! I honestly did not think that this costume would turn out to be as amazing as Kim had wished, and I must say, I am pleasantly surprised at the finished product

Yes, I have a needle in my mouth in that first pic.

Halfway finished with the feathers…

Finished product…

The details…

This last Saturday night was Zombicon 2008, which is a fun/charity event. It is a canned food and blood drive, and this was its second year in Fort Myers.

The interesting thing about this area is that George Romero filmed part of Day of the Dead (the original) on Sanibel Island. Therefore, Lee County already has a rich zombie history. My husband and quite a few of his friends were extras in the movie, and they have many funny stories about the filming process. Apparently, in an interview with Romero regarding Day of the Dead, he mentioned that filming in this area was the hardest, because the actors were having so much fun, and in turn, more celluloid was wasted on Sanibel than other locations. That is definitely not a direct quote, but it’s the general idea.

Here is Roger (left) with a friend in his zombie makeup from way back when.

We went to Zombicon 2007, but we didn’t make ourselves up as zombies. In the Dark Arts show at Space 39 was a mixed media artwork by Tim Smith featuring an image of Roger from way back when, which now hangs in our front hallway. We decided then that we would definitely involve ourselves for 2008. We did, and in ways we might not have expected; Roger is in possession of quite a few photos taken on-set, and I was asked to donate my time and design a promotional newspaper based on a prop from the original Day of the Dead (which of course Roger had in his files). So the Zombicon crew had a lot to work with, and a designer who was happy to provide a newspaper for the event.

The original, which was signed by George Romero:

And my interpretation for Zombicon 2008:

We had a great time, and it was a great turnout. Our makeup was also a lot of fun, I tried to recreate Roger’s as best as I could! But this time we took out his glass eye for extra disgusting fun.

The working site

The work in question:

Certain things should be present in any proposal or contract, such as project scope, client revisions, how client delays are handled, projected date of project completion, payment terms and conditions, maintenance and support (or lack thereof), liability, and the rights to the site upon completion. Exclusion of any of these items will make life harder as a designer and developer, and also have the potential to cause misunderstandings or confusion with your clients.

One of the most important things to be included in a contract or proposal is the project scope. The project scope should outline the duties that you, as designer/developer, need to accomplish. For example, if I am building a very simple website with 6 pages of content with a Flash banner on the homepage, that needs to be specified.

Basic list of things that should be included in project scope:

• Project timeline (including start date and projected completion date)
• Who is responsible for certain elements (such as the client being responsible for the text content of the site)
• How many initial comps of a design will be presented to the client
• Once the client has chosen a design, how many basic revisions will you offer?
• Any additional responsibilities that you as the designer will offer to provide the client (such as the afore-mentioned Flash banner)
• Ownership of the site upon completion
• Any additional services that fall outside the scope of the project will be charged to the client at “X” rate

Anything not included in the basic project scope falls outside the responsibilities of the designer/developer. But what if you are not specific enough to provide for those loopholes that will eventually happen to all of us? It is not always easy to predict every hurdle you may encounter on a project. In my previous post, I outlined what I was going through with one of my clients when working with another designer. The project scope he provided the client was vague, at best, and there is the dilemma. Should he suck it up and take care of the requests to save his reputation, or fall back on the old “it is not in the scope of the project” line and risk negative feedback from the client? Unfortunately, when you have a project scope that basically states only, “I will do your website and it will have a shopping cart”, you leave yourself open for an ethical dilemma.

Another concern I have about this particular situation is the “contract” that the designer provided the client. It is simply an invoice, with the project scope provisions inserted. As a contract needs to have been agreed upon by both parties, I am not sure that this is a legal contract. My client, being a very moral and stand-up company, wouldn’t dream of not paying the designer the remainder of his fee; however, I think this might give them some leeway to demand the few changes that need to be made on the website. As the project scope only outlines that the website be finished, why not make it perfect?

My good friend and colleague, Chuck, and I were having a discussion yesterday regarding jobs we are currently working on; he is tackling a website with a new client and I am taking over the webmaster responsibilities of a client of mine for which I have been doing product photography. He basically took over the job after his client was displeased with the quality of their previous web designer; I am taking over webmaster responsibilities for my client because they are not very comfortable working in the shopping cart that was provided to them, and they feel that I will be able to take care of the regular weekly maintenance more efficiently.

What really got us on a rant, however, was how the previous designers had dealt with our clients. In Chuck’s case, the client dropped the previous designer and went to Chuck because they would request certain changes and effects to be implemented, and the designer told them it couldn’t be done. In my case, the designer of the site was also telling my client that things were not possible. Neither client was asking for anything really outrageous; they simply wanted some aesthetic changes. Lucky for Chuck, he was building the site from the ground up, but the things that the previous designer had told the client was making him crazy.

We came to the conclusion that there are quite a few web designers out there that are charging a premium for their services, and taking advantage of the potential ignorance of their clients. There are some things that are challenging when designing a website, but there is no excuse for designers to refuse a simple request that will only take a bit of research on their part, or very little time to implement.

In the case of my client, it was a shopping cart with a “View Larger Image” for the product. The designer told the client that due to the restraints of the shopping cart system, there was “probably” no way to change the way the larger image was displayed. (The link was simply pointing to the filepath of the larger image, and opening it in a new window. Not very attractive.) I told him that he needed to look into it, and he gave me the impression that although the job was finished, he’d see what he could do, etc. I felt like I was getting lip service. Bear in mind, I had not mentioned to him that I am fluent in HTML and CSS; he was under the impression that I was a web-savvy photographer. When I started bringing up the possibility of Javascript popup windows or a Lightbox effect, he started to look a little guarded. I didn’t feel very confident that he would be able or willing to implement the request, so I took matters into my own hands.

By the time I had spent a few hours researching, going through the code and syntax of the shopping cart and felt comfortable enough with it to start attempting a fix, I wound up adding a Lightbox effect to the “View Larger Image” link. It took three quick recodes to get it perfect, but now it looks beautiful.

I just don’t understand why other designers would treat clients in this manner; is it not common knowledge/business practice to make your clients as happy as possible? I understand the importance of staying within the project scope (more on that in my next post), but when you have a client that is questioning your skills and willingness to perfect the job in question, there are implications. If a client is unhappy with a finished product, not only can you never count on a recommendation from them, you run the risk of building a bad reputation for yourself. As a designer who hasn’t spent a moment or a dime marketing herself, all my new clients are procured via word-of-mouth and recommendations from previous clients. My reputation is extremely important to me, and I would rather spend a little more time to get a job perfect than to have a client unhappy with my work.

It occurred to me that I needed to go through my own drive and make her a list of links that would be useful to her, as a new Mac user that needs some good productivity tools and a few things that would be just plain useful to her as well. I will include the list here, with an addition of some of the design tools that I find essential.

Productivity

• Anxiety, a lightweight to-do list that is compatible with iCal and Mail. Great for us scatterbrains! Free.
• Notebook, a gorgeous, wonderful app that is exactly what it says: a notebook. Perfect for notes, outlines, keeping track of files…. This is one of my favorite apps ever. Standard license is $49.95, but well worth it!
• Caffeine, for those times when you really don’t want your display to dim due to lack of activity (like when rereading blog posts before publishing)! Free.
• GoPlan.org is not a Mac app, but I feel the need to include it in this list, as it is such a timesaver, and is a great tool to have when working on a project with others. It is an online project management system, including tasks, chat, calendar, file uploads, and more. There are a few different subscription levels starting with–you guessed it–free.

Just Plain Useful

• iStat Menu is a great utility for keeping an eye on your system. View CPU usage, hard drive space and more in the menu bar. Free.
• EasyEnvelopes is a widget that makes addressing and printing all those thank-you cards from Christmas a snap. Free.
• iPhoto Batch Enhancer is an easy way to add an effect to a batch of photos with a minimal amount of effort. Free.
• Undercover, because we all drag our laptops everywhere with us. Like LoJack for Laptops, but built for Mac, and only $49.
• Delicious Library. This is my husband’s favorite application, considering that we own over a thousand DVDs, and probably two thousand books. You can check items out and in, add borrowers, even scan barcodes with your iSight to quickly catalog your stuff. $40.

Design Tools

• My absolute favorite web development app is Panic’s Coda ($69). If you prefer to do a lot of hand-coding, this program is for you. I prefer it over Dreamweaver. Combine a text-editor with a browser preview, a CSS editor, books, snippets and more, and Coda is what you get. You can even write Actionscript in Coda. And did I mention built-in FTP?
• My next favorite web development tool is CSSEdit ($29.95). When my right brain takes over and I can’t seem to parse my external style sheets correctly in Coda, it’s CSSEdit to the rescue. The X-ray feature makes it super-simple to locate which element I need to concentrate on.

Please post anything I might have missed in the comments!

I am using the style from A Scanner Darkly; I have always wanted to try it, and I think this image is a great candidate.

One of the illustrators from the movie wrote a great tutorial on it, take a look: Imitating A Scanner Darkly (Aaron Sacco).

The original image:

Here is my progress so far (yes, I know Kevin looks like a cartoon character at this point!); I will be starting in on the color next. Roger wants everything other than Kev and Teri in black and white, and although I think that is a great idea, I think the flowers will end up in color as well.

Graduation was extremely eventful, however. Jamie Brawer and I were both awarded with Highest Achievement, which in my case included Best Print & Digital Portfolio as well as “Outstanding Service to Community and School.” We were both also awarded with Honors’ Medals, as well as Natalie Lara and Fernando Velasquez, who I have had the pleasure of working with in Artemis and I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Below are some pictures from Portfolio Review.