How do you outsource website design?

Question

I am planning to start a website. I am not good at designing. I am planning to outsource the designing part. How should I do it?

Should I program first and then ask the designers to work on it?

Or should I get a design from them and then work on it? What do you prefer?

Answer 1

If the website needs heavy javascript/ajax work, I would recommend that you get the design first, otherwise you'll likely have to do a good deal of tweaking re-implementing your javascript, giving things the right classes/ids again, etc.

To get a designer there are a number of freelance sites around such as 99Designs, VWorker, etc.

Answer 2

I would do them in parallel. You need something to program to, but you will find that the design will need to change as you implement more functionality.

Find a designer and get the initial design. Program using this and then get the designer on board to update the design as required. You can do this as continuous process or a number of separate updates, but that will depend on the designer.

Answer 3

Think about what part of the design you want to outsource precisely: just the way it looks or more?

This is relevant because it depends on whether you want someone to give you any of the following things:

• A set of one or more "pictures" of the different (types of) pages on the site.
• A layered representation of the above that incorporates resizing/variation.
• A static version of a basic site in HTML.
• A version of the above with static data and all dynamic Javascript/Ajax stuff you need.

Designers exist that can cater to each of these steps. What to choose depends on your own expertise (in editing graphics and Javascript/Ajax) and the level of involvement you want for the designer.

Based on that decision it will make more sense to work in parallel (the top option is easy to develop in parallel for, the bottom is more difficult (at least, requires careful planning)).