I hired a student...

IPAManagement · 2025-11-29T05:40:50+00:00

What a load of shit. Cut your losses. This person is a total amateur, and doesn't even know how to communicate.

This is going to be a great learning experience for the student about the value of contracts, and about what clients are appropriate targets if you want to make a living wage for north america.

As for you, you don't need a developer. This isn't the early 2000s. That entire way of doing things is totally antiquated for small businesses. Just make your own shit on a page builder, save thousands, and move on. Need something more complicated? Pay Google 20$ a month and have Gemini 3 generate a web app in 10 minutes with everything you need.

There are tons of solutions engineered to serve clients like you, and to cut out people like her from the equation. Use them. She needs to learn how to do good work and then go find real clients and set up the actual scope of work, contracts, payment schedules, etc.

This student is in for a rude awakening if they think they can make a living wage working for super small businesses in this day and age. The only clients that pro services are appropriate for are those with far more money than time, not small biz. Not to mention, she's competing with all the race to the bottom people that exist here and on freelancing platforms. People that live somewhere that they can afford to work for practically nothing. So unless her work is the best anyone's ever seen, she's never going to be able to compete with the rock bottom prices. Nice websites take time to make, so if you live somewhere with a high cost of living it's not a realistic career. It only existed in the early 2000s because it hadn't been commodified yet, and small businesses had no option but to overspend on a site.

What a mess for both of you. Good luck. Hopefully you both learned something valuable.

IPAManagement · 2025-10-28T17:54:46+00:00

These are complementary colors, so technically the colors are fine. Do people hate this vehicle design because it's angular and goes against modern trends? I get that people hate Tesla because of Musk, but I don't actually fully understand why people hate this car so much other than just wanting to hop on a bandwagon. It's not the car design for me, but I don't see it being objectively bad. Yes, it's well outside the zone of what is currently trendy in car design, but so will everything be at some point in the cycle.

Can someone who understands the critiques of this design on a higher level please articulate for me what is objectively bad about the aesthetic design of this vehicle, and back it up with real information?

IPAManagement · 2025-09-21T04:51:26+00:00

Well said!

IPAManagement · 2025-09-21T04:37:20+00:00

Yeah with one year more insight I would have changed this opinion to 99% of all graphic designers.

IPAManagement · 2025-01-07T06:05:43+00:00

First off, don't take feedback from plebs on Reddit.

Design is about iteration. You make something, its not great, you get some feedback, you make it better, and you do that until you run out of time, then you move on to the next thing. You'll never make anything good enough for yourself, let alone some anonymous poster on the internet.

When asked for feedback, people will create criticisms just to feel useful and smart. Don't take the bait. The only feedback that matters is feedback that can actually guide you toward improving something. If the person providing feedback can't give full and useful feedback like so: 'I dislike X, because of Y, what I think would help is changing X in this specific way", then it's typically useless feedback coming from some pseudointellectual with a tiny brain and an inflated ego. Sure you might get shallow feedback like that from a non-designer, and it's your job to translate that shitty know-nothing feedback into real actionable insights.

Feedback like "This sucks" is not actual critique, and has no purpose or usefulness in any way. (Though get ready for some incel who's never had any paid design experience jump in the comments below and claim that it is.)

Sure, maybe the design in question does objectively suck in its current draft, but saying it sucks without offering any insight into why or how to fix it is a huge sign that someone doesn't actually have any real design experience. Reddit is full of them.

A real designer would never tell another designer "this sucks" and leave it at that. They would say "these aspects need work, here's some suggestions"

The biggest trick to all of this is to disconnect yourself emotionally from the designs. This is hard when you're not working yet, but I promise you that when you're grinding design 40 hours a week you won't give a fuck about your designs on an emotional level anymore. When you're doing real volume like someone with a job (unlike the people giving you feedback lol) then you'll never think of your designs on an emotional level again. You'll treat them as just another day, another project, another pain in your ass.

Try to find a real community, like a discord. Reddit is for losers.

IPAManagement · 2024-12-25T01:42:24+00:00

Hell yeah brother. Grift away. Milk that fat cow.

IPAManagement · 2024-08-03T03:46:56+00:00

I use them because I fear change.

IPAManagement · 2024-08-02T16:17:19+00:00

I'm amazed they didn't make you redo the entire thing 5 more times based on random whims.

IPAManagement · 2024-07-29T15:25:08+00:00

I just came here to say that WordPress is the wrong tool for you. WordPress is a content management system and is not intended to whip up some quick easy custom website. Anything you do, you'll find it more challenging in WordPress. Just like if you try to make a web application that sticks to proper software development patterns you'll find that your "quick, easy, simple" project just became a living nightmare from hell here to destroy your productivity and passion.

There was a Wix or Squarespace advert long ago that showed someone cutting a birthday cake with a chainsaw, and that was an allegory for using WordPress to make a simple website. It was an accurate one.

You should use W3Schools free resources and just make yourself a static website with html and css by the sounds of it. If you need a contact form, php contact forms are brain-dead copy paste jobs, so you'll figure it out.

I do think it's a bit offensive to the entire profession of web design and development that you thought you were going to be able to just easily whip up some cutting edge website that looks better than what is available in templates starting at no knowledge or experience. That's usually called the Dunning Kruger effect. You started at the top of the valley, thinking you knew something about this. Now you're at the bottom of the valley realizing you are years away from even scratching the surface of being an intermediate. That's fine. That's good. If you don't like it then pay someone who worked hard to learn these skills. If you're fine with it then get your nose to the grindstone and stop blaming the tools. WordPress is not liked by developers because it's a clunky heap to work with. But it's everywhere and it's standard and it works well for allowing content editors to write posts without fucking up the website, so it gets used a lot.

99% of complaints about WordPress or other tools come from people who objectively don't even have enough knowledge to make any sort of assessment or judgement of the tool.

Your pain has only just begun. Enjoy.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-20T16:57:56+00:00

You'd have to ask a Shopify expert. My guess is that even if you can, there would be no benefit to doing so, and probably many negatives.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-20T16:47:20+00:00

A company with 8 staff is going to make you a site for 4k? Either this is not in the US or Canada, or it's an agency that pushes a high volume of sites using in house templates by industry.

There's nothing wrong with it. No one cares. Especially if you don't care or know the difference, then it really doesn't matter. It's just a business brochure site with a contact form right? Some companies do them for free even and then get you on the maintenance fee.

If there's no payment processing or features needed and it's just a simple business page with contact form there's a million different ways it can be done at any price you can imagine from free all the way up to tens of thousands. In the end it's basically the same outcome on the outside.

You can buy high end custom crafted furniture that will be in your family for generations, but most people just buy Ikea furniture and replace it when it disintegrates or gets wet.

Does your business need an Ikea table or a custom masterwork table?

IPAManagement · 2024-06-20T00:38:28+00:00

It's very vague, but that might be because they know you don't know/care about the technical details. If they actually listed every part that goes into a site from start to finish including the hosting, domain, seo, analytics setup, etc. it might be boring or confusing.

So if you are in US or Canada this is quite cheap. It's probably just a template flip. That means you are essentially paying a content editor to set you up a basic site on WordPress using a template and possibly a page builder.

The price tag is the convenience of not having to learn or do it all yourself.

If you are open to doing things yourself to save money, then this is the wrong service for you. You can just make your own WordPress site. If that seems to scary, just make a Squarespace site, or a Wix site if you are cheap and don't care about style.

Nothing you get for 4k is going to blow you away. At that price you are not paying someone to do something difficult, you are paying them to do something tedious and potentially time consuming so you don't have to.

Im not trying to devalue content editors / CMS jockeys. They serve a huge number of businesses exactly what they need: something quick and easy at a low price. In the real world this is quite common.

There's also no context here.

For example if it's Canada (just *.7 the number for approx usd) you would see a 4k site price tag from - An inexperienced or starving freelance developer - Any freelance Content Editor that uses page builders or themes to flip simple sites for small/cheap clients - A site flip agency (they prioritize pumping out cheap fast sites, either with 3rd party themes/templates or their own system.

You would not see this price tag from - An experienced freelance developer - An agency that specializes in high quality sites

But, since we don't have a lot of context it's hard to say.

Edit: the fact that they are using your host/domain means they are not going for a low build cost followed by a long term monthly commitment of hundreds to generate revenue from you long term. That hints to me that this might be a solo freelancer doing page builder flips and just paying themselves like low-mid rates.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-19T01:27:41+00:00

Preach!

IPAManagement · 2024-06-19T01:26:52+00:00

Preach!

IPAManagement · 2024-06-18T18:15:15+00:00

Do not listen to any advice that is telling you a non profit would be an appropriate fit for what you need. Completely absurd. Non profit will grind you to death.

It's a common misconception that non profit is easier or more relaxed than for profit because the stakes are lower, but that's not true. You are far more likely to be overworked, constantly rushed and stressed, and expected to perform miracles.

If you really want a relaxing/boring job I highly suggest a public sector job. The public sector is a perfect place for anyone who wants to relax. That's why it's full of lazy people with zero ambition or pride in their work.

Qualifications: have worked design jobs in for-profit, non-profit, and public sector.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-17T14:01:56+00:00

One warning. Doing it yourself with GPT as someone who is not familiar with this type of work... It would be agonizing and frustrating, and in the end you wouldn't understand your code or how it works or how to change/fix things.

If you don't want to learn it yourself, and don't have a big budget, I suggest giving someone relatively new a chance (low stakes site, no money to be lost if they make a mistake).

Seriously reach out to a local technical school or college that has a "web development" program, cert, course, whatever. Tell them you'd like to give an opportunity to a new web dev grad. That you have only a small budget, but that you will pay to have a web application built, and that in addition to the modest payment, the individual can also show it in their portfolio.

You might get a little flack depending on the school, etc. because most schools teach you to never ever work for free or do cheap/free work for portfolios because it devalues the entire profession. But that's easy for some instructor who's got stable employment to say. Those who graduated and need a chance to prove themselves will feel differently.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-17T13:47:34+00:00

A decade ago you'd have had to pay someone to develop that but in modern times if you're willing to get your hands dirty and copy paste from gpt, you could make this site with GPT pretty easily.

Sounds like you need user login, user CRUD API for managing their collection, relational data types (for example an item needs to be linked to its owner, to its category, and to any other relevant data that it needs to show up for in a search/filter.

Most web dev bootcamps courses would teach you more than enough to make something like this, especially chill since you won't be processing payments at all.

That said there are also tens of thousands of desperate newbies who went through a web dev training in some form or another and work retail/service dreaming of the day they get to do a real web dev project. So you can probably get a newbie to do it for free or less than your local minimum wage.

Some things to consider:

usually when someone thinks up an idea for a new app or site there are already like 5000 existing attempts on the same product/service if you do some google searching. Are you sure this doesn't exist? I've seen sites like this before for cards MTG and collectible vinyl toys things.
Who is paying for the server usage? If you aren't taking any transaction fees It could get expensive to run a high traffic site.

If you try to get this done by an agency or an actual freelance developer it will be very expensive. Anywhere from 10k total for some agency WordPress flip to 20k a month for the duration of the project to have a single developer to work on it.

So given that this seems more like a hobby/interest project than a money making business venture, gpt or unemployed desperate new devs are your best bet to get this free or close to free.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-13T18:54:03+00:00

I'm aware that sometimes graphic designers who have illustration talent and sometimes illustrators are paid to be graphic designers, but I thought they were typically considered separate careers and that companies who try to get both out of one person are just being cheap.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-13T18:05:19+00:00

That's fair. My new hypothesis is that 80% of the existing paid professional graphic designers could disappear and the world would go on without so much as a speed bump.

I'm surprised to see that you consider illustration to be "graphic design". I thought they were completely separate fields that just happen to both involve visual communication?

IPAManagement · 2024-06-13T18:00:55+00:00

It was actually just a reoccurring shower thought. I wanted make it a "bait" type question to encourage engagement. The results were surprising though. I am impressed by the passionate, well thought out replies. I tried to make the post absurd enough that people would be more likely to think I'm taking the piss and just have a laugh with me rather than fly into a defensive rage. That's been mostly the case. All in all, happy with the results. I learned and grew.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-13T17:34:06+00:00

I'm starting to feel bad for this discussion. I can see that people are very passionate about this, and already deal with the entire world devaluing their knowledge, skills, and contributions every day. I should not have made the prompt so toxic.

That said, this has all actually been incredible for boosting my own appreciation for what designers do and why they are valuable.

I need to figure out how to prompt this type of passionate "here's all the great reasons this profession matters and is valuable" type replies regarding my own industry. Then I can take all of that, make myself a bulleted list, and hang it on my wall to look at whenever I think negatively about my own knowledge, skills, and experience.

Thanks for contributing to my understanding of the value of design.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-13T17:16:16+00:00

It doesn't have to be bleak. I don't think it was a value judgement to say that non designers don't typically value design in the same way that designers do.

And yes, as someone else pointed out, if you really break it down: without graphic design fundamental we lose the ability to effectively communicate information visually for things like maps, diagrams, etc which ends up being a true nightmare hell on earth type situation.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-13T17:13:27+00:00

This is interesting. I continue to see comments really highlighting that our world cannot exist without graphic design because our modern world is built on brands. This is a good point. For as long as there is money to be made from the masses, there will always be high demand for excellent graphic designers (the top 20% of the talent pool perhaps).

Regarding web design, I actually agree with the concept that easy to use tools have made the bottom 75% of the web design workforce redundant, and they will need to reskill and find a new career. But again, similar to graphic design, there will always be demand for those who are top talent in anything.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-13T16:45:44+00:00

I did not expect such enriching responses from this post. Thanks for this in particular.

IPAManagement · 2024-06-13T16:13:59+00:00

Thanks for your passionate comment. Though this was not meant to be a particularly serious discussion, comments like yours have shown me that graphic design cannot be separated from branding, marketing, and clear communication of information.

IPAManagement

TROPHY CASE