At this rate soon we'll have all kinds of self proclaimed "bad ass" developers and designers offering to "help" HN readers at x$/hr. I am rather surprised 21 people (as of this writing) thought this blatant marketing ploy worth upvoting to the front page. Or maybe it is some kind of voting ring put together by the person peddling his services?

EDIT: ok now there is a "I am charging x $/hr" addendum. Better. But still inappropriate for HN imo.

So I contacted this guy via email, and he's now offering to design for me at $50 an hour

Honestly, just buy a theme from http://themeforest.net for $20 bucks and edit it.

The designs are pretty much on par, if not better (simply because there's more to look through) than what is being displayed in this post.

I am not bashing on OP's work, just trying to be (economically) helpful.

I do know design is important. When one of my projects takes off, I'll be the first one to invest $5k on a custom designed UI from an awesome designer. Till then ...

This is for money right?

Yup.

Wouldn't a title of "TELL HN: Give me money" be more appropriate, then?

Doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

You've just given me an awesome idea for a startup.

First, let me say that I really like your design.

Having said that, when I read "badass developer and designer" and then when I see your design, the first thing that comes to my mind is: "He/she must be really expensive". People here most likely are bootstrappers just like you.

By no means I'm saying your services should be cheaper. My point is that you should offer some kind of service or product that is more targeted to HN readers.

Ah, I'm sorry I made that impression =/ I'm charging 30-40 an hour right now(a lot of designers charge $70 an hour) since I know that HN is filled with people bootstrapping their company.

That being said, I'm willing to adjust the price depending on the situation.

Damn! All this time I've been charging $20/hr, and I thought/felt I was overcharging. Where are you located? I'm sure cost of living is a factor. I live in central California and $20 has been okay, but I might reconsider my per hour rate. Nonetheless, nice designs. :)

EDIT: gansonproperties.com (in progress) hubblet.com (my pet project) watchdoit.com

I have more, if interested just shoot me an email.

Well what do YOU design? post some samples and feel free to contact us too info-at-orioneweb-dot-it

Add a web page / some examples to your bio

I charge $300/hr.

Granted, there are very good reasons I charge so much, but you guys are both screwing yourselves.

That said, if you want to charge more, OP hajrice: please fix your spacing. If you're gonna rip off 37Signals' standard landing page, do us a favor and rip them off WELL, okay? Your button text looks like it's sagging there at the bottom of the bottom, and generally speaking, your text is very poorly handled.

If you read a couple books on typography, and spend less time on shiny background images and stock icons and more learning about what makes design effective, you could double your rate in a couple months, minimum.

Sort of off topic, but:

What technologies would I have to learn to design and create sites that look this good, and use databases/querying facilities?

I continue to see sites like these, but think it's a lot more than the HTML I barely even know :)

Thanks (for reading, at least, even if you don't respond)

For designing, I use Photoshop to create a feel of the site, then I render the CSS and XHTML.

For programming, I use Ruby on Rails(check out their website) and PHP. PHP is very easy to pick up, the learning curve is lower but in my opinion Rails is the way to go.

Your design looks like a 37signals clone.

http://imgur.com/nEahg.jpg

But, it does look like 37signals. There's nothing ostensibly wrong with that but I don't understand why bertm would be downvoted for pointing it out, it's relevant and informative.

I too feel I've seen this style a lot recently. It's not bad, it's just the zeitgeist in startup websites IMO. I like it.

These designs took you a week? Are these saved from photoshop or screenshots of actual html and css layouts?

Your work looks great, I'd love to have you help me out. I don't mind seeing these types of posts on HN, as long as they have the skill to back them up.

Rock on.

I love that man! I feel pumped :D I'm emailing you right now!

The first you want to do is add your email to your profile.

Whoops! Thought I had it on, my bad.

I've updated my profile with my email(hajrice@gmail.com). I'll send you an email right now. :)

Really nice design work!

For someone like me who hasn't had much experience with this kind of design work, could you (or someone) give me a ballpark feel for the length of time needed to implement, say the examples that you posted?

what are the few things?

Was updating the post, sorry.

http://imgur.com/KRbNx.jpg

http://imgur.com/w8S4A.jpg

http://imgur.com/DlHDb.jpg

http://imgur.com/qfhbv.jpg

http://imgur.com/KedPg.jpg

How long did it take you to create these pages?

Test: How do you go about implementing those transparent backgrounds in IE6.

If you choose the correct method, I may contact you.

If browser compatibility implementation is your only criteria for hiring designers, thats a warning sign for good designers to stay away.

This old chestnut. You are perhaps inexperienced in this area (or have had terrible luck in the past)

At my company we do not employ designers (we call them front end developers) who can not code css / javascript and design. Every person who works on a site, must have an in depth understanding of exactly these things. How can you design a site if you have no idea how its going to go together ?

Thats why our designs are pretty good.

There, who needs luck.

HTML/CSS is easy, any designer can pick that up in a year.

There are far more important skills that a designer should have over understanding browser quirks. Those are the questions that good designers look for in clients.

For ex. Do you have examples of sites successfully deploy that customers are interacting with on a daily basis? Do they believe in a/b testing + iterating or doing huge lengthy "expert" driven projects? What are your favourite sites designed by other people?

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