Typical cost of Wordpress CMS website design?

craptakular · 27 Sep 2010 at 20:42

I am building some websites in joomla and am going to buy a program called Artisteer to build nice templates for my site, but I think for my "major" project I am going to need to hire someone.

From a complexitity point of view, the website would be simple. I want to convert wordpress into a proper website and still use it's blog abilities.

Basically I would need the pages/articles setup, social network plugin, and theme/logo designed, not a free one that's tweaked.

I found some companies that have come recommended, but unsure how these long thse things take.

So how many hours does it take to make a logo, a theme, setup a static frontpage, 5-6 other static pages displaying texts and a data table, which I have found a plugin for anyway so we can manage the content in the backend ourselves.

I was thinking 10 hours... is this realistic? One guy has done very similar sites, in layout terms so I would expect he would simply use his old work as a template, change some colours and do a new logo then sell it to me, or am I being naive?

Also is it usually acceptable for me to get the website files as I want to host it on my own server and my own domain. I guess if a wordpress update fudges anything and I can't fix it by updating 3rd party plugins I would simply have to go back to my design/developer guy and pay him some more monies

craptakular · 28 Sep 2010 at 08:32

Well logo I can get done via friend.

How does it take so long to install a plugin thats available in the community?

Layout wise I already know how I want it laid out and what content goes where.

I'll try do it myself and simply pay for a template.

How designers think they can charge so much I never understand.

Might just use artisteer to get a template knocked up.

Wordpress is all ready installed...

craptakular · 28 Sep 2010 at 08:45

Tripnologist said:
How some people can be so clueless, I'll never understand.

Well explain it to me then!!! It all seems a con to me atm.

craptakular · 28 Sep 2010 at 09:13

ok ok ok , think I may have not said what I wanted correctly.

I want a normal wordpress install where I have a static front page with a two column layout where the main column uses about 80% of the width and the column to it's right to take the remaining 20%.

So main column on front page to have deals, about us paragraph, latest articles post with read more button, essentially 4 extra pages with a similar layout and a blog section.

The "template" doesn't have to be unique to ourselves, we just need something clean and easy to read, I can get my friend to do a clean basic logo, then maybe pay more when we are in profit.

gah I'm just going round in circles hehe, sprry to be so sharp I have been trying to get my head around wordpress all day and alnight and so far joomla is 10000000% easier to use than this, maybe because I'm trying to shoehorn it to do something it isn't made to do....

craptakular · 28 Sep 2010 at 09:16

helium said:
You'll probably pay £1000-2000 i would imagine, send me a pm if you'd like work done, work for a small company in Gloucestershire.

If you outsource to India/China/Russia it will be cheaper but the quality will be far less. Similarly if you already have the design some companies do a 24 hour turn around to code it for you they charge around 500-1000 for the codeing of an existing design.

Well thats out of the question at this stage, if that's the going rate I'll have to go back to joomla and make my own, then when we have made some money we could consider those sorts of costs.

craptakular · 28 Sep 2010 at 12:00

3dcandy said:
Standard Wordpress template called twentyten already has that kind of layout. (Wordpress 3+) With the readily available templates as you said then it should be fairly easy to incorporate something into wordpress, but time is the issue. As said above, getting everything just so is what takes time, not the actual process. If you want to go with wordpress then you will have to take a look at the css, code etc. and work from there. Have you got any examples of what you want or a similiar design?

Example would be:

That kind of layout, complexity and style. Although the content and colours would very different hehe.

I would just nned a table on the frontpage and on another couple of pages.

On the frontpage instead of the "article summarise" I would want our promotions laid out in a grid format in different coloured boxes with a humble link offsite or to our reviews.

I'm starting a college course tonight which teaches very basic web design, i.e. planning it out, basic html and css, from that I can attend the next course up.

Essentially I could design my website in "twentyten" theme myself then commission someone to design me a clean template and basic logo? For the type of fee/costs I can afford right now, or simply use atisteer and get my mate to do a logo?

craptakular · 28 Sep 2010 at 16:29

sliilvia said:
I have built quite a few websites using Wordpress, your best bet is to do it yourself really. There's some great themes out there that are easy to customise and come with the PSD's etc. If you need any assistance feel free to PM me.

yeh off to college now but will probably PM you tommorrow!

craptakular · 29 Sep 2010 at 12:41

so when I create a static page, I assume I will have to use html and css to create text boxes in different positions and insert tables and images in different positions?

craptakular · 29 Sep 2010 at 14:22

ok basically I want to create 10 boxes 2 across with 5 going down, enough for a short 3-4 lines and an image. With a fairly small gap in between them.

where would I start? What book do people recommend for beginners? Looking on amazon now for a html and css guide but unsure about authors and who is good...