Frequently Asked Questions (Or: I have no idea what's next)

OK. So you're pretty sure that you want me to do a webpage for you, but you're clueless about what comes next. This page is to make you slightly less clueless. But not too much.

Q: So... what do I do now?

A: Look at what's below.

1. You need to get hosting. There are lots of hosting companies- these are groups that keep your site on their servers and make it available online 24/7. It's like this: you are a product, I help design and dress the product up, and the hosting company is the display window that you rent to show your product all the time. I recommend going here: www.bluehost.com they don't annoy me nearly as much as a lot of the other companies- they're also cheap and user friendly.

2. Once you've signed up for hosting they will send you an email with a username, password and other FTP upload information. You don't really need to know what this is, just forward that entire email to me.

3. Pay me a starting fee. This is a$75-100 fee for me to start your website- considering how little I'm charging it's really the least you can do to make me feel like your not going to ditch me here. You know, I just give and give and give...

4. I strongly suggest signing up for a digital drop box. It's free, and it makes it so we can pass large files like images, music, etc. back and forth with ease. go to www.dropbox.com and sign up. It's easy.

5. Now we can get to work. Collect your media and put it in there. ZIP it up if you need to. Write me a file or email describing EVERYTHING about your website... unless you just want me to do it.

THINGS TO TELL ME ABOUT IN THAT EMAIL: color schemes, general layout, navigation bar titles, contact table information, fonts that you like, what you want your logo to look like, sites that sort of want your website to look like.

Please note: don't be absurd by referencing a $10,000 site and expect me to make it in a week for $150.

In the words of the Black Eyed Peas.. let's get it started. OK... that's not really what they said, but really, I think the cleaner radio mix of that song is better anyway.

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Q: OK, so I don't know what you mean by color schemes, general layout, navigation bar titles, etc.... can you explain that better?

A: Here's a little diagram to assist in understanding terms I use. This example is taken from the site www.stephanieriversmusic.com. Feel free to visit it to take a look at a bigger example:

So, you would send me an email that looks something like this:

Background image: oh.. i think i want it plain black, but maybe with a photo of me?

Logo: Something that's all text, looks sort of modern. Oh, I want it to say Stephanie Rivers Music. cool?

Nav Bar: I want a Home, bio page, upcoming shows page, music page, press page, gallery and contact page.

within those pages I want...

Content: I want white text and some images.

Content Box: I want a black sort of text box with white lettering.... maybe gray.

The overall vibe i want is something modern but functional with a dark color scheme. I like arial and georgia fonts- whatever, just something that doesn't distract. Here are a few sites that I like...