What Was She Thinking?!

I decided to take one of the new user-created stylesheets for a spin. When I wanted to revert back to my custom stylesheet, it's been hosed. Ugh. So.. until I get time to go back in and fix the shit, the new design stays. But .. I am not happy about designs that behave in unexpected ways like this. (Yes, I've cleared my browser's cache.) :-(

If foul language bothers you, don't click on the link; just keep moving.

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When you pay a professional for a professional service, it should safely be assumed that you care enough to have quality work done, right? Riiiight. Sometimes, that doesn't appear to be the case. If any of my future or prospective web design clients are reading this, here are a few pointers to make sure our business relationship gets off to a good start, and stays on an even keel.

1. Pay me. Work doesn't start until and unless I get paid. Hey, didn't your momma tell you? It's a dog-eat-dog world out there.

2. Keeping me on the telephone or ICQ for hours on end while you talk aloud to yourself about your design wants and needs, your goals for your web site, and why your nine year old is failing basic math constitutes "consultation." Expect a bill from me for that service. Oh, and see Item 1 above.

3. You wouldn't tell your surgeon how to take out your spleen, now would you? Yet, you'd be amazed at the number of folks (pretty much all of them) who have no problem telling me how to render their site. And these are the same folks who worship at the altar of Cheesy Web Design. See Item 5 below.

4. My graphic artist, the better half of my web design partnership, is just that: an artist. Artists by nature are moody, temperamental, and sensitive creatures. They do not take kindly to being told to rip apart their creations, the very same ones that were done only after careful consideration of all your design wishes and the three hours you spent on chat with ME. While artists suffer, I will not allow this one to suffer at YOUR hands! So if you are going to do that, again, expect another bill. And not only shall I refer you to Item 1 above, but I will also remind you that he gets to charge twice what I do.

5. You can lead a web designer to XML but you can't make him use blinking text. Don't ask me to incorporate cheesy, gay elements into your web design. (Unless your web site is called "Cheesy Web Design Exposed" or something similar.) There are neurons still misfiring in my brain from that really bad web page I stumbled onto back in 1999. You know the one, it has that badly tiled background, clashing text, blinking text, a hideous looping MIDI, and no less than 100 animated gifs parading across the page. And uses frames. If it's this kind of web design you are after, save your money and get your nine year old to do it for free.

6. Learn to count. Your contract specifies that you get two free comps. Two. Not 22. And that you will be billed for anything above and beyond that at our fixed rate. So even if you can't count, rest assured that we can. So expect a bill accordingly. And, yep, you guessed it. See Item 1 above.

7. Changing your mind about the entire layout of the site days before the site goes live after you've signed off on every single detail of the site up to that point is sheer folly. The reason we have site milestones is to give you a chance to change your mind. Now, we don't mind if you change your mind at all. Because we get to charge anew for this new work. (Yeah, we DO; read the freaking contract! And see Item 1 above.)

8. Calling me on the phone at 2AM asking me if you can shoot me two more images to be worked into your banner (after you signed off on it three days ago) not only gets you a new invoice but I might decide (since I don't think too clearly after being woken from a sound sleep) to jack up my rates right about that time. It's called free enterprise and it's the American Way.

9. If you break something on your site, we'll be happy to fix it for you. For a fee. Because I'd be willing to bet my bootleg copy of PhotoShop that you were mucking around in some part of your site you had no clue about, trashed a database, munged a template or did some other evil deed. This kind of stuff is best left to trained professionals, mkay? Or put more bluntly: Leave it the fuck alone! And see Item 1.

10. If you are happy with our work (and why wouldn't you be?), be sure to tell all your friends! Our reputation is built on word of mouth.

To all my wonderful web design clients, who are NOT the source of inspiration for this post,

We appreciate your business. Come see us again!

And to everyone else who wants a kick ass web site, hire us, will ya?

That is all. Carry on.

Yeah, you heard me. Here's your chance. April 5 is the first annual CSS Naked Day. Remove the stylesheet from your web site. If your markup is valid, there shouldn't be much loss. This is not for someone running an e-commerce site obviously, but is great for someone running a personal web site or blog. And of course, the bigger the site, the better!

I plan to participate at joniverse.com, this blog, and jonimueller.com.

I've created a few new banners that you can just drop into some of the existing Opera themes. I've uploaded the images into photo albums.

Fred's Music Themed Designs
There are 16 banners currently available with a music theme.
http://my.opera.com/jonihelp/albums/show.dml?id=38331

Fred's Blue Tabbed Design:
There are 10 banners that I've run through a color filter to match the blue of the existing design.
http://my.opera.com/jonihelp/albums/show.dml?id=38333

But these were specifically colorized to go with Fred's new Opera blog design that every cool blog is wearing these days. They're in the latest photo album. And you can see a demo here.

To all but the "flower" banner, you'll need to add this code to the custom stylesheet so that your blog's title and tagline stand out against the backdrop of the banner:

#top h1 {
color: #fff;
font-size: 20px;
font-weight: normal;
margin: 0px;
overflow: hidden;
padding-top: 18px;
width: 100%;
}

#subtitle {
color: #fff;
font-size: 12px;
margin: 0px;
overflow: hidden;
width: 100%;
}

And you'll have to add this code (editing the PATH to match the file where you've uploaded your custom banner):

#top {
background: url(/community/graphics/users/7/top.jpg) #c1ccd9 left top;
color: #516b92;
font-size: 11px;
height: 195px;
margin: 0px -10px;
text-align: left;
width: 852px;
}

If you have any questions about how to implement these banners or create your own, just send me an email at joni (at) jonimueller (dot) com!