Are Our Trusted Designers fooling us about "cushions&q

[pianist718]

Hi,

We had a site designed by our designers. Everything looks nice, BUT if you view our site in resolution 800 x 600 there is absolutely no space (cushion) on left and right sides of the page.

So basically, it doesn't look too good. I mentioned it to them and here is the reply I got.

----

Thank you for your reply. We have just discussed this issue with our designers today evening and it seems like quite a difficult fix at this stage of the project. As per the internet standards all websites are designed at a fixed pixel size of 780 pixels to make it uniformely appear on all screen resolutions above 800 X 600. In order to make a "Cushion" appear on the sides of all the pages we'll be required to reduce the size of over 150 PHP files, with 780 pixels width which make take us 1 week (minimum) to implement.

Moreover, this would also affect the alignment of all pages and their table structures which may further take us 1 week to re-align properly hence, we
do not recommend implementing this change at all. Still, in case you need to get the re-alignment of all pages done, we shall be charging $1500 additional for this as this includes minimum of 15 man days of work and we would be required to re-build all pages from scratch.
-----------

So ... what do you think?

[grease]

I can understand why the designer would need to charge for this additional work. Scaling a website's structure is very close to starting all over. Who is your target audience and what screen size would they most likely have? 1024X768 is quickly becoming the new standard for most of our sites - but as a compromise we generally try to have a little cushion for an 800X600. You will be hard pressed to find a design that looks perfect with any resolution. Fixing a websites central structure is a great way to maintain control and display the site as you intended. There are many scalable website advocates out there who will argue otherwise. Visit their own sites and you'll get your answer ;)

[oneofthe3lions]

Or it could possily be a crock of shit... Using correct tools they should be able to edit the index page and that in turn redo al inside pages of your site all at once.

Also, the majority of sites will resize themselves for viewing at most screen resolutions. Difficult to say without seeing the site itself.

I presume this is a business, corporate site tho if you are paying those kinds of fees, so as Grease states, 800x600 is only for old crappy pc's in reality not modern businesses etc with the norm being as stated.

[grease]

If the designer has any sense they will not need to edit all 150 pages. They would have used a template or runs those pages dynamically. This is not to say that redesiging the template is worthy of that price.

[evodio]

In the future, it would be a good idea to ask your designers that your site not be so static, so you don't have to touch 150 files just to make a simple change to the master template width. Most sites rarely see anything beyond a 3-tier template structure, consisting of a home page template, main category landing page template and a content page template. Any differentiation within each of these templates (i.e. if you have a different look and feel for multiple, level-2 product pages) can be addressed easily with includes that pull in the proper UI "wrapper" assets that you need for each respective page.

Had the foundation been laid more properly, this should have been a two hour task for the template tweaking, and approx. another 8 hours for the graphics rework if any.

Looking on the bright side, the project fee they want is not steep at all, so you should try to work it out amicably with your designer/programmer, and move on with business. I'm positive when I tell you that the shrinking 800 x 600 user segment is used to dealing with far worse than the horizontal scrolling bar creating an eye sore for you. When you redesign your site again, consider using a more dynamic template structure.

[Steve W]

I don't know how 'clever' your php pages are, but one of the main reasons for using php besides grabbing flat files or db data is to make it easier to mod pages across a site?

Looks like another example where CSS would have made resizing the page width a piece of cake (changing one line of one file changes 1000 page widths or however many pages are on your site, sweet huh) - though font size might need a tweak (another line or three) to sort out any repagination that might cause the site to look ugly.

However, It can be frustrating when clients change their minds after something is agreed, but then it's fair enough to charge - unless the page width wasn't made clear earlier in the project of course, in which case a compromise from the designer is in order :o)

What kind of site is it?

[athula]

Have to agree with Steve - CSS is the way to go. pianist718, if you post the site URL we might be able to see the problem and suggest a work around.

[rocky1]

Personally, I think they should have used a fluid layout to begin with if using tables, replacing fixed pixel with percentage based width in all width settings throughout the page. Then the tables would have resized regardless of resolution and there wouldn't be a problem.

Although I would agree with comments offered previously that given the size of the site, there should be a template, or they should have used CSS to simplify changes to the layout, regardless of what the situation may be in that respect, if they used fixed pixel width in tables throughout the site, those width settings are absolute and there's nothing you can do with it except fix each one, unless the tables in question are all applied in the template.

As for the cost of revisions, without looking at the pages I'd be hard pressed to offer an opinion in that respect. But, their project scope presents only 10 pages of revisions a day. Unless those pages are loaded with numerous tables to sort out of code and revise, that seems a little far fetched to me. I would think they should be able to accomplish a wee bit more than that in a day!

Regardless... I would suggest that you inquire about their setting up a CSS driven template and converting the pages to template while making the needed revisions, if they are fairly consistent in layout, so that should you ever want to make revisions to the site again, you don't have to deal with 780 pages again, you simply deal with one!

[ADAM Web Design]

An absolute crock, as someone mentioned earlier.

If the designers had any idea of what they were doing, your site would not have required 150 PHP pages. The whole point of PHP and other server-side programming languages is to display dynamic content (i.e. content of a similar nature, but with slight differences like the products in a store). So I don't buy that, unless your site is extremely complex, which isn't likely or you would have an in-house design team.

But...even if it were true...and let's assume it is...the designers should have an editor that would perform an extended find and replace. All they have to do is replace the "780" parts with "760", spend an hour or two checking things, and they're good to go.

So...$1500 is a bigtime ripoff, and you should not be required to pay it.

[mtheory]

Sounds like you have some serious communication problems with your designer. The resolution issue should have been addressed long before multiple pages were constructed.

[Orion]

Ask your designers if they use any actual text editor or wysiwyg beyond note pad to code. Pretty much all of them have a find and replace function.

find width="780px"
replace with="96%"

It's not that difficult a job if they put their mind to it.

I can't believe building in PHP they don't have a top.php and bottom.php file that is included, then you only edit that one file.

Or use SSI for static HTML sites.

Oh and shall we put in a plug for no tables, use Divs and CSS?

When I started designing 8 years ago, the 15" monitor was new on the scene and people were starting to venture beyond the 640x480 layout into the 800x600 layout. At that time it was accepted that you ALWAYS designed sites that would resize to fit your resolution. We either coded tables using % or you used some javaScript to determine resolution and adjust which page to display based on that. After a year or so 800x600 was way in the majority for resolution. Everything became static. Now however more than ever 800x600 static sites only show narrow mindedness or short-sightedness. Consumers today in the business world are still using 15" monitors at 800x600 but at home most of us are on 17" or larger and anyone with a laptop just varies from 1024x768 to the more and more common 1280x800 wide screen layouts. Have you ever looked at a site designed for 800x600 on a browser (maximized) on a screen running 1280x800 it's almost comical.

Once again.. just my 2cents...<stepping down off soapbox>.. next person's turn =o)

[hotwired]

Hi
I design most of my sites with a javascript file that chooses between two style sheets. One for 800x600 and one for the rest. Incidentally 760 pixels should indeed leave a margin on either side in 8x6. In each style sheet I use a class for "main" table and "header and footer" tables and I use 830 for the big and 760 for the smaller rez. This allows me to have control on how things display. I'm happy to share this with your designers. Depending on how it's setup they can probably just do a simple "search and destroy, er, I mean replace".

[Janet]

I'm interested in someone posting the Javascript to test for browser resolution and then the loadup of the appropriate style sheet. How about it hotwired?

[Steve W]

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
var width = screen.width
var height = screen.height
document.write("You're set to "+width+ "X" +height+"")
</SCRIPT>

That's the essence of it, put that in your page to see it working.
To deliver different style sheets, you'll need to put it in your header (drop the output line) and query the width variable with an if statement and then use document.write to place the correct stylesheet in the header.

Personally, I'd use php for the writing the stylesheet part as it's not client dependent and you'll always serve something you want... i.e. if the width variable comes back empty (no javascript support) serve 8x6 stylesheet...

Any help, or do you need explicit code?

[vinod79]

Let me tell you one thing. From what you posted, it seems the company who designed your website don't know how to design a website using css and/or template system. If he had used a template system, he could have completely kept the design and application different. So changing the design at one place would have gave the website a cmplete diferent look. Even he would have used css prpoerly, changing the css file should have solve the problem.

Not only that, he could have created the css files dynamically, depending upon the browser size of the visitor. Charging $1500 for that small change (big for that company, because of improper planning of site) is too much. It is a job, that can be done in 1 hour if it would have been coded properly.

[davebarnes]

pianist718,

1. Your designers were lying when they made this statement: "as per the internet standards all websites are designed at a fixed pixel size of 780 pixels". There is no such "internet standard". I say this AND i design most of my sites to be a fixed width of 780 pixels.

2. Don't redo the site. This http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2005/September/res.php will tell you that number of 800x600 screens is declining and you can probably ignore them.

,dave

[ADAM Web Design]

I beg to differ. Declining or not, 26% is still too high a number to be ignored.

[grease]

If you want the site to be aethesically successful he/she will not be able to redesign in 1 hour. A professional grid system for your newly designed site layout will take much longer. If you want an functionally fluid but aethstiectlly boring site you may he may be able to pull it off in a few hours. Personally I would not consider 1500.00 extensive for a well-designed site - but then again, I have no idea what kind of site we are talking about.

[greeneagle]

Pianist,

Some developers design for the absolute minimum 544 (or whatever it was in ancient history) using browser safe colors with an extremely limited palette.

That's a bit ridiculous now unless someone is marketing to the backwoods in 3rd world countries, or some other fictional market, these days.

I used to include the Netscape 4 resize javascript fix on all my sites, but I stopped around a year ago after observing the % users still lost in that domain.

Very few visitors still use the 800x600 screen resolution, particularly within your clientele base. If you don't have to contend with horizontal scroll bars....it's really a non-issue here, in my opinion.

Ken

[dragsternj]

Usually i am a silent reader but with all due respect reading this really angers me.

I checked out the sites from some of the loudest here and have to say that you guys would not see design if it bit you. For your sites it doesn't matter if they stretch acoss the whole screen or not, because they are not layed out in any way or in its simplest form (3 column layout) with mainly text and no images.

If i have a lot of images and want to control how the site looks and the text flows i can not go with a floating layout. Or the site will start looking all over the place. The only thing i can do is to plan this during the initial design phase, and let the client know that he looses somewhat control over the layout.

Just go to a site like http://www.macys.com and picture it floating, it would look like a desaster.

So if the site is layed out for a certain resolution it will look like intended only in this resolution, and 800x600 is acceptable. These discussions with the desiger should have made from the start, and they should have presented a prototype which you should have signed off upon. I have to agree that 100+ pages shoukd be template based, but also here, who am i to tell other people how to work.

And without seeing how this is laid out, noone can tell you that it is simple to do over.

This is no good advise.

[ADAM Web Design]

dragsternj: the Macy's logic simply doesn't apply in most cases.

They have an advantage that most companies don't have; they can use their offline brand recognition and customer base to establish its online presence. Your average mom and pop operation can't do that.

Their best (and in many cases only, depending on budget) alternative is to prepare the site in such a way as to optimize it for the search engines. And this means mostly text, no images.

There are ways to accomplish a fluid layout using images and no text (pixel-stretch graphics, the little-used SVG, etc.) but again, the text is important stuff and shouldn't be ignored.

As far as not knowing how the site is laid out, you're dead right. Not one of us knows how this site is laid out. None of us have even seen this site. This is absolutely true.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut...

Many of us who have done extensive amounts of server-side web programming (and I suspect you're not someone who has) know that using include files, cascading style sheets, and using a minimal number of pages for dynamic content means a well-structured site that is easy to maintain. Clearly, if the designers are claiming they have 150 PHP pages that they've used for the site, they haven't done so.

The whole point of languages like PHP and ASP is that they're supposed to take mundane client-side programming tasks and make them easier in terms of maintenance using server-side programming.

So there's nothing wrong whatsoever with the advice anyone has given that happens to see this. If anything, yours might have given the person who asked for it a bit of a bum steer.

[grease]

Dragsternj, I couldn't agree more. It is so easy for a so called webDESIGNER to overfunctionalize their site to the point that it is so ugly that no one cares to function with it.

Designers are the layout/text/graphic/white space/etc.. professionals. They should present the content in the way they intended. The easiest way to do this is to set fixed components. Dynamic elements and CSS should be used to compliment a set structure, but all too often 'fluid' designers let their style sheets do the thinking. They get over obsessed with the flexibility of the site and lose sense of the sites real purpose - to communicate a message. Their sites break the most basic design principles. They view screen space as real estate that needs to be filled up, rather than taking advantage of clarity and white space. They stretch tables and text to the edges of the screen - making the tables look awkward and unbalanced and the text illegible with such line lengths. Is there a future in fluid designs? Absolutely, but we are not there yet. Those who push this type of site tend to lack the design and branding expertise to make it work and those that do have these skills have yet to move beyond a style that works.

[MarcGrobman]

Wow, what controversy!

I'm a little shocked at the black and white nature of the responses here. None of us have seen this site and we don't know how complicated it is. Yes, some sites can be whipped together with CSS. Others are more graphically intense.

I have a lot of sympathy with the designer here -- adjusting the design after a website has been completed is a lot of work. It requires redesiging the site, presenting the redesign to the client and then rebuilding perhaps hundreds of graphics. If there is any complicated programming, edits may need to be made in multiple places. Yea, MAYBE it would just require a couple of tweeks to the CSS. But if it is a well designed site, I doubt it.

Yes, at first glance this sounds like a lot of money for this, but, even with templates and css, this takes time. If the client approved the design before it was built, the designers are justified to request additional fees to fix it.

And, yes, I agree that the designers probably botched their communication here or this wouldn't have happened in the first place.

[infovision]

I suggest you to use 100% width for the last TD, So that your website automatically resize according to available width. Remember, don't apply this if you have image on the right side of your website because it will stretch when you open the website into 1024 x 768 resolution.

[MtraX]

Hi

I agree it's quite difficult to judge this case. We don't have anything to judge, to be honest, except the client who got a figure that the designer gave him. All clients tend to moan about price if and when they don't understand what's involved in doing the upgrade.

This brings me to the topic of clear communication between client and service provider. It can cost your business allot (either way) if you're not articulate in what you want, as client as well as explaining to your client as designer, the ins and outs of your work process.

I've seen this happen so many times, I'm thinking of publishing an article on the topic. Being from a design and development background myself, by the time I ventured into the business side of things my experience gave me perspective.

You have to coach your clients in giving you a proper brief and have stages of signing off your work. Clearly this was not the case.

GREAT WEB DESIGN TIP OF THE DAY: When giving clients previews of designs, put it within a 800x600 pixel browser frame, so they can exactly see what they'll be getting...and sign that off.

MtraX

[MarcieZoob]

Pianist,
Is it your LifeStation website you're referring to or something new in development?

If it is your LifeStation site, in reviewing, it looks like you have 25+ php pages. Your designers would need to resize the header graphic and the menu buttons (which are also graphics) to fit into a narrower layout. They would also need to make the layout adjustments to 25+ pages but this can be done with "Find and Replace" very easily. There is work involved but I doubt it's one week's worth...?

[dragsternj]

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

dragsternj: the Macy's logic simply doesn't apply in most cases.

They have an advantage that most companies don't have; they can use their offline brand recognition and customer base to establish its online presence. Your average mom and pop operation can't do that.

Their best (and in many cases only, depending on budget) alternative is to prepare the site in such a way as to optimize it for the search engines. And this means mostly text, no images.

There are ways to accomplish a fluid layout using images and no text (pixel-stretch graphics, the little-used SVG, etc.) but again, the text is important stuff and shouldn't be ignored.

As far as not knowing how the site is laid out, you're dead right. Not one of us knows how this site is laid out. None of us have even seen this site. This is absolutely true.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut...

Many of us who have done extensive amounts of server-side web programming (and I suspect you're not someone who has) know that using include files, cascading style sheets, and using a minimal number of pages for dynamic content means a well-structured site that is easy to maintain. Clearly, if the designers are claiming they have 150 PHP pages that they've used for the site, they haven't done so.

The whole point of languages like PHP and ASP is that they're supposed to take mundane client-side programming tasks and make them easier in terms of maintenance using server-side programming.

So there's nothing wrong whatsoever with the advice anyone has given that happens to see this. If anything, yours might have given the person who asked for it a bit of a bum steer.

We are in business since 8 years and we have done it all, so you are wrong with the suspicion :). That a page is dynamic because its named php or asp is just wrong. A tool like Dreamweaver or GoLive will if a server side code is specified name all pages with extension asp or php. And it doesn't matter because they do not need to be htm(l), so that the site is database driven is also just an assumption. Many people prefer the site not to be databasedriven to avoid things like categorylisting.aspID=17+category=winter+andsoon. Maybe just a date is being displayed on these pages and php has been used to do so. How do we know....

And why do you think that pretty much EVERY mayor site out there is a fixed with site???

So pianist show the site and you get some advise and not some guesswork.

Thanks

[ADAM Web Design]

A custom 404 page will work around the querystring issue, and it's easy enough to do.

I never said that a page absolutely had to be dynamic just because it had the ASP or PHP extension. I said that they were developed for dynamic content.

I also never said that every major site is a fixed-width site. I simply said that the Macy's site can be developed using images because of the company's ability to market offline.

[web_hosting_world]

I completely disagree with dragsternj. Even after 8 years I think he should learn some basics.

Even if you design a site which is graphically enhancing and when the site has about 150 pages, the designer should have some brains to include some server side code and css to minimize any future changes.

[dragsternj]

Originally Posted by web_hosting_world

I completely disagree with dragsternj. Even after 8 years I think he should learn some basics.

Even if you design a site which is graphically enhancing and when the site has about 150 pages, the designer should have some brains to include some server side code and css to minimize any future changes.

Than we don't disagree, but agree. If the site has 100+ pages it should have been designed template based, or sections contained in a database or CSS or a combination. Maybe it has, i don't know because I HAVE NOT SEEN THE SITE. But converting from fixed with layout to a floating one without loosing control over the page layout seems to be something rather hard to do. What should have been done in the first place is a different story.

But you guys are sending a customer to its client with the assumption that the design firm did something wrong, without a shred of evidence. And thats not right.

And even if the design firm or the individual did not design in templates and CSS and SSI and Databases, does a design firm always have to design so a complete siteoverhaul is possible within 5 minutes because they have to assume the client will change their opinion on a monthly basis?

[ADAM Web Design]

Absolutely. One thing I have learned from doing this for so many years is that anyone is capable of coming up with anything, and a site that is coded well will anticipate such behaviour.

Just last month, I had a client make 5 very minor changes to the layout. I don't know where I would have been, had I not put the layout into an include file.

[dragsternj]

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Absolutely. One thing I have learned from doing this for so many years is that anyone is capable of coming up with anything, and a site that is coded well will anticipate such behaviour.

Just last month, I had a client make 5 very minor changes to the layout. I don't know where I would have been, had I not put the layout into an include file.

Good, very happy that you nailed it down so nicely than.

Btw, i checked out one of the sites you "designed" http://www.kastlefireplace.com
The menu falls completely apart in Opera 8, Firefox 1.06 shows all product below your side navigation, when resized under 800x600 the content in the middle overlaps the right navigation (looks especially weird on the contact form). None of the images have ALT tags.. On a Mac using Safari the left Navigation under the search field is completely gone, and thats only by briefly glancing over it.

But fixing it will take you only a minute i guess, not that someone contacts your client because you did it wrong. No offense :)

[Steve W]

@drag

:scathing:

I think Adam should be allowed to see some of your work before replying, otherwise that post was bad form.

How about a sig link or something in your profile?

[qwan]

I think your designer is taking you for a ride. So do not succumb to it.
I only see the designers fault and his explanation shows that they dont know the basics of designing. They dont use template nor css. Even if he is lying i dont think you need to pay anything extra as it is the designers fault for not adopting css for layout or using templates.
You can tell him that you should be held responsible for their ignorance.
And as someone else pointed out there is always the find and replace function in any text editor i think that will work fine all hey have to do is edit one page
The first thing would be ofcourse the width
Then if they have to realign text they can not all that and then just use the find replace funtions for all pages.
And i think 770 is the best size i always use 770X550
They are just trying to fleece you m8 dont even accept. Explain to them about templates and let them know it is their fault that they are not using templates.

[MarcGrobman]

I can't believe you guys are sending this guy back to his designer telling him the designer doesn't know what they are doing. Imagine some of your most difficult clients coming here for advice. Without knowing anything about the website -- has anyone here seen the site?

Imagine, you design a site, present comps, get approval, and then build the site. Imagine, after it is all built, they say that it doesn't look right and they want you to change every page of the site. Yes, you can use templates to make the changes, but there are some graphics that span the width of the header and footer, so you need to change the layout of the whole site.

Yes, you can design some sites so that you can change the width any time you want, but not everybody wants or needs that. Some people don't like sites that expand to the full width of the browser (I don't, but some of my clients do). But changing this after the site is completed is difficult. And for a complex site changes will need to be made in many places.

My advice to the orignial poster -- The site is probably fine! You don't need a wide margin. The site sounds like it is well built. It fills the screen for people with small monitors who are used to viewing the web this way. And it looks great for the majority of viewers with larger monitors. And yes, it will take a lot of work to rebuild a site after it has been completed. It is not an unreasonable amount to ask at this stage of development.

[ADAM Web Design]

It's okay, Steve. I don't mind if someone wants to take a shot like this. If he's got nothing else to possibly defend himself with, he'll have to take this tack. Like you said, though, he hasn't shown his yet (and probably won't, because it's what most people who try this do).

Originally Posted by dragsternj

Good, very happy that you nailed it down so nicely than.

Btw, i checked out one of the sites you "designed" http://www.kastlefireplace.com
The menu falls completely apart in Opera 8, Firefox 1.06 shows all product below your side navigation, when resized under 800x600 the content in the middle overlaps the right navigation (looks especially weird on the contact form). None of the images have ALT tags.. On a Mac using Safari the left Navigation under the search field is completely gone, and thats only by briefly glancing over it.

But fixing it will take you only a minute i guess, not that someone contacts your client because you did it wrong. No offense :)

I love the clue tack. (For those who don't know, it's when you say about a billion things, hoping that one of them is actually right and thereby overrides the other 999,999,999 that are wrong or irrelevant).

And yes, he did get one that I would take semi-seriously: the 800x600 form issue. I will give him credit for that.

The FF product issue: didn't see it, don't know what you're talking about, and I really don't care. When you see the answer below, you'll see why.

Opera 8 and Safari: since you're not from Canada, I wouldn't expect you to know this, so this is a free pass. But...having looked at the site stats thoroughly over the past 3 years of the site's existence, almost nobody visits that is Canadian and has Opera or Safari as a browser. In fact, well voer 90% are IE users (94.8%). Out of approx. 30,000 visitors per month, at most 10 are using either of these browsers, of which at least half I suspect are people like you who aren't in the target market anyway.

As far as the "no alt tags", are you referring to the background images, or the flame image on the top right of the opening page, which does have a null alt tag? Either way, it doesn't matter.

Oh...and the biggest reason why you picking this site apart doesn't mean a thing to me...you picked a site that has tripled my client's business and generates 95% of his leads and sales, despite spending over 10% as much on YP. So yeah, go ahead. It's amusing to me.

[dragsternj]

Adam

I have no reason for some "tactics". You are giving advise to people, badmouthing other designers based on nothing, and on every of your website i can see major functionality flaws, while others are just hillarious and i do have to give you kudos for being able to actually sell it.

You can not just talk the talk, when it comes down to it you have to back it up, and no offense, you clearly can not.

I mean seriously ,what can you do wrong on something like this? http://www.cohensabsay.com/ or http://www.outsourcing-canada.ca/content.asp?CID=2

And when it comes to some simple functionality like here
http://www.juliaphotography.com/Colour.asp#
a mayor browser like firefox doesn't work. and thats just besides looks.

you actually make it happen to "design" for a marketing firm and have 3 pictures on the whole website, UNTIL you find some more hidden somewhere.

and you still critique other firms on what they should do better and give advise on how things should be done. Like my mom always said, "look in the mirror first"

Again, no offense. Really not, my apologies if it did.

P.S.
http://www.libertynamesofamerica.com is not done by you. i know who did it.

[ADAM Web Design]

Originally, that site was done by two people subcontracted by me at a time that I decided to do so (which was, and remains to this day, my biggest mistake). I've been meaning to remove that.

You also picked two sites that were done by two people that were subcontracted by me. In the case of the outsourcing-canada.ca site, that was done for a specific set of guidelines that the customer has laid out and he's quite happy with it.

In fact, BOTH of those sites were done in early 2003, long before FIreFox was even a gleam in more than about 1% of the browser market's eye. And by the way...since you're making the assumption that the stats are the same across all countries, FF has barely made a dent outside of the design community in Canada.

So go ahead...keep trying. Actually, none of the new stuff that I've done since going back to being independent (save for kastlefireplace.com) is in there right now. But good luck. Really.

And speaking of "not backing it up"...like Steve W said, where's YOUR backup? It's real easy to turn around and say what you're saying with nothing showing. Until you do, you're just spouting off at the lip.

"You can not just talk the talk, when it comes down to it you have to back it up, and no offense, you clearly can not." Sound familiar?

[just-trying-to-help]

Now Now Gentlemen,

In case you have forgotten, this is a "Graphics & Design Discussion Forum" where things are meant to be discusses not critiqued.

It shouldn't be turned into a "my dad can beat up your dad" discussion.

Everyone has strong and weak points to their profession and it is impossible to be perfect at everything.

Except for ctabuk,
He's my hero.

[MarcGrobman]

Agreed -- dragsternj was quite brutal. At the same time I understand the point -- how can anyone in this forum tell someone else's client that their designer doesn't know what they are doing. Dragsternj was, very undiplomatically, pointing out that none of us are perfect and it is really unfair to tell someone to second guess their designer. We should be supporting each other here and that includes when we are dishing out advice to other designers' clients.