bacon sandwich? mind sending that across the pond? i am a bit hungry..

and on the side of that site.. HOLY CRAP.. that is very cool.. very nice setup.. i would have never guessed that it's a vb powered site either until i saw the statement at the bottom of the page.. quite impressed.. a bit much as far as in your face data is concerned, but almost every travel site is.. so i would expect it in almost the same fashion.. i actually like that..

Wow, that is what I first thought: did Dean C post the wrong url? Really breathtaking! I agree with you that many designers nowadays focus too much on flashy items instead of on professionalism :ermm:

thats not exactly true, alot of my friends that i know that are designers are more professional based like me...its just you got to know who to go to if you want certain things...but considering that more people who are internet based go for the more modern "techy" look, they get more credit...

Yes, maybe I should differentiate more. At least most designs by the "commonly known" vB-designers are very tech-related and don't necessarily work for a professional community.

i am sometimes at a loss for words when comes to getting across the idea of what i want to see.. i know in my head what i want.. i fully expect a professional designer to translate for me.. the good ones are those that take the abstract and bring it all together.. those who make true style out of true sh#t..

that is what i want in a designer.. and that takes time.. and generally costs a ton of money.. but in the end, you have to evaluate your overall needs and useability vs cost for such features.. because after all, a nice design is simply a feature.. albeit the most necessary to keep people happy and coming back..

Dameon White does still design, you just have to get in touch with him.

DesignDevise isn't exactly no more, maybe just on the rocks at the moment.

There's also vBDesk. Produce some excellent work, even though the site currently looks a bit iffy in Mozilla. :D

Chris, can you post or PM me some examples of vBDesk's work?

lol, good luck to everyone who makes skins in this thread, i hate making skins personally :D

although my vb3 skin for my site is gonna win vBotM when i finally launch it.

as my msn name says
:D :nervous:

Heh I also hate making skins. It is not the programming/template part that I despise, but the designing part itself.

I have a lot of respect for web designers who manage to design a COHERENT-looking, professional webpage. It is easy to create a nice looking button with Photoshop, or perhaps a gradient for category headers, but it is very difficult to integrate everything to make it look like one piece. Trust me, I tried many times to become "creative" - but failed miserably at the end.

Also, 13th disciple said an important thing: a good designer must be able to "translate" what I am looking for. I think this is the scary part, if you don't know the designer well that you are going to hire. Well you can say something like "I like the way Corey designed webhostingtalk.com", and with a lot of luck the designer is going to deliver something that looks alike, and is yet unique.

Alex

well, i put paris holley through a bit of sh#t today.. got him to design a single button for me.. after 6 or 8 tries, he got it.. but i also gave him the gig.. so he is gonna do me some custom buttons for my site.. may get into other works as well as long as everything goes good.. the only thing i asked was for complete cutom stuff that i need not see anywhere else on the internet..

kinda like the vB.org deal.. having the psd files is a good thing..

but he was able to listen, to put up with me, and now, he will make a quick sum for knocking me out some buttons.. i used to be a heavy believer int he internet.. for communication.. i am a very firm believer in face to face.. without that, we might as well all be drones.. so getting ideas on to paper, so to speak, is tough.. getting someone to then understand that, well, it's damn near impossible.. the deal is that most people won't stop long enough to listen to requirements or listen to ideas.. they are too quick to jump on their own ideas.. but if someone pays you for something and says they want it to look a certain way, doesn't matter if it's crap or not, make what they want, get paid, go away..

enough rambling.. time for a game of UT2004.. and thanks for the buttons, Paris..