Looking to pay someone to design my website for me

[ZeeJustin]

Half a year ago I started to design a website, and realized that even with the help of dreamweaver, I'm too incompetent to do it myself. Here is the stuff that I would like on the website:

Intro: My name is Justin Bonomo. I'm 19 years old, and I'm a professional poker player from Washington Dc. (insert pic of me at the table)
Blog (One that I'll add to several times every week, and maybe even more often during tourneys)
Articles (I'll write a few strategy articles, one about rakeback, bankroll management, and I'll try to get an article from Dave Williams, Noah Boeken, Jennicide, and other "poker celebs" im friendly with)
A biography of me
Site and/or book reviews (along w/ banners and amazon affiliate links)
A forum (Eventually when the site gets some decent traffic, but not right away)
Photo Gallery (I have some nice pics from Aruba, Atlantis, and the EPTs)

As a frame of referance, I think Daniel Negreanu's site is perfect in just about every way.

If you can help me out, please email me at ZeeJustin@cox.net . Sending a quick "sketch" of the layout you have in mind for the site would be very helpful. I'm not sure what exacly is fair payment, I guess it will depend on the final quality, but I won't be stingy. Also, I would like to get most of it up and running before I leave for EPT Vienna (second week of March).

If you are interested in reading my website, check out the 2+2 classified adds in a couple of weeks. I will buy one when the site is in readable condition.
-thanks in advance
-Justin Bonomo

[Benal]

I'm sure there are many companies that specialize in this. Do a quick Google search for website design. Dealing with a company rather than an individual may prevent a few headaches.

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm sure there are many companies that specialize in this. Do a quick Google search for website design. Dealing with a company rather than an individual may prevent a few headaches.

[/ QUOTE ]

My experience, having paid a lot of people and companies to do a lot of different design jobs, is pretty much exactly the opposite. If the scope of the project is small enough for an individual to do and you can find a good one (and for web design everyone will have an online portfolio anyway), it's IMO way better to work one-on-one with a competent freelancer.

[turnipmonster]

I agree with this advice 100%. dealing with a company is going to almost guarantee you pay too much and have less flexibility, especially regarding ongoing support. much better to find a competent freelancer.

[Rob Blackburn]

You should get that Traceone guy who did the sick bookcovers to do it.

[Maulik]

Check this out lots of hungry designers (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?s=786a2af2ef3ab561d929447452fed45 b&forumid=48).

Also, someone from school is interested, have you already found someone for your job?

[sublime]

Hey Justin-

PM JoeTall, I am think either his roomate or one of his bets friends designs web pages. I am sure he can help you out somehow.

Mike

[Edge34]

I was gonna say PM Schneids. He's done website design before, and from what I can see is pretty friggin' good at it.

(Plus, maybe he'd give me a small cut for the referral, hehe....)

[shant]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm sure there are many companies that specialize in this. Do a quick Google search for website design. Dealing with a company rather than an individual may prevent a few headaches.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is actually incorrect. I am a web designer, and I've worked for web design companies and larger corporations. The web design companies I worked for charged more money, spent less time on each client, and just generally you get less for your money.

An individual web designer, working on freelance, usually works at an hourly rate, so you're paying for what you get, and if it's small enough for one guy to handle, like this project is, it's much better to have one freelance guy do it. Also, the client, also being one person in this case, doesn't need to deal with emailing project managers and having to go through five people to get to the designer.

I'll PM you ZeeJustin.

[Dangergirl]

I've used rentacoder.com for small programming projects and it worked well for me. The nice thing about it is programmers will bid on your project. You can usually get a nice job done pretty cheaply because you get several programmers from other countries. The majority of them are on aim or messenger, so you can reach them easily.