For website designers isn’t the same as what it might’ve been 5-10 years ago when the Internet boom was still on. This post is a follow up to an already great article that has been posted by my buddy; Muid, over HERE. It was a concise explaination of the designers industry in Malaysia through his experience working and freelancing. A very respected website designer with very strong connections to his designs. :)
Our quotations and invoices seem to be rejected every time we send to them. What was the reason behind all this? They acclaimed that RM1,500 for a website is too much, leaving us completely berserk.
Following up the quote he made, I’d just like to say that that is now somewhat a dream price every freelancer wants for each project. I am dead serious that the prices requested by clients in the freelance world doesn’t normally come up to even RM1,000. Unless with reason that you’re doing some full fledge Flash website or dynamically driven website for them.
The world of earning an average RM1,000 per simple HTML website has been left in the middle of Dr.Mahathir’s leadership era. Now, with the increase of unemployed graduates with some turning freelance, the business is ever more competitive especially in price. Some have sunk so low that they merely charge RM10 per page for a website project. Is the client happy? Of course, they are. But ever questioned why and how can that be?
Simple. Clients only focus on things that look nice. They don’t take in concern how it affects the overall experience to their website. They also don’t mind if the design looks similar to an example because it looks nice.
If you’ve followed me so far, there have been two aspect as to why the website development market has plunged so low. It’s been created by freelancers who just perform projects to survive in the world and it’s by clients who just don’t appreciate design. Muid had mentioned in his post too on how experimental design isn’t accepted by the people still living under a rock or in peribahasa (or was it pepatah), “katak duduk dibawah tempurung”.
I’m adapting to the change of trends ever so often in Malaysia but will maintain principles I’ve already set when taking on a project. I just won’t tolerate clients who expect to add another designer to help spoil the market. If we (designers) as well as the general public who are our real clients, don’t work together to shift the market in Malaysia, arts and design might be in deeper waters towards extinction.
Do you think clients will ever change?
I didn’t dive in any freelance deal before. Some question about 1.5k per website. Isn’t that freelancer claims the quotation by man days and estimated before project kick start? What is the valid reason any client can simply dispute the deal after its done…
Well, you see. The proposal was sent out for the client to consider. That’s the way it works. When I was interning, project managers(pms) had to convince clients to pass the project to us. However, problems occured since the pms were only given word of approval. Then the company started implementing of a ‘sign-off’ policy to curb some problems in workflow.
I’m not sure how Muid calculated the project but I trust his calculations. But like I mentioned, if it was just a HTML website, than I might’ve agreed RM1.5k is alittle lot to ask.
Our economy is a Chinaman’s economy. Besides GLCs, most of the companies big enough to need some sort of design related services are typical Chinaman companies. Though they may not all be owned or run by the Chinese, but IMHO the Chinaman personifies what the average mid sized company is like.
It’s looking to make more money, kiasu and wants a hell of a lot for very little, knows very little about modern PR but thinks advertising is the magic bullet that will solve all its problems and the benchmark for everything is the almighty balance sheet.
Now I will dare say that this horrible mentality is actually a product of our culture, traditions and our upbringing. We are taught from young to grow up, get a job, get rich and nurture a family. Very rare do you have parents who say, it doesn’t matter if you get rich or have a family, you must have a worthwhile goal in life and grow old achieving it.
Hence while companies elsewhere focus on doing something worthwhile and hopefully make money, companies here focus on doing anything to make money.
So until our collective mentality becomes more liberal and less selfishly introverted, the situation here won’t change.
Your ending comment has made me believe that the reason designers and clients might be doing this is because they’re cowards. Which I’m not complaining.
The low designers are scared to demand or have a fair discussion of trading services with clients. They hide their cowardly behaviour by their confusion of either pricing things high or low. Most fresh freelance designers have no idea what to do in most situations so their reactions when clients ask to lower the price is automatically triggered. They are just too scared to lose the client.
As for the clients, I can’t deny the fact that most freelancers might have to deal with some selfish ones starting out. I guess it’s part of the learning journey. However, I think some clients too are just scared to be cheated so they try to be more demanding.
One of the principles I practice is to explain to the project to clients on a similar level. Explain the reason of cost and just be transparent on dealings with them.
There is so much you can only do since some clients can’t be switched over. But trying is an effort that sparks change. :)
I’ve always thought we should have a transparent and informative guide on how to go about on doing quotations for various design services. We do not yet have a standardised system, so clients naturally will choose to go for the cheapest. Then there are some designers who do not really know how much to charge for their services, thus pulling down the value of the industry even further.
Em, the company i currently worked for charge probably over 7500USD for each website project. Thing is, in US, website is probably everything to a client. From the backend, to the e-comm, to defensive design (e.g. oops product page cannot be found), of cuz design and usabiliity and accessibility. Its a main source for revenue and customer interaction (high internet access percapita).
In malaysia, clients (not all) just want to put up a page to show that they have a webpage and smth to brag about. ‘so do you guys use xml?’ is the kind of question probably often asked by a tauke to a website designer just to show that they know ‘some’ stuff too.
If you can see why and what a good website can do to you, the monetary budget is almost a secondary issue. Even danny know how much i charge during my freelancing time while in U.
Its hard to find a quality client, but once you find it, they remind you on how much you love web design. :)
@Strizzt:
you are good my friend. love your stuff. :) as for a standardized system..hmm, I might blog about that later on my view of it cause I feel it should be interesting to here views on it.
@alvin:
you got my vote on the ‘tauke’. LoL! If all Malaysian clients knew about the real value a functional well designed website can benefit them, our average cost of a website would be starting at RM1,000 again. ;)
So what we really need is a designers association. Just like how there is the Institute of Chartered Accountants for CPA’s, the Bar council for Lawyers and MMA for Doctors, we need like a ‘Professional Design Council’ or soemthing and publish recomended price structure…
Well said Danny, your article also inspired me :)
Like Alvin said: “In Malaysia, clients (not all) just want to put up a page to show that they have a webpage and smth to brag about.” That’s exactly the situation. Sometimes it’s office politics where this head (stakeholders) just want to impress their boss that they work on something ‘new’ but don’t the overall aspect.
You Danny, and I among all are really, really concern about “User Interfaceâ€, Site comparability and how it is to update that site from time to time, not just look and feel (design). We are here to create rationale in what we do and my quotation in industry has considered one of the lowest compared to other top web designers around or web agency who would only look for big client cause any site development done by an agency would cost more than RM10,000 where we are talking about professional work over here. But in Malaysia, things don’t change too soon, we always 10 years behind of things because people cannot accept changes.
But that’s just the way it goes, I have to ‘swallow’ everything in order to keep me survive. Perhaps you can imagine if you are married and have two kids with a house to pay, would you still considered to charge a site for RM1,500 after all these years you have increase your capability, skill set and experience as a designer.
Probably my mind isn’t living in the real world. Or it’s just the Melbourne chillies up in my brain. I’m just thinking that we(Malaysians) sometimes are too weak to think that that are only a small hand of opportunities around us.
You, Muid, who’ll always be my all time friend, I think you’re really good in what you do and have personalised your style. Not like me and some who’ve more or less copy stuff. ;)
I feel that if you really took some time off and talk with some people about what you should start doing with your life, you might be able to come up with a new business plan to succeed. :)
I know it might sound like a dream, but that’s a small advantage us freelancers have. We are able to manage our projects with freedom to explore into a different world. Hence, the normal scenario of web designer who’s day job might be a secretary maybe.
Sorry if it sounded harsh as it isn’t the intention here. Just keeping an open mind and reminding myself that we sometimes make our own opportunities. :)
Cheers and thanks for visiting, Muid.