Why I Like Veerle Pieters

Digital Web Magazine recently interviewed Veerle Pieters and I really liked some of the answers over there. I liked it so much that I want to share it here and remind myself as well as any designer they should be proud to be a designer whether or not others respect them as one in Malaysia.

Veerle who runs duoh! and her own personal blog is one of the celebrities in website design who designs very well and supports website standards as well. She’s spoken at two SXSW conferences sharing her insight and giving words of advice to other budding website designers. Without further due, I’ll tell you why I like Veerle Pieters after reading the interview.

Digital Web: Do you have any advice for us about charging clients?

Veerle Pieters: I think the price you charge can be divided into two parts: talent and experience. They are both important, but I guess talent is the most important one. The more experience you get over the years, the faster and the more efficient your working process will become. If I look at the time I spend to convert a site into CSS-based web pages now, compared to two years ago, I spend only one-third of that time. There isn’t any magical formula to calculate your hourly rate. My advice would be don’t charge too low, just charge fair and definitely never exaggerate. I also use different rates for jobs that need to be done by yesterday and ones where I need to sacrifice what is left of my weekend, or fast-paying clients versus late-payers.

We share the same belief that quotations should not only be honest but it should be based on reasonable items like the talent, experience and time. The talent that Veerle didn’t really mention about to me speaks about the ‘special something’ you carry in your work. It’s sometime not visible but you can feel it.

Though your experience have helped you cut down on the work time, you should be rewarding yourself a little more for the dedication and experience you’re putting into your customers work for them. The time issue is something both sides need to understand and an imbalance treatment can destroy a business relationship.

DW: What are some telltale signs that a web designer needs more design education?

VP: Those sites mostly lack finesse. You can tell from looking at certain details. For example, not enough breathing room and spacing, or the wrong use of colors. You get the feeling that everything is thrown on the page, or that things look rather unbalanced. You can tell if the person has an eye for design or has talent, or not. Talent can evolve; you can improve a lot by learning things, but the basic talent must be there. You either have it or you don’t. You can improve your talent, but you can’t create it if you don’t have it. If you don’t, well, it’s just pointless. For example, some people in my class were advised to leave the school and look for another direction.

Clear example of how to differentiate a website that’s been done by a designer and an accountant. To me, though graphic designers are designers, they normally only have one specialization; print or web. If they’re in print, that ‘special thing’ they bring online feels a little different.

Veerle’s interview reminds me to be confident as a website designer and to also expand on my existing skills with some of the new things that’s current now; like Document Object Model (DOM) and others.

Have you recently liked anyone?