Since my business idea centers around a website, it's important that I get some decent graphics, including a logo. Since I'm doing this on the cheap, I can't afford to hire a graphics designer to do it. And if I could afford Photoshop, I could probably afford to hire a graphics designer. So what's a guy to do?
I started my IT career as a graphical editor for a software company who did things on the cheap. They bought me a copy of JASC software's Paint Shop Pro to use. Since I'm not a graphic designer I have no idea what bells and whistles it may be missing, but it was more than sufficient for what I was doing.
Later on I took on the company's customer newsletter, which required even more photo editing. With Paint Shop Pro I was able to produce credible graphics, my magnum opus being a picture of our company's new headquarters, complete with our sign, a flag on the flagpole, and the landscape looking nice and tidy. The thing is, at that point the building still had the former occupant's sign, the flagpoles were bare, and there were abundant weeds--we hadn't even moved in yet when I took the picture.
I had a blast removing the old sign, crafting a new sign from our company logo, "pulling" weeds, and adding the national and state flags. And I learned that PSP could do practically anything I could think of.
So when I committed to opening this new business I looked forward to getting some graphic editing software. I looked online, but even used, Photoshop was just too much for my budget. So I looked for PSP instead. The company has since been bought by Corel, but I was able to find a used version of PSP 8.10 online for $30. A bargain.
The software came in the mail yesterday, so last night I sat down to install it. Then, since they've changed the interface, I decided I'd tinker with it a bit to see what's changed. Two hours later I'd put together three separate logo options for my wife to consider. Perhaps half an hour of that was learning the interface changes, and the rest was trying a thousand different options.
It was fun. It was cheap! If you're not a good enough graphic designer to appreciate the difference between Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop, I'd say don't bother paying for the more expensive product. Cheap alternatives are easily found on Amazon or eBay.
Showing posts with label website. Show all posts
Showing posts with label website. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Building a Site on the Cheap
One of the ways I've been able to convince my wife to join me in this crazy escapade is to convince her we can do this fairly cheaply. And you can. The question is whether it's a good idea or not.
So far our expenses have been about $75 dollars for graphic editing software (used) and domain-name registration (we bought .com, .org, and .net just to make sure we don't get any copycat sites taking advantage of any domain confusion. Paranoid? Probably).
We want the site to have a main content section with an attached blog or two and a discussion board. There are two directions we could take on this.
The first is to just use existing hosting services. Our domain registrar gives us free space to set up our site, so that part would be simple. I've set up a website before, albeit a very simple, hand-coded HTML one, so I know I can do that much.
I could also use services like Blogger.com or WordPress.com for the blogs, and through some technical wizardry make our blog on their site look like it's on ours. The same could be done for the discussion board. It's free, and at least it looks easy. The only problem might be how much control we have--and whether we can migrate if we do decide to host everything ourselves at some point.
The other options is to pay for web hosting. My ISP has been quite good, and I know they'd treat me well. But to host a site is $50 to set it up, and then $25 per month after that. I'm not entertaining any delusions of being able to make $350+ our first year. And I'll soon be out of a job.
On the other hand, I could control every detail of the site, and could get the blog and discussion board software for free. I'd just have to figure out how to set it up. I'd be able to control every aspect of the configuration, which could be fun--and time consuming.
At some later date I'll need to add the e-commerce components to sell the ebooks. I'm fairly certain that would almost guarantee we'd need our own hosted site at that point. And I work in the technology industry. I know how the seemingly simple task of switching to one system to another can become a disaster. So it's very tempting to start out on the architecture I will eventually have to move to anyway, regardless of the cost.
Anyone out there tried this themselves? Any advice to give?
So far our expenses have been about $75 dollars for graphic editing software (used) and domain-name registration (we bought .com, .org, and .net just to make sure we don't get any copycat sites taking advantage of any domain confusion. Paranoid? Probably).
We want the site to have a main content section with an attached blog or two and a discussion board. There are two directions we could take on this.
The first is to just use existing hosting services. Our domain registrar gives us free space to set up our site, so that part would be simple. I've set up a website before, albeit a very simple, hand-coded HTML one, so I know I can do that much.
I could also use services like Blogger.com or WordPress.com for the blogs, and through some technical wizardry make our blog on their site look like it's on ours. The same could be done for the discussion board. It's free, and at least it looks easy. The only problem might be how much control we have--and whether we can migrate if we do decide to host everything ourselves at some point.
The other options is to pay for web hosting. My ISP has been quite good, and I know they'd treat me well. But to host a site is $50 to set it up, and then $25 per month after that. I'm not entertaining any delusions of being able to make $350+ our first year. And I'll soon be out of a job.
On the other hand, I could control every detail of the site, and could get the blog and discussion board software for free. I'd just have to figure out how to set it up. I'd be able to control every aspect of the configuration, which could be fun--and time consuming.
At some later date I'll need to add the e-commerce components to sell the ebooks. I'm fairly certain that would almost guarantee we'd need our own hosted site at that point. And I work in the technology industry. I know how the seemingly simple task of switching to one system to another can become a disaster. So it's very tempting to start out on the architecture I will eventually have to move to anyway, regardless of the cost.
Anyone out there tried this themselves? Any advice to give?
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