@peregrine said:
I think you are arguing semantics over cost of theme. if an author takes X hours to build a theme at a billable rate of Y. then it equates to X * Y = cost to build theme.
That's precisely what I meant.
Businessdad presumably can use his hours to do other billable things in a closed system, thus his estimate.
Exactly. If I have to work on any project, I have to discard something else. As a business owner, I need to focus on the most profitable (although it's often not the most fun to work on, I must say).
I suspect most themes will take 10-40 or more hours to build.
That would be the estimate range I get most of the time. The cost of a relatively good designer here is about $60/hour. Simple math, using the time estimate you indicated, and the cost of a theme goes from 600 to 2400 USD (the "several thousands" I mentioned). For the record, a good developer costs more than a designer (from $75 to up to $150/hour for the top seniors).
If you are creating assembly line themes, meaning they all have the same layout and only vary in color scheme then it is not that time consuming to make. Maybe the first one is but then the rest just replace the color codes. So in essence it is the same theme just a different color.
But if you make more customized themes with depth and shadows and buttons that shimmer when you hover them etc. It takes longer.
The hardest part is testing the themes under normal use. Specially when you have no users to create content and activity . Testing for things like pop ups is tricky if you don't have those multiple login items enabled. many things get found by users . This is why the feedback is important .
I try to test my themes with other popular plugins and write the code to also cover them so when the user tries a plugin with my theme they won't need to edit it's css the code will already be part of the theme.
This is the part that takes time. The theme is finished once all the bugs are found. That could take years...premium or not.
I personally enjoy the creation aspect more than the end result. And I am never satisfied because I have a perfectionist eye and always can find something to improve.. I do not mind offering support for my themes even it means a complete rewrite to make it work for someone. I simply want them to be satisfied and happy.
And since I do enjoy the work it makes the job easy even if it takes 100 hours. Doing something you enjoy makes it seem as though you have not spent any time on it and thus is easy to give it away for free. Possibly if I was an employee and forced to make boring flat themes, I may not enjoy it and feel that getting paid for it is a must since the work is not enjoyable.
I have built entire websites for people for free. My biggest problem is not knowing how much to charge so it is easier to do it for free lmao...
@vrijvlinder said:
I have built entire websites for people for free. My biggest problem is not knowing how much to charge so it is easier to do it for free lmao...
Yes I am sure you can straighten me up business wise... The last job I took for making a site for someone's company in english and spanish, charged them $500.
This is the design . They have the website but I have not seen it.
Yes I know it's cheap, but it was a friend from grade school and what is funny is the same thing as that comic happened ...it happens all the time!!!!
His old designer made some crappy thing, I did not even see it. Took his word for it. Not sure if they know between crappy and good but I said oooookaaayy .... and then I made a mock up based on what i felt it should look like because he said just make it like you think... oooookaaaayyyyy..... of course they did not like that one and basically I had to ask them for specifics, their kind of specifics : gray and navy and white colors....very simple but also fancy.... ooookaaaayyyy.....
Just like the cartoon lmao !! what a find thanks for that. I will show it to potential clients in the future.
Of course the job took months instead on the week it took to make it because they wanted changes and this and that. In fact the other day he called me about the favicons, I made them for him and also added the links to his indexes and sent the stuff back...no extra charge. He asked me what he owed me and I said nothing.....
I should have said $500.....
At least he was satisfied and will throw work my way in the future.
@vrijvlinder said:
Yes I know it's cheap, but it was a friend from grade school
[...]
Of course the job took months instead on the week it took to make it because they wanted changes and this and that.
I hope I won't sound harsh, but $500 is, more or less, what somebody on the minimum wage earns here in a week. A teenager at his first work experience, with a reduced minimum wage, would earn about $420. -_-
Yes I know. What I would like to know is exactly how much am I worth? the only way to find out is by becoming an employee and rise up the ladder as far as I can go then that could be my worth.
Being independent and mostly an artistic person, I dislike to deal with the business aspect. On one hand because of the lousy business person I am when it comes to myself. On the other because it takes away from my creative time. This why artists are notoriously not rich or if they become rich they lose it from lack of business management know how.
Possibly the most important subject they should teach in schools.
Not all of us wants to use the offical hosting (vanilla.com), maybe I want to have a warez or porn site on a Russian server with a premium skin, this is not a discussion about "free vs premium"...
@Jocla said:
Not all of us wants to use the offical hosting (vanilla.com), maybe I want to have a warez or porn site on a Russian server with a premium skin, this is not a discussion about "free vs premium"...
what is this discussion about? certainly not about official hosting as far as I can tell.
I thought it was about the availability of themes. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there are about 120 themes to choose from. If someone needs certain specs they should hire someone with the skills to create them and then post the end result to the add-ons section or sell it as a premium theme.
maybe I want to have a warez or porn site on a Russian server
certainly you could contract a porn theme designer in your region of the world, head over to the red light district and see if there are any vanilla theme developers there. And I bet a warez guy could easily whip one up for you.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
Comments
That's precisely what I meant.
Exactly. If I have to work on any project, I have to discard something else. As a business owner, I need to focus on the most profitable (although it's often not the most fun to work on, I must say).
That would be the estimate range I get most of the time. The cost of a relatively good designer here is about $60/hour. Simple math, using the time estimate you indicated, and the cost of a theme goes from 600 to 2400 USD (the "several thousands" I mentioned). For the record, a good developer costs more than a designer (from $75 to up to $150/hour for the top seniors).
My shop | About Me
If you are creating assembly line themes, meaning they all have the same layout and only vary in color scheme then it is not that time consuming to make. Maybe the first one is but then the rest just replace the color codes. So in essence it is the same theme just a different color.
But if you make more customized themes with depth and shadows and buttons that shimmer when you hover them etc. It takes longer.
The hardest part is testing the themes under normal use. Specially when you have no users to create content and activity . Testing for things like pop ups is tricky if you don't have those multiple login items enabled. many things get found by users . This is why the feedback is important .
I try to test my themes with other popular plugins and write the code to also cover them so when the user tries a plugin with my theme they won't need to edit it's css the code will already be part of the theme.
This is the part that takes time. The theme is finished once all the bugs are found. That could take years...premium or not.
I personally enjoy the creation aspect more than the end result. And I am never satisfied because I have a perfectionist eye and always can find something to improve.. I do not mind offering support for my themes even it means a complete rewrite to make it work for someone. I simply want them to be satisfied and happy.
And since I do enjoy the work it makes the job easy even if it takes 100 hours. Doing something you enjoy makes it seem as though you have not spent any time on it and thus is easy to give it away for free. Possibly if I was an employee and forced to make boring flat themes, I may not enjoy it and feel that getting paid for it is a must since the work is not enjoyable.
I have built entire websites for people for free. My biggest problem is not knowing how much to charge so it is easier to do it for free lmao...
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
I could easily help you with that
My shop | About Me
Yes I am sure you can straighten me up business wise... The last job I took for making a site for someone's company in english and spanish, charged them $500.
This is the design . They have the website but I have not seen it.
http://www.vrijvlinder.com/Logistics/html/index.html
including the images that I had to make grey... Not my favorite design but it is what they wanted.
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
If you would like to have a chat, drop me a PM and I will be happy to share with you my ideas.
That's quite cheap, I would say.
Which reminds me of the classic Oatmeal comic: How a Web Design goes straight to hell
My shop | About Me
Yes I know it's cheap, but it was a friend from grade school and what is funny is the same thing as that comic happened ...it happens all the time!!!!
His old designer made some crappy thing, I did not even see it. Took his word for it. Not sure if they know between crappy and good but I said oooookaaayy .... and then I made a mock up based on what i felt it should look like because he said just make it like you think... oooookaaaayyyyy..... of course they did not like that one and basically I had to ask them for specifics, their kind of specifics : gray and navy and white colors....very simple but also fancy.... ooookaaaayyyy.....
Just like the cartoon lmao !! what a find thanks for that. I will show it to potential clients in the future.
Of course the job took months instead on the week it took to make it because they wanted changes and this and that. In fact the other day he called me about the favicons, I made them for him and also added the links to his indexes and sent the stuff back...no extra charge. He asked me what he owed me and I said nothing.....
I should have said $500.....
At least he was satisfied and will throw work my way in the future.
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
I hope I won't sound harsh, but $500 is, more or less, what somebody on the minimum wage earns here in a week. A teenager at his first work experience, with a reduced minimum wage, would earn about $420. -_-
My shop | About Me
Yes I know. What I would like to know is exactly how much am I worth? the only way to find out is by becoming an employee and rise up the ladder as far as I can go then that could be my worth.
Being independent and mostly an artistic person, I dislike to deal with the business aspect. On one hand because of the lousy business person I am when it comes to myself. On the other because it takes away from my creative time. This why artists are notoriously not rich or if they become rich they lose it from lack of business management know how.
Possibly the most important subject they should teach in schools.
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
Not all of us wants to use the offical hosting (vanilla.com), maybe I want to have a warez or porn site on a Russian server with a premium skin, this is not a discussion about "free vs premium"...
what is this discussion about? certainly not about official hosting as far as I can tell.
I thought it was about the availability of themes. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there are about 120 themes to choose from. If someone needs certain specs they should hire someone with the skills to create them and then post the end result to the add-ons section or sell it as a premium theme.
certainly you could contract a porn theme designer in your region of the world, head over to the red light district and see if there are any vanilla theme developers there. And I bet a warez guy could easily whip one up for you.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
If you want that try
http://vanillaforums.ru
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
If someone would be able to convert a good number of template on these two sites to be Vanilla template that would be awesome. Thanks
http://www.oswd.org/
http://opensourcetemplates.org/
That is actually a pretty good idea. Too bad I suck at themes
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Happy to contribute once the new version of Vanilla Forums is out of beta and stable.
Here is my recent premium vanilla theme with 12 different color style. You will get lots of more premium theme now.
@freelancingcare aah..ki daarun! kothay kinte paoa jabe..amar ekkhuni chai!
i will able to give the product link soon...
@freelancingcare Multicolor Theme looks AWESOME!...When do you estimate you will provide the download link? Thanks!
@freelancingcare Please, provide download link or a buy now option for this theme!