School Website Design/Consultancy

[glennda]

Not more of a How buy have you.

 

We are looking at redesigning our school website - although we will physically do the coding of the site we are looking for some help in the designing of the site in terms of look/feel.

 

Has anybody used companies like this that they can recommend? The only things I can find seem to be people who will help you design but also then want to create the site which is not what we want as they tend to then be tied into custom CMS's/hosting deals.

[bossman]

If you don't want to be tied into a custom CMS and prepared to code it yourself to make changes then why not try this: Open Source Content Management System - Open Source CMS - CMS PHP - CMS Made Simple

 

You can customise it and with it being open source its free

 

Why pay someone to design it when there are many templates out there which you can customise to your hearts content and then host it yourself.

 

Here are a few more for you to look at: Open Source Scripts - OpenSourceCMS

 

It may not be what you have asked for but it doesn't make much sense to me as any company willing to design it will obviously want to code it.

 

This is our website which @webman designed and built before he went to pastures new Welcome to Bishop Barrington School. Bishop Auckland in County Durham.

[glennda]

I'm of the opinion we shouldn't be doing that too - i ended up having a conversation with the business manager who seems to think there are some wonderful people out there who will tell us how to design it for a small sum.

 

Basicly we can do all the coding side of things making something completely from scratch to how it wants to be rather then adapting other stuff. We are just not very good at the design!

[bossman]

Well if he thinks that is the case then ask him to find one who is both willing to design it without coding it and for a small fee, I think myself he will be sorely upset when he sees what the real cost of a good web design company.

 

He may have a friend who knocks up websites on a weekend who has told him it doesn't cost much but let me tell you it does if you want a proper job done just ask @webman who now works for a webdesign company.

 

It's funny how business managers always seem to know better and yet when push comes to shove they will always go for a cheap option.

[DSapseid]

I did mine myself in wordpress. Bought a theme and off i went, it took about 1/2 a day to go from nothing to basically finished (copying content from old site). The old site was on Joomla and i much prefer wordpress!! The CMS is so much more intuitive!

 

The Academy, Selsey

 

If you want more info let me know.

[glennda]

I'm going to create a custom CMS. I've used wordpress/Joomla/Drupal and free items but with a custom CMS I can have it out i want it!

 

Its the design part she wants help with and "Branding" she wants us to have help with. We are geeks not designers. She doesn't seem to appreciate the need for initial ideas have to come from the school and then talk to about possible changes and a way to "brand" the school.

 

Reality as i see it: (please tell me if i'm wrong but this is what i have done on numerous occasions)

1. Search through other schools websites and find ideas/designs like, talk to parents/users

2. come to us with initial design sketches and features wanted

3. we create something from the initial ideas

4. They view and go through and come up with changes

5. Modifcations made

6. Repeat 4/5 until happy.

7. Content given to us and imported

8. Checked again

9. Go live

 

The way it apparently should happen:

1. External company comes in and tells us how to design and what content to use etc

2. we create said design

3. They go through and view come up with changes

4. Modifications made

5. Go live

[zag]

We used a company called cleverbox. Couldn't be happier with the result, it was both stunning looking and has a brilliant CMS system.

 

Far better than anything I could have written anyway.

[glennda]

We used a company called cleverbox. Couldnt be happier with the result, it was both stunning looking and have a brilliant CMS system.

 

Far better than anything I could have written anwyay.

 

Thats who we have looked at - from the portfolio they all seem to much of the same IMHO but it could just be me

[zag]

Thats who we have looked at - from the portfolio they all seem to much of the same IMHO but it could just be me

 

My experience of them was excellent that's all I can say. Their site designs are beautiful and the back-end they use is best of class. Its so intuitive and easy to use, I really was impressed.

 

We also looked at e4education but the designs just were not as good.

[glennda]

My experience of them was excellent that's all I can say. Their site designs are beautiful and the back-end they use is best of class. Its so intuitive and easy to use, I really was impressed.

 

We also looked at e4education but the designs just were not as good.

 

We are looking at them just for consulting on the Branding Side of the stuff. The back end I have a different way i want it to work to the normal which means ease of use hence the reason for self build.

[nyiss]

Im guessing you wanted something a little different from the standard school website look if you dont want to use a template? I had that problem, I'm a techie at a primary school and the templates are almost all aimed at high schools/colleges and the younger kids just weren't interested in using them. I have almost finished the site for our school here I am actually coding it too but I did graphic design before I moved into IT so I have designed for other sites without coding before and am currently talking to another primary school in the northwest about designing a site for them because quite honestly I think web design is at a ridiculous price and I enjoy it! so there are definatley people out there who would be willing to design it and leave the coding up to you outside of design companys making it cheaper for you.

[glennda]

It's not the look that I want to be different its the cms. I have ideas of how I want it to work which is different to the norm!

 

I'll keep searching to find my design company!