QUOTE(unitedapparel @ May 6 2007, 08:13 PM) [snapback]124218[/snapback]
What would you say is the best way to design a new site?
I am a graphic designer and web developer, but didn't have the time to work through and complete our site design in the time frame that we were working toward.
What we did (and it worked great) was hired MC's design team to manage the design and implementation of our site. Once we received their first design, we took some of their elements and created our own site design. No offense to any of their design squad, but it's hard to help someone understand what's in our minds, as far as design goes... we tried our best, but we just couldn't do it effectively. So, once their first design was finished, we took a few elements and built it from there. The result was a design that we loved (treychair dot com, if you care to see it), but one that we didn't have to implement. Since we weren't familiar with the entire MC site system, they did the hard work (cutting up the design, and making it work in the MC site system).
The best thing about this scenario was that we now can make many changes to the site design, and don't have to worry about reinventing the wheel each time. We just look and see what is there currently, find that portion of the HTML, graphics, etc., and then make our changes...
So, yes, I think the design services are worth it, even if you have the talent to design it on your own... if they end up designing it for you, you've saved the time of having to worry about the design as well. Win-win, in my opinion.