A great article appeared in the Courier Mail highlighting the successful campaign to preserve the wonderful old Moreton Rubber building and the diverse collection of tenants now moving in. Read more at courier mail story <http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,24329040-5012506,00.ht

The web development job market is very crowded in Australia, as it is in most countries. Not only do you have fully qualified people looking for jobs, but you also have self taught enthusiasts and those who think being able to edit a Facebook page means they can be called web designers. Fortunately there is also a high demand for web development so new job opportunities are springing up all the time.

One of the important choices that you have to make when looking for a job in web design is do you want to work in a small or large firm. In Brisbane we have a good mixture of these two types, so there is plenty of scope.

Let’s look at the relative advantages and disadvantages of working for small or large firm.

Small Firms

Small firms offer the advantage of a high level of variation in projects. One day you may be making simple edits to a web site the next you might be designing a site from scratch. Another advantage that you might find is that you are able to effect the strategy and direction of the design firm. If it’s a small team your views will be heard and your decisions will make a difference. Of course this can lead to higher levels of responsibility and therefore stress, but at least you’ll feel in control of your own future. You will have to be prepared to use a wide range of skills in a small firm, if you only know Dreamweaver then a small firm is probably not the place for you, but if you are happy to jump into Photoshop, think nothing of setting up an FTP connection and know your way around the most popular content management systems, you might feel right at home.

Disadvantages of working for a small firm include the amount of relatively menial tasks that may have to be performed. For example you might be hoping to test your design skills to the full and feel disappointed to be doing simple page updates or admin tasks. The lack of a structure at work may also be frustrating; an ‘all hands on deck’ approach is often used in small firms.

From a monetary point of view working in a small firm can be good and bad. Many small firms are cash poor and can’t match the salaries of the big firms, but they can experience far higher growth. Your input could result in a small firm’s output increasing substantial and potentially upping your salary. My advice would be to negotiate some kind of profit sharing or commission incentive; it’ll help you get more dollars in your pocket and keep you focused and interested in your work.

Large Firms

It can often appear quite glamorous; flash offices, big clients, impressive colleagues. And it is true that you will probably be exposed to the higher end of the market, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be wining and dining clients and working on the glitziest projects all the time. Starting out in a large firm often means starting low and working your way up, so be prepared to do the hard yards. The ability for you to make decisions and to affect the company’s direction will almost certainly be limited compared to working in a small firm.

The large firms can often afford to pay web designers very well and in the right place your skills and talents should be noticed and rewarded, but perhaps not as quickly as in a small firm. Larger firms can also allow for a greater degree of specialisation, you may have responsibility for just one discrete element of web design. Whether this is seen as an advantage or not will be an indicator as to your suitability for life with the big boys.

Brisbane’s Choice

In Brisbane we have a wide range of web development firms that can be seen as potential employers. The larger firms tend to be in the city and you will have to make appointments either with the human resources department or via a recruitment firm. Sending a resume in will not do any harm especially if you include examples of your work.

I would recommend avoiding the very smallest of firms as these are often home office type setups and may not be run very professionally. The next step up are the small firms with offices or shops, of these I would chose the most visibly and active, after all you don’t want to work in dingy back office with no new clients.

Look in the areas of Brisbane known for creative industries; these include Woolloongabba, West End and the Valley. Have a walk around and get a feel for the how the firms look and how busy they seem. Don’t be afraid to pop in and have chat.

BA Creative is a small Brisbane web development  firm with a lovely shop in Woolloongabba. Pop in to talk about great web design.

Not long ago anyone with a modicum of design talent and ambition would be tempted from Brisbane’s slow paced city streets to stretch themselves on the mean streets of the capitals down south. Now we are noticing that this trend is slowing and perhaps even reversing. Brisbane’s growth in population has lead inexorably to greater diversification, choice, opportunities and fun! All this means that design folk are less likely to leave, in fact there is evidence of Brisbane becoming a magnet for designers – cool people are actually choosing to live in BrisVegas!

One of the benefits of this increase in the number of talented peeps in town is that there is now much more choice available when it comes to finding someone to handle your design project. If we look at web design specifically there are three golden rules to look for when choosing a design firm.

1. Budget. Yes we have to start with the filthy lucre, after all there is no point in hiring the best guys in town if you can’t afford them. In order to set a budget ask around friends and associates to find out how much other firm’s website cost. People are often happy to divulge this information, especially if they get an indication from you about how competitive the cost was – everyone wants to know whether or not they have been ripped off! If you find it difficult to get people to talk hard figures you can always ask web designers what they charged for designs on their portfolio.

2. Size of firm. The general rule of thumb is that the smaller the firm the cheaper the website. So you could see going to a one-man-band style of firm as a great money saving strategy, but there is an important caveat: teams design better than individuals. It is usually better to find a firm that has a team of some sort, even if it just 2 guys and PC. The power of bouncing ideas around and peer criticism cannot be overstated when it comes to design. In addition to creating a better design you may also find that a team approach can reduce the number of errors and make the design process faster, after all there is a limit to how much work one guy can do.

3. Previous work. This may appear obvious but it is amazing how many design firms are hired before the client has picked through their past work. When you are reviewing a portfolio don’t expect to like everything you see but look for the level of professionalism, attention to detail and degree of diversity. If all the work looks the same your probably looking at a firm where one guys does all the design work and they have probably got stuck in a rut. If the portfolio shows a wide range of styles you can be show that the team have a breadth of knowledge and skill and also listen to the client to create a site for them and not merely knock out another template based site.

Now let’s look at how all this applies to Brisbane, how can you use this information to hook up with the best guys in town. There are the traditional methods of finding businesses, namely phone books, but these are becoming increasingly irrelevant especially in a field such as web design. Google offers a far better service in terms of finding the right business for you. Use these tips to improve your Google searching when trying to find a business in Brisbane:

1. Choose four keywords. Studies have shown that four is the just about the optimal number of words to use in a Google search. Four words allow you to chose the product or service you are looking for, the location plus any additional information such as areas of specialisation. For example if you run a antique furniture showroom and you are looking for web designer with experience in this industry within Brisbane you might search for Web Design Brisbane Antiques. Or you might want to create a shopping cart facility on your website, you could search for Shopping Cart Design Brisbane.

2. Ignore the sponsored links. You’ll have probably noticed that they are two types of links displayed in the Google results window; those that appear in the main body of the window and those that appear on the right and at the top with the heading Sponsored Links. The links in the main body are the normally results of a Google search, sites that Google considers are a good match to your search words. The Sponsored Links are there because someone has paid for them to be there. If a web design company figures highly in the normal results it must have satisfied Google’s sophisticated algorithms and you’ll have a pretty good clue as to their level of competency and professionalism. Sites appearing high in the Sponsored Links section simply have enough money to pay for the listing, there is no implicit indication of quality or relevance.

You could also use print media to research web design companies. The Brisbane based local newspaper The South East Advertiser contains a few advertisements and occasional articles but the more trendy or artsy publications are a better starting point. A great example is Map Magazine, this includes articles on small businesses, advertisements and plenty of inspiration.

Finally always remember that a web design business is still a business and the same rules apply when it comes to choosing the best one for you. Things like how their offices look, how they answer the phone, how friendly they seem are all fantastic indicators as to how they do business. Draw up a short list based on the ideas above and then go and physically see as many companies as you can. There seem to be a few web hubs appearing in Brisbane that can make it easier to go and see a few firms in one hit. Woolloongabba is one such area as is the Valley and West End. In any of these areas you could easily park up and then walk to three or four quality firms. You never know you may even get a few free cups of coffee out of it!

I hope these tips have been useful to you.

If you are in the market for a new website take a look a http://www.bacreative.com.au <http://www.bacreative.com.au>  , it is my firm so I am biased of course, but I feel we have the perfect blend of small size and vast experience, of customer focus and professionalism.

Thanks for reading.

Pete Accini