Business and industry-related information.
I’m just going to be blunt: do yourself a huge favor and avoid Mediatemple’s hosting services at all costs. When I first switched over to MT around seven years ago, I had nothing but praise for their customer support, speeds, and pricing. I even had written a glowing review on this very blog stating how happy I […]
I have to warn those that are going to close a Citizens Bank Business account of a certain hidden malpractice that they employ. I’ve been a long-term customer with them and at first, absolutely loved their services and customer support. Over time however, I noticed they had started to insert monthly fees and additional charges (.35 […]
LunarStudio’s summer newsletter went out today to all of our clients and colleagues. It details the architectural rendering projects we have been working on for the past year. Several highlights include our work with Marketing Drive on the CVS Caremark iPad application as well as an airport terminal proposal in Zambia for AAE Systems, Inc. and Gensler.
Most people don’t understand how much work is involved when it comes to design, let alone changes. Many people think of it as “just a few clicks of the mouse.” There are some seemingly difficult changes which turns out to be easy, and other seemingly easy ones which turns out to be a royal pain. Now, there’s a big problem when we let people get away with assuming “that it’s easy.” It ends up usually creating unnecessary grief. So it often resolves itself in either the artist or the client getting upset.
Politics aside, outsourcing has taken a huge toll on myself and my company LunarStudio, fellow artists, and others within related fields. Many of us have been forced to lower our prices in this economic recession in order to just stay afloat. I have had numerous clients call up and say to me, “well, I can get this architectural rendering done in China for $500.” Others have said, “having the best quality isn’t as important as simply communicating the basic idea.” In other words, they don’t care about the quality of the end product as long as they can save a few hundred dollars. Yet still, I’ve had numerous others come back and say, “I had someone create renderings for cheap in China, but it’s not worth all the aggravation and back and forth – it ends up being cheaper for me to hire someone locally.”
A reader named Adam wanted to know if the general pricing structure outlined has remained the same since time has passed. My answer would be “yes”, but I figured it might be worth copying and pasting our correspondence below as it might prove useful to others.
I just wanted to make a short announcement that LunarStudio now has an official Pinterest page.
I wanted to officially mention that LunarStudio has changed office locations. The company moved back in June of 2012 from Medford, Massachusetts where I had started out over 14 years ago into a new place located in the Quincy, Massachusetts area of Hough’s Neck.
So a few days ago, I updated my blogs and almost immediately noticed that I was getting feedback on articles that I wrote a while ago. Also, a few of my other blogs brought in sales where it had been stagnant for most of this year. It appears that Google actually looks at the Wordpress version that one is using. Where it’s pulling that information from, I don’t know. It might simply be that Google is seeing an updated Sitemap as that stores time-stamps Wordpress can also automatically ping Google upon updates if you’re using the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. If you’re using the latest WP, it probably signals that you are serious about security (Google doesn’t want to link to sites that are malicious), code readability, updates, and that you’re content is fresh.
I suppose the moral of the story is that if you wanted it done right and you’re going to be picky in the first place, don’t be cheap. You have to pay for it. There’s really no shortcuts. Secondly, find someone that knows what they are doing – make sure that they have a good portfolio and a decent list of clients. She was much better off spending extra money in the beginning.