Erm, I am fearful of even posting least I get my head bitten off for not saying the exact answer you are
looking for.
But... always one for risk - I have a series of questions.
1) What is the reason for having a website? Specifically, wordpress (or do you have one. If so, what is the "value" of worth - how many visitors, what does it show - where is it?).
2) What, exactly, is the content you will be displaying. Essentially, what are you going to convey? Blog posts? Online shop? Photography portfolio? Fusion of everything? Do you have content for it all already? You must already know this information...
3) Why, exactly, must it be "custom" and is your idea of custom the same as most people's? Or the idea that the $300 designers are thinking?
What necessitates a custom design? Most importantly
are you thinking of theme and not design (where theme is an existing off the shelf layout, which they then alter the colour scheme/images to make it "custom", whereas design alters the entire website layout to look radically different. I assume $300 is theme only. Depending on what you are after, that's probably a good price.
Custom design would mean the
entire layout - not just colours/images. You want a maze on the home page, which will be your navigation (with several objectives which are menu items) and you can only reach them by following the maze? (that's custom... and highly impractical
). You want the text of each page to be presented in a big wheel, where moving the mouse rotates the wheel bringing more text into view? (obviously on the right side of the page - move mouse up scrolls the wheel counter clockwise
). Again, that's design not theme - and that'd cost a lot
For $300 I wouldn't be surprised if they use an existing theme and simply alter the images/colours. For a truly
custom design $300 would be fucking cheap as... and I'd be suspicious.
However, it is all down to
what you are actually after. A design? A theme?
4) Hardest - do you really need it? Same as number 1, but it really is important before you spend lots of money. Lots of people invest in websites and then don't use them. It's an easy way to make money if you have talent (web design for things like wordpress).
If you're actually after a custom theme not a custom design, then there are tens of thousands of designs out there from which to base your theme off first. All down to what your site is going to be for. Then it's a case of "reskinning" (doing the theme) to match your wishes. A couple of hundred bucks is probably about right for that I'd imagine. Why? Because you can't do it, and yet you want it - so they can charge it. Secondly, I doubt the requirements are going to be
that high - I've sorta imagined it's just making it have an identity with an existing wordpress theme.
Here, for example, is what I consider a custom design.
http://themeforest.net/item/garnish-cle ... eme/308989
Check out the demo for why I think it is custom. Customising that to your own theme would entail choosing the colour scheme and images/content to suit - but keeping the
design intact. Custom design will cost. This guy, he sells his designs cheap. He sells lots of them (so strictly speaking not custom, but only because those buying his design know they do not
need a custom design). He's made between $250,000 and $1,000,000 in the last 2 years doing it. Nice.
Now given some posting, unsure whether I'm going to get my head bitten off over not helping and was highly reluctant to even post any of this - so hopefully you'll clarify what you are hoping to achieve and then it may be as simple as changing colours and images in the css file - rather than a major reworking of the css to present the site entirely differently (or redesign).
