I am starting to take the prospect of starting my own business much more seriously now I have had a few weeks away from work (getting sick of doing DIY!) and have started thinking about setting up a proper website for my photography idea.

I have a website already www.crismatthews.com and am more than happy with all the hosting and day to day running of it and all the coding that will be required, but what I am really struggling with is coming up with a brand image.

I think this is an incredibly important area for the kind of thing I am going into, and while I am ok taking the photos, graphic/logo/brand design are things I am going to need professional help with. As it doesn't get better than a personal recommendation, does anyone have any experience with people who do this sort of thing? So far I haven't found someone who won't charge me the earth, I already have the idea in my head, it's putting it onto the website that's the problem.

Also any suggestions for the technology I should use on the page for maximum compatibility, while still looking cool?

Cheers

Cris.

Well, for maximum compatibility, you want to avoid every technology.

But right now it looks like you're using a flash app (SimpleViewer) to do your photo browsing in some of your galleries, which although not maximum compatible, it is actually good in a certain way: It discourages people from doing a right-click and SAVE IMAGE AS on your copyrighted work. Sure there are ways to gank the photos without that feature, but not everyone out there knows what to do after pressing the printscreen key.

Maybe there's a way to get the flash app to put a watermark on the images or a "copyright Cris Matthews" message in the corner of every image?

I notice the flash app is only active for some of the galleries, not all, and I would recommend doing them for all.

Thanks Tony.

I am going for a complete re-branding and a new look for the website, the current one is there mainly so people can see pictures I have taken of them. SimpleViewer is built into Lightroom and seemed easy to get a decent result.

What I am really after is someone to design me a logo and stationary, I can then continue the design onto the website. This is the part that is beyond me. There are plenty of companies that will make me a logo for £100, but I am on a budget and don't want to throw money at things without thinking it through and knowing they will deliver for me.

Cheers

Cris.

Can you not just design something yourself? Seriously, we paid a bunch of companies a pile of money a few years ago to 'rebrand' the channel. They were all shit, we ended up sticking with what we already had. A logo knocked up in 5 minutes in Word!

I've used the freebie pagekits at elated which I think look perfectly serviceable. The paid for stuff is even better I think.

I've hired my sister as a graphical designer several times and been mostly happy with her work. She did the "Sherlock Owl" logo for my security lab (based on a rough idea I had going in) and the five-point-star-check logo thing for our voting research center. Her process is that she first talks to you about what you're looking for, then sends you a PDF with several pages of mock-ups. You then pick the ones you like, say what you like about them, and/or how you'd recombine them. Then repeat at least once, maybe twice. My sister doesn't do web design, though, so I cobbled that together and it was good enough.

I'm not saying you should hire my sister (although she's pretty good at this sort of thing), but that this is the sort of process you should be looking to do with whomever you end up hiring.

Clash of the Titans?

I think my mate Fee might be worth talking to:

www.sitesbyfee.co.uk

Something recent by her is:

http://www.handmademeat.co.uk/

She's good at understanding your needs and is quite cheap.