You get what you pay for…

So today I decided to tackle all the frontend coding for my next site, RakebackResource.com.  I’ve written on here before about it, but basically the backend is already done.  I also had a web designer code the site in HTML, and then I would convert that to PHP, then work with my web coder on combining the two into one beautiful functioning site.

Now this designer does things fairly cheap.  I’ve never used him for web design before but I have used him for graphic design and been fairly impressed.  He also comes with a LOT of recommendations from people within the industry I know and trust.  So I was quite happy to try him out, and was impressed with the results when he sent me the PSD template.  This was the beta template he sent me:

However when I went into the coding today to switch it all to PHP – yikes, it was a fucking nightmare.  In the day and age, tables are generally frowned upon, and CSS is where everything should be coded.  However I don’t mind if a designer uses tables at times, because it makes it more compatible with older browsers.  However holy shit – there was tables within tables within tables within tables.  Here’s just a random sample of the code:

And unfortunately I’m really tied to a deadline in regard to getting this site up and running, so I had no choice but to leave it the way it was, and work on it later.  So I’ve spent from about 10am this morning till 4pm this afternoon, with not even a lunch break, working to get the frontend looking the way I want it.  It was just unbelievable what a mess it was, and one wrong piece of code and the whole thing broke.  I’ve sent it over to my web coder now to see what he can do about merging them, but I won’t be surprised if the response I get is “Yeah, for double my pay”.  I guess you get what you pay for, and I’ll definitely be looking elsewhere in the future when it comes to web design.