[thelist] RE: Template Monster [WAS: A Beginner Freelance Question]

Diane Soini dianesoini at earthlink.net
Fri Jul 23 13:11:46 CDT 2004


On Thursday, July 22, 2004, at 11:18 PM, 
thelist-request at lists.evolt.org wrote:
<snip 1>
>
> This is capitalism in action folks. If the designers think they have 
> it rough with templates, try competing with programmers in India or 
> Russia who will work for less than $5 per hour, or hotscripts and 
> sourceforge for that matter.
>
> If quality is available at a super cheap price, who in their right 
> mind is going to pass that up?
>
> And the world continues to turn...

Most of us, my guess is, are from what our lovely HR director calls 
"High wage countries." He recently produced a touching little 
presentation for all of use "high wage" folks to see, which basically 
said "If you aren't planning your future, someone else will."

Being the paranoid person I am, (which seems reasonable since the goal 
is 70% of programmers should be in China, and every day the angel of 
death quietly escorts another colleague off the premesis), I took that 
as either a threat, or very wise advice. Anyway, it sufficiently scared 
me, which was probably the goal. I can feel the pressure all around me. 
To be worth the high wage we feel we must be that much more worth the 
money than the people in "low wage countries". Which either means 5 
times more brilliant or 5 times more productive.

<snip 2>
> I still would prefer to see a slower pace in life where things like 
> this
> would never even arise more often than not simply because the use of 
> such a
> thing would be seen as minimal. "Why buy a predone template when I 
> have more
> than enough time to create something myself?" Ya dig? :)

I would prefer to see a slower pace in life, too. I am not 5 times more 
brilliant or productive. How can I be. I am only human.

Do we of the high wage countries have a future in this field? And if 
so, what will it look like? I've decided to really give this some 
thought. I need to be "planning my future." Templates, open-source 
programming and all that at least help us high wagers compete a little 
longer in this new global world.

Anyway, to stay somewhat on the topic, I welcome the idea of browsing 
the templates for help in the creativity department. For me the 
creativity in the Photoshop arena just isn't quite so professional. I 
find my creativity in writing code, and it would be a fun challenge to 
take one of those beautiful designs and create it in valid, semantic 
markup.

Diane
***



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