Web and Graphic Design Process

Request For more Information

(No-Obligation) Briefing, Consulting, Data Collection:
Our Client Submitted Orientation process will begin at point of contact in which you disclose information about you, your company, or the target audience. During our consultation we will educate ourselves about your company, your needed impression, your goals, and your contact information.

Introduction & Data Collection

Once we receive your RFI, we will request a Non Disclosure Agreement be filled out. Then we review any documents provided, referenced websites, and consult with you to obtain any additional information we may need to assemble an intelligent, competitive quotation for the work that is to be performed.

Detailed Proposal

After Data Collection process, we will make a formal proposal detailing pricing, timing, and goals. After your quotation is completed, you will receive an email from our staff @mec-designs.com Subject: "You’re Quote from MEC Designs Is Now Available". You will be provided a Username and a randomly generated Password and instructions to log into your project development area on our Servers.

Project Authorization & Retainer

If our proposal meets your approval and you select our company to develop your vision, you will print the contract and sign it. We will pick up the contract and exchange signatures. You will then follow up with a non-refundable 50% retainer fee. An example of this is if your contract is for $4,000.00, you would issue payment for $2,000.00 and only owe the balance of $2,000.00 during following phases or milestones of the design process. You may make this retainer payment via cash, check, credit, PayPal, or money order.

Design Concepts

The actual look and feel of your website is key to ensuring the customer / visitor has the best possible browsing experience. The core of your site will be designed and laid out using best practices with emphasis on SEO to present your business to the visitor in a manner that reflects your professional image and brand. Equally important is usability. The easier it is for the visitor to use your website the greater your chance of converting them into a customer and increasing the chances of repeat business. The template design process consists of custom graphic design employing Photoshop, Illustrator, and flash, with graphical enhancements of approved templates to optimize page load time and usability.

Design Concept Review, Revisions & Approval

Once concepts are completed, they will be submitted for your review. This allows you to choose one of the submitted concepts and request up to 2 rounds of revisions to the concept for final template approval. This does not equal a third design concept. Concepts will be provided to you and ask that you provide all revision requests in writing, all at the same time. Doing so will reduce the risk of a missed revision request. You may wish to take up to 48 hours to submit revision request to make sure you remembered everything. A design revision provides for the following; Color Tweaks, Font Tweaks, Design Element Locations (moving elements left, right, up, down, etc..), Minor Graphic Changes (buttons, arrows, etc). To gauge this, a round of revisions is anything we can complete in a 4 hour period. If your revision request exceeds 4 hours of work, we will provide a detailed quotation showing which revisions we can complete in 4 hours and quote the remaining revisions at a cost of $100/hr. Once we reach the final stage the Approval Form will be signed by both parties.

Database Programming & Additional Development

Once we receive a signed Template Approval Form, we begin developing any other parts of your website per our agreement. This is when we begin installing cms modules, shopping carts, and performing any other custom programming if quoted.

Testing & Debugging

During the development phase, we may ask you to take a look at work completed and test for functionality. All development work will be done on our internal development servers. There will also be a final testing and debugging session (if needed) just before delivery of the finished web site.

Final Acceptance & Final Invoice

After all testing has been done and everything is determined to be functional per our arrangement, we will require you to sign a Project Sign Off form. This form indicates that you accept the work that has been performed and that nothing else needs to be completed or corrected. At this time we will also expect the final invoice to be paid prior to transferring files to your hosting server.

Release For Production

Once we receive the signed Project Sign Off form and receive final payment, we will transfer all files, images, and databases to your hosting environment. We will make sure that once the files are transferred to your hosting environment that our work performs as needed. If there are compatibility issues, we will advise you on how to have your hosting environment upgraded or updated to facilitate our web development solution.