Help! Last-minute budgeting for a redesign

[Gordon Wright]

So I just found out that the site redesign I was thinking we'd start on in the fall needs to be budgeted out by tomorrow!

I've been involved in a variety of redesign projects, but I was curious if anyone from some of the smaller schools (ours has less than 400 students, all graduate-level) could share some actual numbers, or at least quickly delineate some costs.

Feel free to contact me offline if it's something you'd rather not publicize, but believe me I'd really appreciate it!

--
J. Gordon Wright
Director of New Media

Erikson Institute | Graduate school in child development
451 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois 60654-4510
P [phone] | F [phone] | www.erikson.edu

[Steve]

Do you have any vendors in mind?  Have you put out an RFI or RFP yet, or is that what you need the budget for?  It's hard to offer guidance without scope --- are you just talking design, or writing, site architecture, photography, etc?  Just the home page, or other templates too?  How many?  Are you implementing a new CMS as part of the process?

[Gordon Wright]

Steve, thanks for your response!

These are very early-stage numbers, just to see if we can even get money for a proper redesign out of next year's budget. So, definitely no RFPs yet, and even the scope is a bit loose at this early stage. But we're looking for a full turn-key site, including build-out.

That said, I can foresee some cost-savings since I can do the discovery and IA, and even some early stage wireframes. And while we'd definitely want a new CMS, I think we could have less distributed ownership this time around, cutting down on some of the customization on the backend.

[Steve]

You might check out my response to this post for some scope-of-work ideas:

RFP For Web Redesign Project

Bringing in a tier-1 HE Web Design firm is going to be $200,000+...

Our last redesign: we provided wireframe, they provided design and code through a few iterations, vetted portfolios of work and went with a local firm.  Used existing content for everything except the home page, created the templates in-house from their basic design from the home page.

Before that, we went with the company who did our branding work, without even looking at a portfolio of work.  It was awful.

-S

[Gordon Wright]

Steve, thanks! Actually, I did see that other post of yours and found it hugely helpful.

So, you went with a local firm for your last redesign? What CMS did you end up with? If you don't mind my asking, what was the final price tag?

[Steve]

I consider redesigns and CMS implementations to be separate projects.  We chose CMS based on ease of procurement (system-wide contract) and its ability to meet the needs which we could define.  Our last design I think was in the $10k neighborhood (far cheaper than the bad one).  Keep in mind we only officially got the home page design and code, and produced the rest (subsidiary templates, content, wireframe, site architecture) ourselves.