Occasionally, people ask me to create XHTML/CSS template based on provided .PSDs. Most of the time, such projects are pretty straight-forward — I tell the hourly rate and the estimated hours. The prospective client then accepts the offer or not.

It could be zillion reasons why clients reject offers and I’m used to some neutral (read: polite) arguments, like “It exceeds our budget” or something like that. However, today I received an interesting response:

“You are a little-bit too expensive, XXX is an hourly rate for a programmer.”

Funny, huh? Or sad?

Why on Earth would anyone compare client-side coding with programming. What is it that people (or just this particular client) think some cog of the same engine should be valued more than others?

Is it because the work of accessibility consultant, CSS coder, SEO engineer or usability expert is not something you can point your finger at? Or is it ‘cause people tend to care for web standards in a way of questionably increased initial exposure on endless, but completely irrelevant CSS showcase lists?…

The first post in this year (better late, than never) and I present you 2 (that’s right: two) brand new web logs by my two fellow colleagues — Marko Kršul (the creative) and Tomaš Trkulja (the methodic).

I was more than happy to contribute in the development of these two beautiful WordPress themes, spiritually named Balance White and Balance Black. The White was deployed first on our company’s flagship project’s development blog in it’s original setup and Dudikoff and Roseanne (link removed for offending content :p) have been customized later on. (Ed’s note: Dudikoff and Roseanne is not a WordPress theme, it’s customized version of Balance White.)

Anyway, download Balance White 0r Balance Black and if you care, let us know what do you think.

Sample sites:

• Croportal Dev Blog
• Zytzagoo’s Den