Respect this.

I design websites. I know… you’re impressed. You can tell a new acquaintence you designed a brochure for Delta or the logo for the Queen of god damned England and they’ll give you this polite half smile and nod in the way one can only interpret as, “Wow. That’s great. For you. I guess.” Now throw in an off the cuff comment about designing websites and you get the over excited, “OMG!! Really? That’s c-razy! Could you design my / my dad’s / my boyfriend’s / my company’s / my yoga instructor’s website for $3 and a handful of buttons?!”

1) Negative. I’m poor enough as it is. (Send spare change!)

2) I’m a fraud. I don’t build websites. I design them. Please don’t ask me for any technical advice. I’ll just get embarrassed and quite possibly call you a jerk and run off crying.

I’m a phony, alright? I have a team of techie gurus who make my PSD file a reality with relatively little fuss. I’m spoiled. But what I’m getting at is sometimes it really hurts my feelings that you people, the “Non-Designer” set as it were, don’t appreciate what it is us BFA graduates really do. We make your life prettier dammit. Respect that.

But if you’re like me… as in a “fake web designer,” you may find these links helpful.

• Button Builder! - Creates web buttons based on templates but allows multiple customization options. Let those PC folks see Mac style buttons (if only to rub it in). It can export them as gifs or even transparent pngs if you want to get really fancy.
• Favicon Generator- What’s a favicon? Well it’s that tiny little logo you see in by the address in your web browser silly. This website let’s you upload a simple square gif and creates the .ico file FOR YOU. The ultimate in lazy website flare.
• Fat Free Cart - E-commerce is complicated. Real complicated. Honestly, I don’t really know what it means. But this open source program basically creates your shopping cart for you. Full customizable but ultimately simple. Basically it’s the shit.