Creative Motion design

<p>Hey all - from time to time I've answered some questions regarding who to use for web design and i always recommend the company I use currently (actually - they are the only ones I've ever used). They are currently offering a special discount for photo.net members and I wanted to tell you about it!<br>

It's $200 off any elite website. Go to <a href="http://www.creativemotiondesign.com">Creative Motion Design</a> and use the promo code photo.netdiscount. It's an awesome company and I really enjoy working with them. :)</p>

<p>Thanks Colleen.....good to know.</p>

<p>wow their prices are really low <br /> I had a guy offer me a website few months ago and he told me that just to start the process I need to pay 5K<br>

Thanks Colleen</p>

<p>Kris, You gotta watch those guys here in Cook County....I'll bet he told you that he was giving you a deal :-)</p>

<p>Dave yes that's how it was</p>

<p>I was asked to shoot small corporate event in back in March and the coordinator asked me if I had a website I said no so he didn't want me anymore and 5 min later his buddy called me with the deal LOL</p>

<p>Regards Dave.</p>

<p>I guess they are "cheaply priced" because all they are, are templates. It is not web design by any stretch of the imagination.</p>

<p>They must also have agreements with big name music artists given the music choice on the one of the template examples I viewed...mmmmm</p>

<p>This said, I think they look pretty good and if I were in the market for a website, starting out, I woulkd really consider them. I took the other path, designing my site myself, from scratch, with zero prior web design experience. Rewarding to end up with something I feel looks good and does the job, being unique and not a template which is a big thing for me.</p>

<p>Sounds like a great company, I would like to make a suggestion;<br>

I think its waaay too much money for those templates in my opinion. I feel that www.bludomain.com offers the same kind of service but for much cheaper, and the templates are a little more filled with goodies. They offer 50, 100 and 400 sites. (100 hosting too). Sites are GREAT and the customer service outdoes itself. </p>

 

<p>I have no experience with bludomain myself but from what I've read around the net the customer service was the opposite of what August suggests.</p>

<p>BluDomain is absolutely TERRIBLE. I used them for over a year and when I experienced a small hiccup (my pictures stopped uploading) I contacted them for assistance and recieved a very nasty, completely rude email response from their owned (Harom or something....) telling me, in so many words, I was too dumb to know how to fix the issue.<br>

Um....why even have "customer service"?!? They have nice templates but compeltely not worth the headache.<br>

I go through <a href="http://www.photobiz.com">www.photobiz.com</a>. They have an actual cutomer service NUMBER (unlike BluDomain). They will walk you through the process of setting up, and even check up on you later to make sure you're satisfied. Their templates are easy to use, beautiful, and you can even CHANGE templates without paying extra. They are also more affordable thank BluDomain.</p>

 

<p>I've been with Blu for just over a year, and it's a mixed bag for me. Once my site went live, it was great; I experienced a "slight" delay in getting the site up & running (their delay, not mine). It's been smooth sailing since then. I had one small issue arise, shot them an email, and the problem was resolved within 24 hours. It is a good product, good value...my clients like it :)</p>

<p>I tried CMD, and while their CS was great, I did not like the email setup. Othewise, highly recommended.</p>

<p>Hi all, <br>

Is this site a monthly fee site or just a one off payment?</p>

<p>DO NOT use Creative Motion Design to host your website.<br>

They have totally screwed up a server upgrade and have locked everyone out of their websites. They've been saying for the last 5 days that we can't do anything about it until they fix everything.<br>

Unfortunately they now say everything is fixed, but it's not. They failed to restore files correctly during the server "upgrade" so MANY people have missing files from their server and NO WAY to upload any backup files. Everyone is still locked out of FTP.<br>

I have used MANY hosting companies in the past and I have never had anyone screw things up this bad. We are talking about thousands of websites on their servers according to CMD.</p>

<p>Darin,<br>

Thank you for posting this info - I thought I was losing my mind not being able to get in to my FTP - and my blog is screwed up! Tech support acted like there was nothing wrong! I really hope we will be getting our money back. <br>

CMD seemed like such a great company / alternative to bludomain, but I guess I was wrong.</p>

<p>I picked CMD because just like the previous post, it seemed like such a great company/alternative to others. Was I ever wrong!<br /> - CMD has a selection of templates with 2 price points - Classic ($95) and Elite ($295). I bought during what apparently was their limited 50% off sale promos in October 2009 and went for one of their Elite templates. At 50% off, it was $295 USD and I thought I was getting a deal. Don't be fooled. They always have this sale. In fact, this is pretty much their regular price.<br /> - The don't have as many Flash templates and as much as they look good, they offer very little customization. The template I picked was a full screen one and is supposed to have auto screen detection but it doesn't really work as my site visitors often report how the images are not shown properly depending on the aspect ratio of the monitor. I reported this to their tech support and has never been addressed.<br /> - Their auto-generated iPhone HTML mirrored version of the Flash site looks pretty dismal (think of a very bad and basic day 1, hour 1 project on an HTML 101 class). It has issues displaying some of the photos on my iPhone and even on a computer. I reported this to their tech support and has never been addressed as well. Because the HTML version looks so bad, I didn't really want to use them but the HTML pages are auto-generated and can't be turned off so they're out there. I wanted to put a link from the HTML site to link back to my Flash site but their tech support said that's not doable.<br>

- The proofing/shopping cart is okay. My only wish is it had a way to set global/default settings. Each proofing gallery has to be set up with repetitive things like logo, company name, contact info, copyright info, order confirmation, taxes, paper sizes and prices, etc.<br>

- Their content management system (CMS) is quirky but serves the basic purpose. My one complaint would be is once your site goes live, there is no way to preview/stage edits so all changes are to the live site.<br>

- The WordPress blog it came with is nothing special and themes are limited. But the one issue I have with mine is the preview of themes and of posts (draft/private) never worked from day 1 - this is important once your site/blog is live. I brought this to their tech support's attention after WordPress support looked into it and pointed to a possible server/installation/configuration issue. I waited a month to hear back from CMD and heard nothing. When I finally followed up on the issue, CMD put their hands up because they said it's not their product. After a month's wait!<br>

- Really need to highlight that their tech support is hugely lacking and appears to be via e-mail only. Slow to respond, if at all. And when they do respond, it gives one the impression that the issue is being worked on when that is not necessarily the case. And a majority of the issues I've raised in the last 4-5 months have never been addressed.<br /> Like with anything I suppose, buyer beware and do as much research as you can. But I will be looking at moving to another company for hosting or even a full site redo.</p>

<p>We moved our site here, and bought their premium template, but I now regret it. The servers were so unpredictable I moved the site to my original hosting company, Aplus.net, and it fixed the bouncing up and down issue. However, the database that manages this Flash site is very quirky. And the pages load VERY slowly. </p>

<p>I am now looking to develop my own HTML/Flash site. It will not be as nice as their template but at least I won't lose clients that refuse to wait the 10 to 20 seconds for their site to load.</p>

<p>I have had my CMD website for a few years and it's the best decision I've made. Other vendors we know in the industry like the website so much that they are asking for help from us to build their website! CMD is so easy to use and customizable. But probably the best part is the customer service. In this area they truly over deliver, the team has helped us customize our website and has helped us out in so many ways to make our website/blog everything we envisioned. Our company recommends them to anyone looking for an impressive portfolio website.</p>