Hi, I’m in my last year at university and for our final year project we are required to look for a client and provide a solution to their needs, since I’m a multimedia student (internet) we have decided to develop a website solution but we have no idea where to get clients, I was just wondering if anyone know sites that we can projects from, not a local corner store or businesses like that, they want something that would look good on our portfolio.
This sounds good but the catch is the client has to be willing to wait till May 2012 to have the project delivered, we have discussed this with our lecturers, I do not know anyone that’s willing to wait 6-7 months to have a live website, but they said they have been running this type of module for years and students have been able to find clients.
As you drive to and from University, look at the businesses around you, jot down their names, and see if they have a web presence. If not, then drive up to them and show them your portfolio of class work
To be frank, what they’re asking for is quite silly.
In the real world, we want our websites built yesterday! Additionally, we want value for money and most of us with sense (the kind of people you’ll want to be working for in the future) will want their site to be built by someone with experience so nothing bad happens along the way. If you’re doing your work in London you’ll find that the market is quite saturated and even established digital agencies find themselves doing some pro-bono work for charities when the client list is down.
What I would recommend to you is to look at the large digital agencies within London and to give someone with some kind of authority in the business (i.e. a Design Director or Manager), tell them your predicament and see if they’ll let you help out on a project on a freelance basis. There are some companies that have to turn down work that they see isn’t a good fit and at worse they may be able to direct a client towards you.
I found some great work on grassroot, and contacted a couple and one was really excited to work with us, I presented this to my lecturer, guess what now? They’re not based in UK,…I argued my case, said a lot of agencies work with international client and never have to meet with them in person, thanks to email, skype etc, he said how are we going to get in touch with their stake holders to conduct things like surveys or whatever we need to identify what we’re going to create, I countered with web surveys and also sending the survey to our client and get them to have their audience fill out the form.
He said no we cannot have international clients, we have to look for a local (UK) client, I told him the ones we approached had not even consider having a web presence, so when we said “would you like us to design you a website for free”, they said “yes” but guess what? No content, I told him people listed on grassroot had contents and a basic idea of what they would like, unlike the florists down the street who doesn’t even know what he would like on his website or why he needed a website in the first place.
I heard through another lecturer that my group had a fantastic case but he told us no because he had already told another group no for wanting to develop a website for their client’s(their dad) website overseas…he almost gave in but he kept saying, I can’t say yes to you because I already told the other group no.
As I mentioned above, explain your situation to a local digital agency and you’ll find that many of them are swamped with work and would probably jump at the chance for someone to build something for them for free (or on a basic intern wage). There are hundreds of digital agencies in the UK and I guarantee at least one of them would be willing to help you out.
If your still looking I have a couple of sites you could pick from.
One’s a new but registered and trading software development company.
The other is for a charity.