Hello Ahsan,
Well, as far as the web part is concerned, what the gents were doing was not actually designing the whole thing but
wireframing proposals for the client so that they can more easily get the very basic steps done in a time-efficient manner.
I'm just a part time hobbyist in this regard but I do the same thing because much of the beauty of building websites (that somewhat childish “hello world” feeling you don't get with, say, SAS or R) comes from making something unique from scratch, the pitfall of which being that the client will almost always have a better understanding of the target market for the website than you or me, even if it might be difficult for him or her to put it into words at the start. By using Illustrator to make proposals as to the general look of it, you can concurrently experiment with unique designs while getting the client to better shape what he or she would like in his or her mind. That way, when you start coding, you have a clear idea of what he or she truly feels is best for his or her business and still take a bit of risk by being as innovative as possible.
Initially, I just started building them based on the initial brief, which works fine but is sort of unfair to the client because he or she will be taken with the look of it and be less objective in judging it on it's purpose and effectiveness in fulfilling that purpose. I realised my silliness when I worked with this older gentleman who couldn't find proper employment despite vast experience, deciding to open his own financial consultancy. Me being me, I got over-excited and set-out to make the the best looking thing under the sun for him, creating a mix between Goldman Sachs and ShareThis, of which I was overflowing with pride on my white horse. He was duly impressed but seemed just a tad sad, so I pulled his tongue and got the full truth, which was that, however impressive, it wasn't fully suited to his target market...and he was right. Foolishly, I went ahead and designed the best thing
possible in my eyes, as opposed to
his target market, which was just unfair of me to do. So I started over from scratch again and delivered what was best for him. Ever since, I do the same thing as the agency mentioned, even if it seems a bit amateurish, because it gives a fair chance to each client to disagree as much as he or she wants on everything and it really starts a conversation about his or her business, what the target market is and so forth, which means I can actually deliver value for them, as opposed to just building stuff because I enjoy building them. I know it's not an ideal workflow, but I feel it's fairer to people,
precisely because it comes across as slightly silly, because they're more likely to disagree and be critical when it's something they fully understand and are not intimidated by in any way.
.
