Not a freelancer or a web designer, how do i complete this client project?

Question
1

I am a self-taught web developer; I know how to do full stack MERN development. That’s my background. I have a friend who gave me a client who wants a landing page built ASAP (like today or tomorrow) and they want a full site with many pages built within a week. They don’t know my background and they are still willing to take me because they are in a time crunch. They need a website that is very well designed, but I don’t know the first thing about designing. I’ve never done any sort of freelancing. I feel so overwhelmed and in over my head.

How do I make sure I can deliver a good-looking website? And how do I get this done quickly?

2

they are still willing to take me because they are in a time crunch

That’s not how it works, my bro. They need you, not the other way around. You need to be “willing” to take THEM on. You set the standards and timelines, and if they agree, then they can sign the contract and pay up. If they don’t agree to YOUR timeline, then they can F right the F off.

3

I’d be honest and give them a realistic timeframe. If they want a website made in a day, they can make a Wix account and make one themselves. No half-decent website is made in a day.

4

Tobin said:
I’d be honest and give them a realistic timeframe. If they want a website made in a day, they can make a Wix account and make one themselves. No half-decent website is made in a day.

I would go so far as to refuse the work if they don’t accept sensible time frames.

I’ve worked with people who have a thing where they always want to be applying pressure. One deadline to the next, like they think it gives them a better service.

They suck as customers.

I only work for people who value what we do.

5

In your case, WordPress and download a ThemeForest design. You are technical to set it up. You’d be done in 5 hours.

6

Tatum said:
In your case, WordPress and download a ThemeForest design. You are technical to set it up. You’d be done in 5 hours.

Haha I was going to suggest WordPress too. Or use most of the money on hiring a freelancer that can pull this off.

7

@Oli
I can already hear the distant cries of the freelancer that will have to deal with this project in a few years’ time.

8

Ridley said:
@Oli
I can already hear the distant cries of the freelancer that will have to deal with this project in a few years’ time.

It’s just a landing page. Who cares?

9

Tatum said:

Ridley said:
@Oli
I can already hear the distant cries of the freelancer that will have to deal with this project in a few years’ time.

It’s just a landing page. Who cares?

Yeah, on day one.

10

Even a designer/front-end dev doesn’t want a job that’s expected to be turned around in that amount of time, unless they’re paying stupid amounts for it.

11

Build something simple with WordPress. If they want to rush you, give them a rushed website.

12

Client relationships that start off with rushed deadlines don’t usually end well. That’s probably why your friend passed this client on to you.

13

I remember I had a similar situation where I had to create 7 websites in like 3 days for whatever reason inside the company.

I said, “I’m not designing. I’m gonna grab a copy-paste template and it’s gonna look good but it’s just gonna be that. Look. No functionality. At most navigation between pages.”

And basically, that was it. I went to Framer, generated the templates, changed a few copies they already had, and deployed.

There’s absolutely no need to rush a website. You are not a doctor trying to save a patient’s life. Your job is to make things right in a timely manner. If you start with clients who only rush you to do things wrong, then it’s gonna be your fault. 1- Because you allow it. 2- Because you are actually doing a crappy job like everyone would do in your position.

Sometimes it’s better to keep your mental health and say yes to everyone who wants to give you a job.

14

Use CodeStitch. With that, you can put together a multiple-page website within an hour. Then another few hours styling it to meet the client’s branding.

15

Good artists build; great artists steal. Just go find a site design you like. Recreate it with their colors and assets. Heck, with the time frame involved, lean on AI. In the future, don’t take desperate clients or clients who are taking you because they don’t have a budget. You’re likely going to learn a very good lesson here when not only do they want the site within a week but they’re also going to have thousands of little changes indefinitely. We all need to learn that lesson and I guess this is your chance.

16

@Frankie
Is there a method to do this?

My designs always suck. And if I take inspiration, it ends up being “imagine if Facebook was green instead of blue”.

I find that aspect really tricky and I end up making the wrong choice most of the time. If I look at, say, 5 websites, I somehow take all the worst aspects of each one and put them together, resulting in something much worse than its parts.

17

@Tyler
I usually just go look on Dribbble. Don’t use a major site. Also, if you have the time in the future, read Refactoring UI, which describes design to developers very well.

18

Try v0.dev or bolt.new; these are AI tools that build quite decent-looking websites.

19

If they expect a site to be designed, built, and deployed in 1 day, don’t walk. RUN!

20

If you have the copy and images and access to the domain, then a day for an experienced dev is doable, but only within an established relationship of communication and trust. Push back for time if needed, because a one-day turnaround does not allow time for their review and approval. Again, this would really only be possible in a high-trust, established relationship.

That said, here’s what I’d do:

Put the copy into Claude AI, ask it to generate a landing page using Tailwind. Build it locally and copy-paste the local output to statically linked files, push to GitHub, then host on Cloudflare Pages. If they need form submission, use Formspree free tier.

The design is clean and simple. Tell the LLM you want a space for a large image on the right and a headline, brief paragraph, and button CTA on the left.

If the landing page is for form submission, then put the headline and paragraph on the left, and the form on the right (on mobile, show the form first). The form needs a headline and a line of copy explaining why the user should submit (e.g., “Enter your details below to receive emails about this event” or whatever).

Under the form, a section with a contrasting background color to the top of the page with a headline, paragraph, and image about whatever the thing is.

Then another section that is just the form, centered.

Basic design advice: use more padding than you think! Make the headline big! Use a clean sans-serif font! Use white, dark dark grey, and a strong color like red for CTA. If you need color inspiration, use https://coolors.co to get nice, easy-on-the-eyes colors.

Be sure to include a footer, and ask the client to send you a privacy policy to include, also as a static page. That’s their responsibility, and tell them it’s not your area of expertise but they should be able to find information on a blanket privacy policy on Google. It’s not launch-critical, but letting them know about it before launch is better.

If they then want more pages, again, statically build them locally and push to GH. You can link them statically in the navigation. When they inevitably come and ask you for a blog and other things that a CMS like WordPress would be good for, tell them you can add that new functionality in a new project for $X.

Good luck!

(Also, everyday web dev does not need complex toolsets like the MERN stack. Basic PHP, SQL database, and whatever flavor of frontend framework is a lot easier to deploy and pass to everyday kind of clients, in my opinion.)

Edit: If I don’t feel like running a local build step just to get a compiled CSS file from Tailwind, I use https://play.tailwindcss.com/ to copy-paste HTML in and get the compiled CSS out. Saves time in some situations.