Done fast, done cheap.
Proof that going for the cheapest option doesn't really pays off - just look at the SMC BMC Alliance website - The European Alliance for SMC BMC is an industry association of European companies and institutions involved in the field and product chain of SMC and BMC.
our initial moodboards
Back in 2019, we were asked, through a mutual acquaintance, to urgently help the company SMC BMC Alliance recover their website and take over its hosting. Their website had been built by another web provider who had vanished overnight, leaving their clients stranded.
So, in an emergency, we salvaged all the visible data (without admin access, of course) and managed to get the site back online in record time.
For years, we continued helping this company by maintaining a site for which they had lost all access, assisting them month after month, year after year, by manually updating content directly in the HTML pages. This was meant to be temporary, until the client decided to commission a more modern and easily editable website. That project had been “promised” to us as an incentive to keep doing their regular content updates.
False promises and real disappointments
Time went by, and after much persistence on our part, in 2023 the communications manager at SMC BMC Alliance finally asked us for a quote. We delivered a very detailed multi-page proposals, complete with mood boards and graphic suggestions. We never received any feedback on those documents.
Then, out of the blue, in October 2025 we received a simple email from the same communications manager, with whom we had worked harmoniously for over six years, informing us that the new website had been entrusted to a Dutch company. He also asked us to assist in transferring their domain names, which we did the very same day, without asking for any explanation.
Naturally, we were a bit curious / and admittedly anxious / to see if one of our peers (or competitors) had managed to do a better job (or at least as good) for a lower price.
We were quickly reassured.
Their new website is now online. Take a look at some of the results below.
We start with very low-res images and menus awkwardly overlapping the image blocks:
Text blocks stuck to the edges with no spacing (so much for readability):
Next, buttons randomly placed — inside text and with visible links!
A clumsy, unbalanced layout with very poor use of space:
Oh look, a clear and precise layout !
Aren't we thrilled ?
Missing images and dozens of “page not found” errors:
In short, sloppy, rushed work.
Probably worse than if a basic AI had built the site in a few hours.
If this client had focused on his employer's (SMC BMC Alliance) interests instead of his buddies building shoddy sites, the outcome might have been different.
