[StuartPB]

The website I'm building to help me raise funds for two armed forces charities, by promoting the sponsored walks I'm organising and participating in has come to a grinding halt. The reason for this is that I want to have some images (as a slideshow or slider) on the front page that are relevant to the theme of the site, and help to put the message across. I don't have any though that fit the bill, and I've tried scouring the free image sites for some inspiration but have fallen flat on my face. Here's how the page looks now, the area I want to fill is shown with the image place holder:


(source: http://opsorefeet.info)

I know it's cheeky asking, but I was wondering if any of you guys could help out with this? Even some suggestions as to the image content would be great. If I can't find some good, free images, I'm going to end up having to fill the white space with text, and it's going to look too text heavy. I'm really struggling with this aspect of the site, as graphic design is a black art to me, one that I've never been any good at If anyone could offer any help in any way, I would be very grateful.

Thanks,

Stu

This post has been edited by StuartPB: 14 December 2011 - 02:44 PM

[zed]

have you asked the charities whether they have anything?

[StuartPB]

zed, on 14 December 2011 - 02:54 PM, said:

have you asked the charities whether they have anything?

I never thought of that

I'll give them a ring now and see if there's anything they can help with for the images, thanks!

[StuartPB]

Mixed results with the calls. One charity said they could offer printed promo materials, but weren't sure with digital materials, the other went to answer machine, so fingers crossed I may get some help.

[Bomb]

What I would suggest is, for now grab a decent image of say a country lane or hills etc etc. This site may be worth a look: http://www.sxc.hu/ .

Then take photos as you train and participate in the walks and replace them on the site or have them rotate on a slider.

[StuartPB]

Bomb, on 14 December 2011 - 06:02 PM, said:

What I would suggest is, for now grab a decent image of say a country lane or hills etc etc. This site may be worth a look: http://www.sxc.hu/ .

Then take photos as you train and participate in the walks and replace them on the site or have them rotate on a slider.

Thanks for the advice. I've used an image for now that I took on a training walk. I've spoken to the RBL today, and they sound like they may have some more appropriate images for me to use. The images I ideally wanted to use were related to the charity and to the work they do with those they help. It will hopefully help reinforce the point I'm trying to make that any money raised will be put to good use, and give an easy visual reference for visitors as to what the site is all about. I tried Nivo earlier today, but there must have been some conflict with the other scripts I have on the page? I have another slider I am familiar with so it's no biggie.

As the site is now, I'm getting to the point where I will be messing with it for no real improvement. I'm far from a pro, and I think I'm reaching the limits of what I can do. I'm going to be putting all the textual content on over the weekend, and finishing off the pages I haven't done yet. It may not be a great site, but if it helps me with the fund-raising, then it will serve it's purpose well.

[robbydesigns]

StuartPB, on 14 December 2011 - 02:44 PM, said:

The website I'm building to help me raise funds for two armed forces charities, by promoting the sponsored walks I'm organising and participating in has come to a grinding halt. The reason for this is that I want to have some images (as a slideshow or slider) on the front page that are relevant to the theme of the site, and help to put the message across. I don't have any though that fit the bill, and I've tried scouring the free image sites for some inspiration but have fallen flat on my face. Here's how the page looks now, the area I want to fill is shown with the image place holder:


(source: http://opsorefeet.info)

I know it's cheeky asking, but I was wondering if any of you guys could help out with this? Even some suggestions as to the image content would be great. If I can't find some good, free images, I'm going to end up having to fill the white space with text, and it's going to look too text heavy. I'm really struggling with this aspect of the site, as graphic design is a black art to me, one that I've never been any good at If anyone could offer any help in any way, I would be very grateful.

Thanks,

Stu

Stu,
nice message, you sound like a nice guy so +1 for you buddy. As far as your site goes it's got a long way to go but my first question is why you're reinventing the wheel; why not just get yourself one of those pages on that very famous site that I cant remember the name of (it's 11pm..)
Anyway, if you decide to keep with your own site why not ask TemplateMonster for a free template? I designed a nice site based on one of their templates a couple years for a bunch of guys who were going to travel the world by train, TM donated the template and I edited it for them.
As for images, your site would be more trusted if the images were of the people doing the sponsored walk (get them to dress up and do a little walk to give viewers the feeling of what's going on), edit out the background sky etc and drop in an image of war or whatever and you've got a compelling image.

[StuartPB]

I wanted to create my own website because there was nothing out of the box that done everything I wanted it to do. There is going to be a lot going on in the site, including:

Training Logs (custom php and MySQL DB).
Each time I go out training, I'll be tracking myself via GPS and saving the track to GPX format. The training log is split into two pages. The first is a table of all the training walks. You can then click on a link for each walk, and it will show the details of each in a dynamic page, with a google map that displays the GPX track and info. I've completed this now, and it works well. Also created admin pages for this.

Blog (Wordpress install)
I've sorted this now, and I can post up relevent news etc.

The sponsors and sponsorship (custom php and MySQL DB).
I've created a table in the DB, where info on all my sponsors will be held, including amounts. The data can then be output to the sponsorship amount raised graph, and also to some other pages I'm going to be creating. I've created some admin pages for this, to allow input and editing.

GPS Tracking
This is an iFrame where a google map will show my current location, which will be used on the sponsored walks as and when I'm completing them. The location is sent from my WP7 phone, making use of the built in GPS.

There was nothing I could find that would allow me to have all the above functionality, apart from some dodgy WP plugins, that didn't work exactly as I wanted them to. I'm learning php and MySQL, so I thought I would have a crack at building the functionality myself. The live GPS tracking was above my skills though, so I used a 3rd party script for that. I know the styling isn't brilliant, but if I can make the site work as I wanted it to, then that's a trade off I'm prepared to make. I would like a shiny site, but the functionality and content are more important to me. I didn't want to use a template because I will have learned nothing by doing so, apart from titivating it to my own tastes. I am keen to learn and the only way I can is by getting my hands dirty and starting from scratch.

Cheers,

Stu

This post has been edited by StuartPB: 18 December 2011 - 11:18 AM