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StephenOC

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  • Posts

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About StephenOC

  • Birthday 08/02/1982

Users Experience

  • Experience
    Advanced
  • Area of Expertise
    Web Designer

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://www.stephen-oconnor.com

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Ayr, Scotland
  • Interests
    Design, Photography, Typography , Football, Golf, Beer.

StephenOC's Achievements

Dedicated Member

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Reputation

  1. I went to uni to do Media Technology but I think you do the most of your learning actually working on projects and working your way through books/tutorials etc, unless you have someone you can learn from, an experienced designer/developer in your current place of employment for example. Over the past few years I have taught myself ExpressionEngine, JavaScript and jQuery from books and online, my next jaunt will be in PHP and MySQL as although I understand how these technologies work I wouldn't say I could actually code in them. I think a course might be worthwhile, but I guess that depends on what course it is an how much it is going to cost you etc. I think most courses are probably worthwhile but not all, and it would all depend on how hands on that course was that would make my decision for me if I were in your situation. For now, I am going to stick to books and websites like Codecademy to see me through.
  2. There's a whole load of different ways to make your images responsive and only load what specific images you need depending on screen size, but unfortunately there isn't a 'perfect' way to do it - one of my gripes with RWD. Try looking at this site, it seems to tackle the problem quite well.
  3. Definitely an improvement It now shows the client straight away some of the work you have done before, that's the kind of thing I'd expect from a 'design' website. A couple of things I would consider adding to your home page: 1) a small description of who you are (you or your company), what you do, how you do it etc, it just gives the images some context and immediately lets the person using the site know what you and your company are all about. 2) your rollovers are a little bit slow, I am not 100% sure how you have done them but you could use CSS to create to rollover or you could use JavaScript or jQuery, this would speed up the rollover and have less of a delay between the mouseover and the description showing. You are heading in the right direction though so high five for that
  4. I'm trying to make this sound as 'less harsh' as possible ... but for a company offering a wide range of media and digital services your website is very bland, why are there no examples of what you have done before? Why are there no images on the site? Where are your call to actions? You are trying to sell design as something you are an expert in but your site doesn't mirror that at all, the colours are bland and boring, the layout is average and it just doesn't really sell anything to me on a visual level. As I said I am trying not to make this sound harsh but if I were a client looking for a website designed and came across your site I would not buy from you. I suggest you Google some design agencies and see how they put their sites together, what colours they use, imagery, sliders, typography, css effects, layout etc. All these things are considered and used for a reason, maybe you need to learn a little more about design before you can offer your services for money. When I am struggling for inspiration I go here, a website that showcases the best websites around today, some of the work on here is phenomenal.
  5. I haven't actually signed up or anything but straight away I notice that your nav on the home page doesn't tell me what buttons do what, now I can tell the home icon will take me to the home page and the info icon will give me some additional information but this needs to be clearer for the user, e.g. the third icon, which I am guessing is a book, but honestly, it could be anything and how do I know that is taking me to the docs page unless I click it? I don't. I'd also make you sign up and login buttons different from the rest of the styling, I'd make them stand out more and give them some prominence on the page, because (I'd imagine) those are the buttons you want 99% of your users to click. The same with the sign up and sign up with Twitter buttons, make them stand out more, the hover effect at the moment makes them actually stand out less. Pick an accent/contrast colour of the green and use this for the buttons/hovers. Also, if I click sign up, why does the nav disappear? I understand that 'may' make more people continue with that process if there are no other options but I find it annoying, nav should be consistent on all page imo.
  6. It's hard to critique something when we have no explanation of the project. What are these pieces for? Where are they going to be used? Unless we know the goal of the project it's hard to tell whether you have designed something well or not...
  7. I use Photoshop to design the site, layout, colours, textures etc before I code the site, I cannot design something 'off the cuff', I need to know what the final project is going to look like before I can code it. This is just a personal opinion but I think designing in the browser would take longer (for me). But I guess it's about what is the best way to do things for you. Photoshop to design logos? :0 The graphic designer in me squirms at that, logos should always be designed in a vector program, Illustrator (or equivalent). I also use Photoshop for what it was designed for, to edit photographs
  8. The site is nice, I like the transitions/effects between the pages and the colours are strong. I also love the quote. If I were to be picky (sorry) I offer the following suggestions/comments: - There's too much white space between everything, on my 1920 monitor there is a huge amount of space between your text and the edge of the screen. - I think you could look at your alignment, this might be a personal thing but things that don't align just don't look right (imo). E.g. Your logo doesn't align with your name at the bottom, your nav doesn't align with ... anything really. - I'd like to know a bit more about each of your portfolio pieces, what the project was for, why you decided to design it the way you did, what the project involved etc. - Your 'About' section seems a little bit squashed to me, I'd add some space between the elements. - Your headings are images, you could easily accomplish the typography with fonts and css. - Your nav breaks when the screen is resized, although I see you are learning responsive web design so I guess this will be fixed once you know that. - Also, I'd never hire anyone who said they were 'basic' at something, be confident in your abilities, sell yourself. I think the site has some good potential though.
  9. I got an email about it but I haven't really looked into it yet. I'll definitely give it a look though as everything P&T do for EE is really good. Thanks!
  10. Voted. Some very nice sites in there. Good luck folks.
  11. Using ExpressionEngine can start to eat into a budget for sure, $299 for the CMS, plugins you will almost definitely need for a project: Structure (site tree/pages) - $65, Matrix (galleries, table data, large pieces of complex info) - $49, Playa (relationships between entries) - $69, WYGWAM (text editor) - $29, Assets (file management) - $99, Safe Harbor (backup) - $40. EE is very powerful out the box but my experience is that you cannot build a site without the above add-ons, well, you could but it would make your life and the clients life fairly difficult. I am not much of a programmer so I find using EE very simple as you can basically design your site as you wish then add some EE tags where you want your content to be updated, it's that simple. I've never used WordPress but it is something I am going to start learning to give me more than one option when building a site. Thanks. I might add some texture to the main body of the site, I tend to chop and change designs a lot, sometimes it drives me mad how much I tinker with things
  12. Lyndsey - I am using ExpressioneEngine, I love how flexible it is. Teodora - You sound like one of the girls who works in the office (who's in charge of the show), her only guideline for the design was "it MUST be pink"
  13. Site design and CMS for a local wedding show, almost finished ....
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