invisibleinkweb

Hello guys, Could you possibly have a look at: http://www.talbotgardenservices.com The problem I have is that, in the footer, I am trying to put a "Callback" form. Customers put their number in the form, hit Send and their number is emailed to me. The weird thing is that I can't get the input field to sit level with the submit button - it's like there's a 3px (approx.) margin at the top of it and, whatever I do, it sits a few pixels below the submit button. I am using the Thesis theme for Wordpress and that particular piece of code is produced by the "Contact Form 7" plugin. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated - it's driving me mad!! Thanks for your time.

Hmmmm, I dunno... There are some aspects of this that I really like, but others that spoil it (in my opinion). Firstly, get rid of the shadow effect around the content box - it makes your eyes go weird and that's the LAST thing you want a website to do. I like the idea of the track but do you need the chequered (spelling??) background? I think it'd look more authentic if you used, for example, a grass background and then laid the track over the top, with pieces of grass overlapping the edges. A little bit like the content boxes on this joomla theme: http://template15.joomlart.com/ja_zinc/?ja_color=grass (You might need to force refresh the browser once you arrive at that link, for some reason, when I clicked on it, it took me to a dark-background version) Also, I think the track should extend all the way to the bottom of the screen. At the moment, it stops and you've got a great big pointless area at the bottom. In terms of the styling of the blog posts, etc., I think you've got it spot on! Very nice formatting and they fit well within the design. Bournemouth Uni eh?? I'm currently sitting, typing this in my living room about 2 mins walk from Bournemouth Uni! Give me a shout if you'd like any help with anything!! Just completed your survey too, hope it helps!

Sorry, I didn't mean with the whole design - I just meant with the header bit (my attempt above was very quick and messy). I think that, overall, you've got a great design there - it's just the header that needs the work!

Looks like Super Mario!! It's cool!! Mine would have to be my own - took ages to do and now I've discovered that the design breaks in IE9. I was trying to be too clever!! http://www.invisibleinkwebdesigns.com

Hi again Neil, LOVE the homepage - I think it show real class and an almost "editorial design" feel to it. Beautifully laid out, while keeping the information short and to the point. The only slight gripe I'd have with the homepage is that I think the shadow effect on the slideshow thing is a little too extreme - the rest of the site has a "magazine" feel to it, very elegant and polished and I'm not sure that bit fits. I honestly think it'd look great without any shadow effect at all. I'm not sure about the other pages though - you seem to have styled them completely differently. I presume this was intentional but I'd prefer to see all of them looking as well laid out and slick as the homepage. It kinda looks like you've got 2 empty sidebars. If you style the other pages in the same way as the homepage, you've definitely got yourself a beautiful-looking site.

Certainly better than my first effort!! You really shouldn't use flash though, especially for a full site design like that - it's more than simple enough to be coded properly in html and css. Flash will prevent search engines from effectively indexing your site, so it'll rank really badly, it'll prevent people without flash from viewing the site and it means you get that annoying loading bar. If you are going to use Flash, you really need to think about using separate .swf files and loading them as necessary. I believe the whole site loads as one .swf at the moment, which means the file size is too large. There are all sorts of ways to load the extra files as and when you need them. As for the text on the site, I'm not sure what's happened but it looks awful. Loads of anti-aliasing going on, which is strange because one of the massive benefits of flash is its performance with displaying fonts well. Oh, and get rid of the insanely annoying noises as you hover over menu items. The design is reasonably good though, so well done with that and good luck tweaking it!

Lovely, clean design. I'd change the choice of the word "choosing" though - it looks wrong and there's a perfectly good noun that you can use - "choice". You shouldn't use a gerund unless you HAVE to (for example "swimming" or "driving") - if there's a suitable noun, use that instead! Grammar rant over. Only other thing I would say is that the footer changes colour (halfway down the car images). Sort that out and you have a slick looking site!

It still looks a bit lop-sided. You've got a lot of information in the top left, with only the "Become a Host" button in the top right. In terms of the positioning of the button, I think it's fine to put it in the header, expecially if it's important. How about something like this (just a VERY quick fiddle): Just seems a bit more balanced but definitely needs a lot more work.

Firefox 3.6.12

Basically, everything inside that div is a link. You need to make sure, when you're doing it, NOT to put block-level elements inside the link. For example, you can't put <p> inside the link. On that Dyson site, they've got around this by using a span class to style the text. If you put block level elements inside the link, you'll never get it to validate.

Errrr, not a lot to say! I presume this isn't the finished site?? It just looks like a standard Joomla installation without any theme, styling or real content. In effect, what you have here isn't YOUR site at all - it's a generic install of a CMS.

I quite like it. Only thing I might change is the tagline (bed & breakfast for people like you) in the header - it kinda looks like part of the title. Needs to be a bit smaller I think. Also, perhaps making the navbar stretch all the way across the top of the content would mean that the design looks a little less lopsided. I think you've come up with a design with lots of potential though, it looks really clean and simple and the use of images is eyecatching. Well done.

Haha, Is the whole top of that page a massive image?? Your dedication to doughnuts is impressive but the website needs to be completely redesigned. To be honest, it doesn't look like a commercial website so I presume that you don't want to spend a lot of money redesigning it. I really think you should give it a go yourself. If you're asking "Can anyone redesign this so it's better?", then the answer would be "yes" from pretty much every single member on here. If you're asking "Can anyone redesign this for free?", then the answer would be "no" from pretty much every single member on here. Give it a go yourself - brush up on your html and css and go for it. EDIT: Have you ever actually handed out the reward for that competition?? You're setting yourself up for a lawsuit if you don't!!

Haha. It's a good effort but yeah, doesn't look anything like a whale (unless you've just been told it's an SEO whale). To be honest, I'm not going to criticise at all because it's about a million times better than I'd ever do - I'm utterly useless at this kind of thing and I'd never even attempt it. So... Well done with the valiant attempt but I fear that your worries are justified - it just doesn't really look like anything. Make sure you post the finished thing on here though - would be good to see it!

Hahaha. One of the easier website critiques!

Not a big fan. Sorry The colour is utterly vile and the whole design looks very dated. You've got a photography section with no photos (your slideshow thing doesn't work on my computer) and a web design section with no portfolio (although you do mention posting some templates soon). I just don't think that this will inspire very many people to use your services. I hope I'm wrong but I think you need something with a little more "wow factor". Apologies for being so negative but it needs a lot of work.

No worries. Like I said, I'll try to find my list and type it in but I think most of the important ones are in those posts. Even questions you think are utterly pointless at the time are occasionally insanely useful as projects progress.

Errrr, he/she doesn't make any mistakes with his/her code. It's only where you've tried to make the css more specific that the problem has arisen. He/She hasn't needed to target specific pages. As for finding a better way to fix the problem, congratulations! Did removing the commas work though? Believe me, it ISN'T!!!! Practice is a noun Practise is a verb You definitely need the noun - you've said "My practise" - "My" is a possessive adjective and therefore you need a noun after it, for example "My car is fast". Therefore, it should be "My practice". You can't put a verb after a possessive adjective. You CAN use a gerund if you like, for example "My driving is terrible". "Driving" here is not a verb though, it's a gerund - it looks like a verb but acts like a noun. Grammar lesson over.

There are quite a few really important questions to ask your client before you start designing - I've got a printout somewhere at home of questions I always take along and if I get the chance, I'll post them on here but there's a pretty good list here: http://www.simonday.com/web-design-blog/2009/05/22/web-design-build-questions-to-ask-new-clients/ and... http://www.designspring.co.uk/articles/pdfs/web-design-q.pdf As for the situation you mentioned above, it sounds like you had a pretty good idea of what the client was expecting and what he wanted, only for him to change his mind. I would argue that this is grounds for a hike in the price of the site. If you've done everything to try and ensure that you knew what he wanted and then he's changed his mind completely, then that's not your fault at all and you should be paid for the extra time involved. It's a difficult thing to do but, at the end of the day, you're paid for your time and any quote you give a client will presumably be based on an estimate of how long it will take you. Any unforeseen increase in this time (as long as it's not your fault) should come out of the client's pocket. If it's just small changes to a sit design, then you can't really justify a massive increase in price but, with a total redesign, then you can. When do you bill the customer?? If it's 100% on completion of the project, then you put yourself in a difficult position in terms of renegotiating a price. A common choice is for 40% up front (before any work is completed), 40% halfway through and the remaining 20% on completion. This means that you are in a strong position, especially with major design changes near the end of the project. It's also important to be very clear regarding your pricing before the project starts. Explain in no uncertain terms that major changes will be extra, although the client will have the opportunity to make a small number of alterations at no extra charge. It's really important to remember that they've probably hired you for a number of reasons, most importantly: 1) They like your previous work 2) They are confident that you are good enough to produce an effective site You don't tell a plumber how to do his job and, while design work is admittedly different, I think you need to take a little bit of that attitude into your work as a designer. You've probably made all your choices based on information the client has given you, so there's no need to feel uncomfortable changing your prices if the customer changes everything.

Haha, I often wonder whether it'd be a good idea to actually intentionally write in a few common spelling errors and typos, for example: proffesional proffessional desing Just so that when someone types in "proffesional web design", the keywords are less competitive and you come top! Haha. Although google now makes suggestions when you enter the wrong spelling

I think it looks alright! Admittedly, the animated .gifs and scrolling text are not very nice but I think, given the amount of information you've had to include on here, the layout works effectively and the navigation is pretty intuitive. I would suggest hover effects, etc. on the nav menu in the header and I would also suggest sticking to one hue of blue - the darker blue at the top of the header works well, the "twitter" blue underneath the yellow tabs does not. I don't think there's a clash between blue and yellow, but there definitely IS a clash between the lighter blue and the yellow. Also, more of a performance issue... It's much better to use css sprites than the individual images that you've used in the header. Oh, just noticed: You need to change the colour of the "Custom Quote" bit and the "Product List" - they don't fit with the design at all! Custom quote is a nice idea though! By far the biggest issue with this site is the fact that it's all made with tables! This is a HUUUUGE no-no! I won't go into all the reasons here because I'll be typing all day but you should NEVER NEVER NEVER use tables unless what you're trying to display is tabular data. There are all sorts of accessibility issues for disabled users, etc. and theoretically you can get into trouble for it (a bit like not making your shop premises accessible to disabled users). Navigation should be in lists and, as far as I can tell, there is very little (if anything) in that site that requires a table. To be perfectly honest, it needs a complete recoding, from scratch. Have you used some sort of CMS or WYSIWYG editor to design this?

Thank you very much! I will sort those out immediately. Someone else just pointed out the "the the" actually! Haha. Congratulations on the ranking - that's pretty sweet after less than a year!! EDIT: Fixed! Thanks

Hmmm, not sure - it definitely needs something done to it. I would suggest making a real feature of the game itself. At the moment, there's just text. I think a big, fat, juicy screenshot of the game should be the focal point. Maybe a jquery slideshow of a few different screenshots, with descriptions of what users are looking at?? Nivo Slider is good for that sort of thing. If you want to keep it simple, perhaps remove the sidebars to the left and right and provide a login and register link, plus stats info right at the top of the screen. Latest news could be in a footer or something. If the site is purely to gather interest in the game, then I think you really need to draw users' attention to it. The sidebars distract - make them see the GAME first - they'll soon look around for login and register links once they're interested! The logo looks a little "80s" but that might be what you've looking for. Also, clean, simple sites look cleaner and simpler with a white background, rather than a grey one! Good luck with the app, let us know when it's finished!! Be good to check it out.

Thanks guys, Yeah, it's a bit unusual but it's happened a few times with fonts I use quite a lot. And yeah, I use fontsquirrel - it's awesome!

Apologies, My celebrity knowledge is poor and I only glanced at the image - I assumed it was Lindsay Lohan going to court or something. My point is that every decision you make as a designer should be aimed at optimising the site for the client (or actually the client's clients). If you've made your decisions based on this, then usually it's really easy to justify individual structural and stylistic choices. Very often, the client may just be thinking about what THEY like, rather than what their clients will find beneficial. It's really common for clients to disagree with certain aspects of a design but it does seem that you're having to make huge changes. In the first example, as I said before, the changes are for the worse (and, if I were you, I would have STRONGLY tried to persuade the client that your original design was better) but the final design of the security site is significantly more appropriate, although perhaps not as "creative". The fact is that not all clients expect or want a heavily stylised site with beautiful images, unique navigation systems, etc. In fact, most corporate clients I've dealt with have actually specified that they want clean, simple, uncluttered and undistracting (if that's a word) designs. Have a look at this example: http://www.ilccomms.com That's a site I did for a management training provider. Obviously they wanted their corporate colours to feature extensively through the site. The original blue they provided me with looked absolutely vile and so we had to have a discussion about the differences between how something looks in print and how it displays on a screen. After a tiny amount of tweaking, we reached a compromise with a more vibrant colour and the design went ahead. The only thing I couldn't talk them out of was having the testimonial at the bottom of the homepage content, oh and the big fat red block for the important updates My point is that the important considerations regarding colours, nav systems and basic design should take place before you even open Photoshop and start playing and, when you can justify your decisions, it becomes very easy to convince the client that your idea is better than theirs. They have, after all, hired you because YOU are the expert. You know more about useability, layout, typography and, importantly, what's actually possible in terms of design than they do. Use your powers of persuasion and your knowledge to explain WHY your idea is better. It's important to remember though that sometimes a client will come up with a great idea. Just because they're not designers, doesn't mean that they don't occasionally come up with an absolute gem of a suggestion! It's all about justifying the things you don't want to change and taking on board the comments that are actually useful!! My apologies if my previous post upset you. Having just read it back, it does seem very harsh.