ash89

Yes, agreed it does look fairly similar. Though all white sites seem to have a certain method about them, I want to keep mine a little bit simpler than that one though. I thought I recognised the name isn't he an actor?! - Not the designers site. Thanks, sorry I didn't realise that was that annoying. It was literally an initial idea, just didn't know what the general consensus against my current portfolio would be. Seems I'll keep working on this new design though.

Hi guys, Just a quick one, is this initial idea better than my current portfolio? I always worried that my current one is too all over the place, contains loads of needless stuff and I just want to simplify it right down again. The 'view' bit is how the user would see it upon scrolling over the project. The XHTML in blue will be like the hover effect on the page, though I'm thinking a darker grey and white might be more appropriate. Will do it all in jQuery so it's a soft hover over. I know it's not 100% complete, or anywhere near it just been working on it since the football was on earlier! Plenty of things I'd change still. Anyway, do you believe this is heading in the right direction, or I should scrap the idea and keep with my current one? (www.ashleymorris.co.uk)

I quite like it, really contemporary and old school in it's design. Hopefully that is similar to how your sister's company is, in what she sells! Obviously I imagine you will fiddle around with the main section as the pink..ish background colour of the main section is awful. I'd imagine white wouldn't look too bad due to it's contrast with the rest of the websites background. Like the style of the navigation, only thing is I'm not sure if the bar is slightly too long in height. Would be good to see it with the content on the page instead of Lorem Ipsum and the way you are going to lay it out.

It says it's a Div called 'overlay' I've unticked all of the elements inside of the tag and it works (obviously until I refresh or move from the page). Like so: overlay { background-color: black; height: 500px; left: 0px; position: fixed; top: 0px; width: 100%; z-index: 15000 !important; } It's so strange because it only happens upon viewing threads on this website! I can post fine, I can look through a list of forum topics fine, but when I load a topic up that's when it happens. I've used other forums and they work fine IPB, phpbb etc. I don't know if it's any of my add-ons why would it only do it for this page? And no-other website, or no other pages within the website. So strange!

Hi guys, Why am I seeing a massive black box whilst trying to read topics on this website in Google Chrome? Am I being completely clueless? For example: Obviously I can use a different browser just wonder if there is a fix for it? Or if I'm doing something stupid! Yes, I've reset my PC & Browser. Thanks in advance, Ash

It looks ok in places. The header really doesn't look that great though, the typography within it is terrible and I don't really like the pattern overlay upon it. The icons of the letter and telephone look pretty low quality as well. Below the header the site definitely gets better, though some of your choices of images are pretty bad. The images in your 4 boxes look horrible, distorted and one is even clip-art! These definitely need to be changed. Where is your navigation as well? I know there are links on the pages so it's not a one-page site, you really need to have some form of main navigation bar for usability. Parts near the bottom look strange as the left bar is so much longer than the right, and the right just comes to a halt after the form. It's a good start and isn't too far off being a decent design.

I like it, the alignment is a bit out as Rogan pointed out. The only thing is the page seems way too long in my eyes, I can't stand having to scroll through lengthy pages, it should probably be cut down to 2 sections, like 'Hot' & 'Sale' etc. If that's not what the client has asked for perhaps you could fit 2 sections on one line instead of using the whole width for one section. Is the banner going to be a jQuery slider of products or something along those lines I'm presuming as it's a shopping site? I like the overall feel of the site. You have to love companies who get a designer in but don't want much changed at all, the branding I understand but not even the layout?!

They're both really nice, hard to choose which one is better. I'm leaning more to the second one because of it's simplicity and logical layout. The first one looks a bit more appealing because of the images appearing at you straight away and there seems to be a bit more functionality actually. Ok, that's clear I think I will go against myself and pick the first one! Though the 2nd one isn't far off at all, just perhaps a little too bland, both really nicely designed though.

It would be nice to see home place holder images/dummy text in the white space to show how you're going to lay that out as that's one of the main parts of the design. I personally wouldn't advise you to use Flash, especially if you're having to read up how to do that as it often looks unprofessional and many designers are moving away from it nowadays, though some do still swear by it. I'm not even sure if it was done properly how it would improve the site, probably just become an annoyance waiting for it to load every time someone looks at your website. The fonts that you are using look a bit strange because they are so opposite from one another between the navigation and your banner. I think they should be one or the other to make the website appear more seamless. Though I'm not sure the banner font is that nice due to the background smudges, makes the text seem a bit unclear. The idea of the site is still good, though I'm not sure how it will come out in web format as I'm presuming the screenshot at the moment is of a PSD and not a coded site?

Ok, the layout is understandable and you've written it in CSS as oppose to using tables and at times people don't even understand how to do that when they are starting out so good job on that part. Now the banner is pretty bad, I really don't like the font and the colours within it, it looks like something you created as a young kid using play-dough, they really don't go well together. Easy on the gradient as well, subtle gradients look a lot better, try bringing the opacity of it down a bit and you will see what I mean. I'm not sure the font of the navigation bar is that great either. I get it, it's meant to be a fun website and not stick to the usual guidelines (hence the target audience) but you still want to make the company look professional and an activity you would want to undertake. The mailto link will produce a lot of Spam, try creating a form in PHP, I find users like that option as well as an e-mail address, a lot prefer it in fact. The footer font is also unreadable, try at least putting it into an easy to read font Arial, Verdana, Helvetica etc. It's a good basis, just needs to be improved. Good luck.

The colour scheme is pretty bad to say the least. The images on your navigation bar are broken on my browser as well (Chrome). The home page is so empty, where are the images, where's a general logical layout? Try validating your pages to XHTML strict as well, it will improve your coding skills, transitional still allows for quite a lot of errors. It's a good starting point anyway in understanding it. You already have adverts on your site as well, I'd stay well clear. A hit counter reminds me of something out of geocities I think you should get rid of that. I'm sorry but if I were looking for a Web Designer your site just doesn't showcase you well enough against most Web Designer portfolios. Keep trying and you will nail it but you should probably leave this design behind and start from scratch.

Thought exactly the same. I had to look at it for a minute to realise it did somehow say SEO. Though to me it doesn't look like a whale or a clear abbreviation. Just seems a little overcomplicated. Though the illustration on a general basis is still pretty impressive.

The design looks really old fashioned, even the navigation seems like something that was created a long time ago. Perhaps get some images on it and it could look better but I really don't like the different shades of blue that you have used. The logo is also really quite bad, it looks like it was done in WordArt? I don't know why but when I hear something like 'Get Customerz' where the S has been replaced with the Z it immediately makes me think of a caption out of 'LOL cats'. Thus in return immediately in my mind bringing down the professionalism of this company/website. What's up with the introduction paragraphs as well, you want to make what you do clear and obvious in moments. It just seems like a load of jargon that is really frustrating to read. I still have no idea what this site is trying to allow members/users to do. Simple steps, use more padding on your boxes, it looks a lot nicer. The layout is simple but works, though you really need to change the colour scheme in my mind. This would look a lot nicer even on a white background and more subtle box colours such as light grey etc. Look at some Joomla websites online there are plenty to give you a good idea on what works and what doesn't. Good luck.

The site seems to bounce around a bit from page to page usually because of the scrollbars. Only slightly but nonetheless it is a few pixels at a time, quickly navigate through the pages and you will see what I mean. This is how it's appearing on mine and I'm using Firefox. The homepage doesn't particularly grab me, the only bit I really like is the large image of the tree! Though I think where this is some nice jQuery could be used to create a slider of somesort changing information from time-time similar to something like the main slider on www.seanjohn.com. The style of the site looks a bit FrontPage'y, extremely tabular (even though it's written in CSS). It's good that you clearly state what you do 'SEO, E-Commerce etc', just perhaps this could be implemented in a more aesthetically pleasing way, with icons/graphics etc.

Ok, so I've relaunched it this afternoon at: www.ashleymorris.co.uk Would be interesting to see what you think of the new design, especially in comparison to the older one (if you managed to see it). There are a few bits I want to add a few things on (contact page & portfolio page). The featured work bit will be of a live site in the next few days hopefully, I'm just waiting to tie the deal up with the client. Though you can get the general idea from it. Oh and forgot to say thanks to the guy who notified me of the rollover images being broken, these aren't fixed yet though they will be within the next day or so. As always I will reply. Thanks, Ash