webcanvasdesign

why dont you close the paragraph tag, or remove it and just use 2 x <br />

I am currently working on refining my overall website design, especially my single.php.

Take a look - http://www.webcanvasdesign.co.uk/magento/what-is-magento-cms.html.
 
I've added floating / sticky social sharing buttons, and added some colour throughout. Some of you may not like my design, but i was determined to have something that didnt conform to similar sites and was 100% my taste....I Personally love simplistic designs that let the content do the talking..

Hi Chris,

Ive always been honest with my views with you, and this is no exception. As always no offense ment in what i say

The fonts / colors / layout / text shadows are all dated and feel very clunky. the colors dont work well together. It appears that your sidebar header font size is small then the <li> underneath... looks kind of odd.

The top navigation doesnt fit with the design at all. You have textures and flat colours throughout the page, then stamped across the top is a white gradient navigation. From the page layout and colors used.. I see white as the place im going to read important information, navigation is supposed to be subtle and understated, only readable when looking for it.. May explore 2d colors for the top navigation, maybe in a darker almost silky royal blue, instead of using gradients you could use pixel perfection elements, borders, inset box-shadow and so on.
 
Being a church i dont really feel that a sans family font is right dont you think? I would of thought that a serif family font would of been much more applicable, given the age of the bible and Christianity itself i would go with a traditional serif, something like this: http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/EB+Garamond

Colors.... White, Blue and yellow... The white and blue are fine, but that yellow is sticking out like a sore thumb...why not try a really subtle gray? it would flow alot better, would nto stand out to much and would not take the viewers attention away from the content in the middle of the page..

Hope this helps

remove:

 
min-height:100%;  


from

 
.content

The ignorance of people towards microdata. I'm tired of the stupid comments on Google Webmaster Tools, the constant torrent of 'why won't my picture show up' and other such aesthetic uses of microdata when it's much more than serps and keywords ... freaking imbeciles! Gaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!

Hi Chris,

Ive always been honest with my views with you, and this is no exception. As always no offense ment in what i say

The fonts / colors / layout / text shadows are all dated and feel very clunky. the colors dont work well together. It appears that your sidebar header font size is small then the <li> underneath... looks kind of odd.

The top navigation doesnt fit with the design at all. You have textures and flat colours throughout the page, then stamped across the top is a white gradient navigation. From the page layout and colors used.. I see white as the place im going to read important information, navigation is supposed to be subtle and understated, only readable when looking for it.. May explore 2d colors for the top navigation, maybe in a darker almost silky royal blue, instead of using gradients you could use pixel perfection elements, borders, inset box-shadow and so on.
 
Being a church i dont really feel that a sans family font is right dont you think? I would of thought that a serif family font would of been much more applicable, given the age of the bible and Christianity itself i would go with a traditional serif, something like this: http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/EB+Garamond

Colors.... White, Blue and yellow... The white and blue are fine, but that yellow is sticking out like a sore thumb...why not try a really subtle gray? it would flow alot better, would nto stand out to much and would not take the viewers attention away from the content in the middle of the page..

Hope this helps

im with everything teodora just said. No offense ment here, but it looks like u have found a theme on theme forest and copied the design.. Its a nice design dont get me wrong it just seems a bit generic..
 
Im just looking a a page with things moving on it, there's no enticing content there to get the customers past the home page

Ok there are several steps and I've simplified the process. I've used sessions to allow the chosen stylesheet to be accessed by all the pages. Knowing javascript you'll be familiar with sessions. Look in the php manual for the syntax - the main thing is to ensure you start the session with session_start() as the absolute first thing on pages that use the $_SESSION variable. If not, you will get an error.
 
1. In your configuration or functions file define the function
function set_stylesheet($colour) { $styles_file=array('blue'=>'blueStyles.css', 'red'=>'redStyles.css', 'green'=>'greenStyles.css'); return $styles_file[$colour]; } 2. In your html page, you can have a mini form to allow the user to select the colour. The form action will call the set_stylesheet function and store it in a session. e.g.
<?php session_start() ?> <!DOCTYPE html> <head> ... </head> <body> $colours = array('blue', 'red', 'green'); if (isset($_POST['colour']) && in_array($_POST['colour'],$colours)) { $_SESSION['stylesheet'] = set_stylesheet($_POST['colour']); } ?> <form action="" method="post"> <select name="colour"> <?php foreach ($colours as $colour) { echo '<option value="' . $colour . '">' . $colour . '</option>'; } ?> <input type="submit" value="Choose colour" /> </select> </form> 3. The head section of your pages will access the session variable to pull in the appropriate stylesheet.
<?php session_start() ?> <!DOCTYPE html> ... <head> if ($_SESSION['stylesheet']) { echo '<link href="' . $_SESSION['stylesheet'] . '" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>'; } else { echo '<link href="default.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>'; } ?> </head>  
I have limited experience working with cms sites so you will need to alter the above to suit your cms. And for themes you might want to store the value in a configurations table rather than a session. Hope this helps.

Hi mate,

You background is not being covered, try using the following code placing the url with your own,


background: url(images/bg.jpg) no-repeat center center fixed; -webkit-background-size: cover; -moz-background-size: cover; -o-background-size: cover; background-size: cover;  
Also mate, the 'what i dont do' section. Nice layout, but overall ur headers and paragraph texts are very big!. You need to add more margin-bottom; between each list item in the what i dont do seciton.

each paragraph flows from one to the other and not really any definition..
 
EDIT: Also i notice your topnav sticky is a bit delayed.. Checkout out 'wayooints.js' lightwieght easy to set up sticky navs, can also use it for onpage navigation and jumping between sections.. (handy for parallax)

im with sash, the overall design is nice, decent layout and definitive sections, but the cog's dont gel with the rest of the site.

Maybe a texture or subtle abstract background? Geometric pattern?
 
Best of luck mate

I've not done this before and I mostly handcode - you can store the variables/options in an array or a database. Depending on the option entered, you could pull in a different css file. Using an array would be faster.
 
Set up a configurations file, which every page includes. In the configurations file you can create a function that will define the array of options and actions and return to the calling page which action (or stylesheet) to pull in. When you call the function be sure to do so with a variable assignment statement to have access to the returned variable. Let me know if you need an example.

Hey jack,
 
at current my services are buzzwords, but soon they will be links, linking to each 'service' and explaining what it is etc.. overall design im not quite happy with yet still alot of brain storming to do..
 
im aware that content is as important as design, thats why im designing this site.. because design on its own just dont cut it.
 
thanks for you advice i will take it on board and put in to practice..
 
 
@daps 1 word replys dont cut it in here, thanks anyway thou. Im aware some spelling is off but the site is NOT complete. i make paragraph changes daily because im unhappy with content.
 
@4lis as asllways mate, thanks i swear to god*, i spell checked my last blog article, is my macbook set to american spelling?!
 
EDIT * fixed spelling (lol)

I can't read the white text in the footer.

Just a note about your services.
These are all buzzwords, you're gonna have potential clients that don't know what they mean, and this is where you may have just lost a job. When you're writing the content for your site, it's important to make the user feel welcome. They don't want someone who will just communicate in jargon, because that's not going to be easy going forward, and could be seen as patronising.
 
You need to go down to the clients level, understand that they are looking to hire because they don't know anything about this stuff, that's where you come in. Make it easy for users to understand, show examples, make it clear as to why they need a particular service, and why you are the person to do it.
 
 
Absolutely. It almost implies that it's gonna happen.
 
 
Again, your clients probably have a rough idea, but as the designer/dev guy, it's up to you to put the plan together and say 'this is what you need'.
 
---
 
I don't want to come across as a pain here, but content is equally important as design. It's shaping up really nice by the way

all i can really say from the screenshot is:
 
Typography is off, i cant put my finger on it..
 
navigation is to big / basic..
 
layout on the testimonial blocks (the quotes) are out of place, pull them inside the text container and float them left.
 
apart from that pretty nice

Congratulations mate, May i ask how long its taken you to learn to the level your at now, and What skills you currently have?
 
- Andy

still dont really tell us much..

Sorry if I come across as a nob here, I'm just tired and hate people saying "its easy" just because they've ranked for some insanely easy keyword.
 
So you understand about link juice, internal linking structures, how to value and measure link weight, the process of outreaching, linkbaiting, social signals? It's more than just changing some keywords on a website.
 
Google favours new websites. It's a fact. Just because you have a website in the top 100 doesn't mean you've cracked SEO. It's good to see you've taken my advice of targeting low-competition keywords first, to get the traffic in.
 
My sole business is SEO. I don't do design, I dedicate my working life to ranking websites. There's companies out there that charge £1,000 an hour for consultancy. Do you think they could really command that fee when all it takes is optimizing a website and cracking the top 100?
 
Look, I want people to get into this industry but it really annoys me when people come along and simply say it's easy and completely devaluing the work that SEO companies do.

Parallax - Coffee theme

First page - slogan

second page - as you scroll down coffee fills up the cup, when section.two = scrollTop(0); START STEAMING

Parallax - Coffee theme

First page - slogan

second page - as you scroll down coffee fills up the cup, when section.two = scrollTop(0); START STEAMING

Parallax - Coffee theme

First page - slogan

second page - as you scroll down coffee fills up the cup, when section.two = scrollTop(0); START STEAMING

i know form my experiance, that windows 8 renders the pages 'zoomed out' more. When i switched from win7 to win8 all my pages were smaller on the screen.
 
What i will say is may your background is to dark behind the text, lighten up the background to create some constrast, that should fix it
 
didnt see the image to start.. I can say 100% your problem is the red.. RED + black dont mix, i just redid a clients website because the past devoloper put up a black background and red titles, lets say it was a eye strain! try a orange instead

if that fails try a blue, blue + black is sexy

Hi
 
What the ideal design process would be:
 
1. Have a chat with the client to see what kind of people they are and if you think you will get on well with each other. Ask them questions about their business, their clients and what are they hoping to achieve with the site.
2. Sign a contract and get a deposit. Contract should cover you in all possible situations - like in this case what happens if client is not happy with the design, how many rounds of changes, etc.
3. Questionnaire - client need to fill in a questionnaire, this is for you to refer to, when designing the site later on. Questions should be about their target audience, their brand, colour scheme, etc, whatever you need to know to create a successful design.
4. Send them a first draft, to define the direction the design is going in and see if they are happy with that. Best to check from an early stage. Also one draft is enough - in my book t's a mistake to send a few versions for them to choose from. We are looking for quality, not quantity, so I much prefer to spend double the tie on one design, but make it perfect than creating two designs, that don't really fit.
5. Explain your design decisions and ask for a structured feedback. "Lacking a wow factor" is not a valid argument and they should explain why they think the design wouldn't work for their clients and why it wouldn't help them achieve their goals.
 
If the client is capable of explaining properly their goals and their vision of the website, you should be able to create a design that will work for them.
You need a set number of revisions, otherwise it could end up taking months, doing small changes here and there, or even a complete redesign.
 
Hope that helps.

Looks great, the images are a bit too blurry though, typically when you see an image blurred to this extent it's because there's something in the foreground that grabs your attention.
 
http://www.happytables.com/
http://danielfiller.com/
 
I would say that the typography isn't strong enough to go against a background quite like that. You have used nice fonts so perhaps something like http://cl.ly/O5ch would work?
 
I don't want to intrude on your work obviously, it's just an idea.

Wordpress doesnt just create 'php pages' its much much more then this..
 
PhP is a server side langauge, all code is executed on the server and output as html to the users browsers. What that php is doing is the background is much more then just 'easy to edit page'

give me 2 mins mate, i found a really really light weight framework, take a look i think you will agree it would be perfect starting point for a beginner, ive used 5/6 different frameworks now and although the others have alot more functionality, i like how little code there actually easy, the ease of use and intergration..

might also have something to do with, i like minimal code, and its very similar to my own plans to make myself a framework for future client devolopment
 
/* Computer */ .grid_1 { width: 6.5%; } .grid_2 { width: 15%; } .grid_3 { width: 23.5%; } .grid_4 { width: 32%; } .grid_5 { width: 40.5%; } .grid_6 { width: 49%; } .grid_7 { width: 57.5%; } .grid_8 { width: 66%; } .grid_9 { width: 74.5%; } .grid_10 { width: 83%; } .grid_11 { width: 91.5%; } .grid_12 { width: 100%; } .grid_1, .grid_2, .grid_3, .grid_4, .grid_5, .grid_6, .grid_7, .grid_8, .grid_9, .grid_10, .grid_11, .grid_12 { margin: 0 2% 2% 0; float: left; display: block; } .alpha{margin-left:0;} .omega{margin-right:0;} .container{ width: 90%; /*width: 1000px;*/ max-width: 1000px; margin: auto; position:relative; } .clear{clear:both;display:block;overflow:hidden;visibility:hidden;width:0;height:0}.clearfix:after{clear:both;content:' ';display:block;font-size:0;line-height:0;visibility:hidden;width:0;height:0}* html .clearfix,*:first-child+html .clearfix{zoom:1} /* Mobile */ @media screen and (max-width : 480px) { .grid_1, .grid_2, .grid_3, .grid_4, .grid_5, .grid_6, .grid_7, .grid_8, .grid_9, .grid_10, .grid_11, .grid_12 { width:100%; } } as you can see, very simple, very very light weight, and responsive down to mobile. its not cluttered with toot like bootstrap and foundation, are. I wouldnt recommend learning on bootstrap or foundation, but something like this i would!