wdh

Well first thing I noticed was very messy code. I assume you used some form of editor to create it? Also I would suggest looking at CSS and step away from using tables for your site structure. As for the navigation, I assume you want to link to the style sheet at tswnavbar. At the moment nothing in your vertical menu seems to link to the CSS in that file. For your menu you have "ul class = menu" but no where have you defined what the menu class is. In your CSS file you have a div called tswcssbuttons and then you have the ul, li and hover properties defined in there as well. So assuming you want to use the menu from this style sheet you would need to first add a div called tswcssbuttons and then you can put your menu inside this. I think you may need to read up on the basics of HTML and CSS first though, and I am sure everything will become a bit clearer for you then.

Can you post up a link to your site if possible? Or the code You are using, we can only guess at the problem otherwise.

It looks more like an e-mail newsletter I would receive rather than a website. Im not sure why you have got "pictures of the royals" and then "more pictures of the royals", just have "The Royals" then you can have their articles and pictures all in one place. Also, if you look at any news websites, they have an article headline with a picture then maybe a small summary. It looks like you have two full stories there. Think about just having small snippets for each story. Your design overall is also quite boring, I think if I had gone on to your site as it is now, I wouldn't return the next day. It consists of a big block of colour at the top with some pixilated text, then a block of colour at the moment. Take a look at some inspiration online and see how to create a professional minimal design if that is what you are looking for.

You can tell him that you are currently extremely busy and you will get back to him soon . . . If he then keeps coming back, tell him that due to the volume of work you currently have you will have to start charging £x amount per hour for any additional work. Although if you just want him to go away and never come back, you can say it how it is although that may give you a bad name.

I feel like i have been transported back a few decades In the nicest posibble way, i think a re design from the ground up would be best. For starters it is a table based website. These days the standard is HTML/CSS so perhaps you need to read up the basics on this. The repeating backgrounds are very bad on the eyes, you have plenty of great images so why not use one of those for your header rather than a horibble bunch of flowers. The cloudy background is far to busy, keep with a subtle gradient or solid colour. The colour scheme, or lack of it should also be addressed, we seem to have blue, black, purple, pink, red . . . stick to a few colours which compliment each other. Take some inspiration from the links above and see what other designs you can come up with.

It seems to just be a stock Wordpress theme ("stealth") so not a lot to review . . .

Could I first direct you to the title where I mention this is an idea, i just made it to experiment with an IDEA for a layout. The text is just to fill the space whilst I work on the structure. What browser and resolution are you viewing it in? If you also read the rest of this topic you will see that I aim this to be more of a showcase rather than to drum up business. I can understand your points if this was my live business site but for its current purpose, apart from the layout issue they aren't hugely relevant right now. Ps: I do value your opinion but it has been made clear quite a few times this is far from a fully functioning website, just a prototype of my idea. Content is just fill text so I can test font face

Making the colour expand to fit the browser window was/is the plan but my attempts have failed so far, I think I will need to read up on some more Javascript. Same goes for the down arrow if I want it to scroll smoothly

Good advice, thanks. I'm away for a few days so can't look at doing any changes for a while. I like the bilingual idea, despite living here all my life I am not a welsh speaker so I don't want to offend anyone with my poor translations ha. It's something I may look into though. Icons are an option I looked at, I will try it out when I'm next at my computer

For someone like me doing a software degree, that's a great case study for completing a thorough testing process. I can't believe what seems like an obvious bug wasn't spotted before it went live, and that it ran for 45 minutes even when it was live!

http://www.onextrapixel.com/2011/03/08/how-to-code-a-wordpress-3-0-theme-from-scratch/ A good tutorial I used for my first template, you can build it as you would a normal website and then use the tutorial to split it up into the relevant sections. And as above for working offline.

Thanks, like I said the nav isnt, and never has been finished your other ideas sound interesting though so I will look into them

Thanks, good point about the services page, I will definitely work on that. I should really link up the arrow, It's more complicated than it seems though as I have to be able to go to the next anchor which isn't as simple as it sounds, I assume I will have to add some more JavaScript for that.

You need a capital I for your images folder for the images not showing up PS: Looking at your site not only have you just sliced up an image and used that for your content you have used tables to create your layout. Two things to NOT do in modern web design. There is no problem in designing your site first, maybe you will save it as an image to show a client, but you should use elements from this to build your website and not the images slices themself. An example being your menu, its just one big image and then an image map on top to highlight areas as links. CSS can do all of the styling for you! I think you need to learn some basic html and css to start with before offering your services under "webdesignuk"

oops, i think ive found the naughty corner of the internet, its quite a large one as well

My point wasn't templates should never be used, i meant if people download a template like this: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/twentyten change the text colour and turn the background red and say they have designed and built a brand new site and can they get opinions on their great work. Its more people passing off work as their own which was clearly made by someone else that annoys me.

You only have to look at some recent posts in the website review section on here to see people offering web design or wordpress services but are using a free template themselves. To the average user they probably will be none the wiser, but all it takes is a quick look at the source code and you see the theme name which isnt very hard to find. It does annoy me because i learnt how to create wordpress themes over two days, hardly a big challenge and i imagine other well used CMS are the same.

My idea was to keep it quite simple, just to freshen up the site I already have. I will have a think and see if there are any subtle changes I can do to give it something extra. The navigation is where my thoughts are at the moment, I have changed it since my first effort. I want to keep it simple and compact but it gives no indication of which page is which, is this a big problem? This is more of a showcase rather than a site to drum up business so I am not sure. Any ideas what I could do to it? I have one other option which I may code up tomorrow for you to see, although right now its not my favourite.

I use a hotmal address for forums and friends usually. But the @outlook.com address they offer now sounds a lot better than the hotmail. Also from what i read it sounds like you can change your hotmail.co.uk address to an outlook.com address but still be able to recieve messages addressed to your old address, which sounds a good feature.

I haven't seen a topic on this so thought i would see what people think. Outlook.com It is a re brand of hotmail, personally I think it’s a big visual improvement. I can’t see me using the social network integration though but I am sure the new features are useful to others.

You have sites like myprotein, maximuscle and ukmuscle, they all have more neutral colours not all black, they arent mistaken for ballet websites on first glance Before your background loaded i could briefly see it with a white background and it looked much better, maybe dont go for white but definitely lighter.

It's a downloaded template . . . So how did you finish designing it? EDIT: I see you have changed to "building" and not designing it now. Which still isnt quite true. What would make it more appealing? perhaps make it unique. Would i contact you? I think that would depend on the content, to make people more inclined to contact you, you could add a small contact form on the homepage where the "our services" box is.

I like the colours, the purple on white, but it is missing something. Maybe add some gradient or texture?

EDIT: In the process of changing the navigation now, i wasn't happy with its previous look, still working on it though.

margin:0 auto; The above should do it, like people have said.. You don't need the float:left; either. If it isn't working, copy in the whole code you are using so we can see