PaulD

5/10 at most. Perhaps that is generous. Feels very cold and does not seem to convey a message. Feels disjointed from the previews I can see. For instance the curvy shape surrounding the price is not replicated or seen anywhere else. The colour choices seem uncomplimentary and overall the site feels somewhat dull, lacking in excitement. Sorry for the not so good news. Hope it helps, Paul.

The answer is yes if your supplier gives you access to their data. If your supplier just has a website of their own and nothing more, then no, it is not possible.

I would also tell your developer to stop using tables for layout as well. It is not the 90's any more.

LOL - absolutely. I built an opencart template for TF and it took me nearly 6 weeks. 3 hours! Tossing about with the wordpress CSS is hardly design work. Sorry to be so harsh, but come on, your taking the p**s.

You might be better off making up a new word altogether that represents your brand, and using 'design magazine' in your strapline. Paul.

Securing domains is tough. eplanetwebdesign tells people what you do, although the eplanet bit is a bit grand surely..... Bright is a good word with its multiple meanings, although 'web zone' is awful if you do not mind me saying. Picking names is so difficult. Good luck, tell us what you decide on (we promise not to mock any decision). Paul.

I am not sure if this is what you mean, but I have dabbled a bit recently with using user agent detection server side to not simply redirect to an entirely different page, but just to affect certain elements in each page. It has worked quite well and with a bit of practice could be really slick. For instance using media queries via css for simple stuff as you described above but agent detection to set preferred image sizes that are generated on the fly as well as skipping areas or elements that are not functioning well on smaller devices. This has dramatically improved site performance. The user agent detection also delivers an entirely different checkout process depending on the device or screen size, solving a couple of layout problems and making every users experience as good as possible. The nice thing about this mixed approach has been level of control it has given me over which elements are delivered to which devices, and for pages where it was not necessary, could just deliver the same page relying on traditional css methods. Try http://detectmobilebrowsers.com/ but do not header redirect to a different domain to deliver entirely new themes. I set a flag in the session that I then use conditionally for elements I want to change or alter. I hope that makes sense, and that it might help a bit, Best wishes, Paul. PS Mobify.js looks good but I have learned to try not to rely on js libraries as they often turn up issues that suddenly can't be solved. At least with the link above it is just a simple php query although the author has spent some time making it as comprehensive as possible.

Hi Marm, The site you have produced is awful. I think in all honesty you know that too. However this may not be entirely your fault but copying a layout of a site the customer says they like is a big mistake. Customers like sites but often do not know the real reasons why. Understand their market, their business and their needs and draw out a design on a blank page from scratch. Apologize to the customer, ask them for another chance and this time really produce the business for them. Show them your drawings and design ideas before building them example pages. That way you do not waste any time building pages when the general design and layouts have not been agreed. Then you can produce an example page based on your drawings that they can sign off on. Then you can build their site based off the example pages. Give the customer a list of content requirements such as images, copy and logos etc. and do not design anything until they have produced what you need to do a proper design. An interesting post though and I wish you luck with your project. In my experience you should consider refunding any deposit paid and find either a more co-operative customer or at least one where you can start a relationship afresh. It might be very hard to get this customer back on board again. Best wishes, Paul.

Hi all, I have a design problem that has been bugging me for ages now. I have an artist that produces images of dramatically different sizes, some tall and thin, others long landscapes. How can I display them in a porftolio? Normally I would fix the width and display them masonry style on a page using jquery. However I cannot fix the width here because the very wide but not tall ones become tiny. Again I would normally tackle this by separating out the short wide ones from the tall thin ones and display them in a different gallery style, but this artist has his images in different portfolios for different topics, where the different ratios are all mixed in together. When you see the images it does make sense but I have no idea how I am going to manage this. Does anyone have any ideas, examples on other sites or suggestions about how I can display these radically different ratios of images in a portfolio? Any help or suggestions would be warmly welcomed as I am truly stuck on this one. Best wishes, Paul.