~~Dan~~

The redesign looks miles better. Really like the login part at the top.. it really jumps out at you Can't fault it really. Good job. The original one went over the top with the patterns IMO. Dan.

I get a neck ache when I try to read sideways text Seriously though, visit this site and look a bit further down about sideways navigation. Some useful info (and laughs) on that site. Dan.

Hi Ginette, The main site that bothered me was on www.rightathomeredesigns.com. "sideways" navigation is a bad idea in web design, plus the images look like they could be better quality, did you scan them in? I'd suggest redoing them in PSP and save them as a .png, they'd look better and wouldn't have any "fuzzy" edges. I do like www.blackburnredesigns.com though, thats the best one out of the bunch. Looks professional and graphics are much nicer... apart from the sideways navigation half way down the page Good first attempts! Dan.

Lol! An amusing story, thanks for sharing Yeah, I've been using letters but I've been throwing in a few postcards and business cards aswell. I'll see how it goes. I like the idea of targeting a specific group of businesses. Cheers for the replies, Dan.

Hi, I've been doing Mailshot advertising over the past few days and didn't realise how time-consuming it was! I'd like to know if anyone here chose to do mailshots by themselves or went to a direct mail company to do it. If so which ones would you recommend? Cheers, Dan.

I've been trying to find clients too.. I even had a go at cold calling but to no avail. Then again, I'm not exactly a salesperson so cold calling was probably a bad call.. I'm trying out mailshots to see if I get any response. Try looking for small businesses to mailshot. Dan.

Design-wise, it looks nice Layout-wise, you have the "get jobs direct" banner sitting all alone in its own column, which leaves a lot of white space. Maybe move that and make the column with all the text in a bit bigger? Dan.

Hi Magnum, Dreamweaver would be your best bet. But I prefer to do it all in Notepad (Notepad++ being the best one in my opinion). Dan.

I'd anti-alias the logo, so that it looks less jagged. maybe add a glow effect. something like this maybe... (see attached) Dan.

I'd totally go for the second design. Looks nice and glittery Took about 4 seconds for me to load in. Dan.

Wow. Some nice constructive criticism there... If you're not going to give a reason why it's the worst you've ever seen, then whats the point of posting... I've only just looked at the site, so I don't know what it was like before. To me, it looks fine. The main thing I'd change is the background image where all the content is. It makes the text a bit more difficult to read. Maybe less opacity on the image? Dan.

Cheers I visit Darlington frequently. Particularly the driving test center (I work as an ADI part time )

It looks fine for what it is You probably don't need to use Jquery for the navigation though. If you switched to CSS for the navigation, people who don't have javascript will be able to use the site. But that'll be a veeery small minority As far as design goes, the layout looks fine. If you want to use javascript, use it to alternate different pictures in the banner. The pictures could be different activities. Dan.

Hi, I've found this forum to be very useful, so thought I'd contribute in future. I'm based in North-east England (Teesside). Dan.

Nice design! Where abouts are you from? I reside in Stockton-on-Tees. Dan.

Cheers for the reply. I'm already self-employed and was told I didn't need to re-register as long as I'm already self employed. I already have an accountant but I probably will go with someone cheaper. What would you guys say is the best area to advertise? Cheers, Dan.

Hi all, I've been visiting this forum for a while so thought I'd sign up. I find a lot of useful info here I'm trying to start up as a freelance web designer, and just wondered how long it took you to start getting the clients/work in. Am I going to be in for a long wait? Sorry if this has been asked before. Dan.