October 7, 200818 yr Hi all, I'm Niall! I'm a Graphic Designer for a local newspaper and I work as a freelance web designer in my spare time. I hope to make webdesignerforum.co.uk a regular stomping ground! A while ago I designed and created a website for my brother: http://www.epd-qs-solutions.com/ He has asked me to add both a 'Gallery' and 'Careers' section. If I were to add those 2 to the menu with the other 4 sections (all on the same row) things may look a little cramped. If I were to seperate everything into 2 rows of 3 then everything might looked too spaced apart, as well as that the site is currently 550px in height and I'm worried that anything more will have a negative effect on users with 800x600 resolution. Can you please advise me on what the best way to go is? Niall
October 7, 200818 yr Welcome to WDF! You've run into an issue that many graphic designers fall into with web design. Traditionally speaking you've come from an environment where everything is fixed on a fixed canvas. The web, as you've just found, is not the same as print! There are lots of ways to get around this: 1. Reduce the size of the link images (ie make the text smaller!) - this would allow you to squeeze more onto the same line while keeping a decent amount of white space. 2. Put the links on two lines - there's nothing to say everything should be on one line 3. Put key navigation links at the top of the page and secondary links at the bottom Instead of focussing your attention on the "design" think about how visitors will use and interact with the site. What method of navigation layout/presentation would be easiest or most intuitive for them? Would putting the navigation on two lines be a barrier to them using the site? Have a think about the three solutions I've suggested, maybe you can think of another one?
October 7, 200818 yr Hi all, I'm Niall! I'm a Graphic Designer for a local newspaper and I work as a freelance web designer in my spare time. I hope to make webdesignerforum.co.uk a regular stomping ground! A while ago I designed and created a website for my brother: http://www.epd-qs-solutions.com/ He has asked me to add both a 'Gallery' and 'Careers' section. If I were to add those 2 to the menu with the other 4 sections (all on the same row) things may look a little cramped. If I were to seperate everything into 2 rows of 3 then everything might looked too spaced apart, as well as that the site is currently 550px in height and I'm worried that anything more will have a negative effect on users with 800x600 resolution. Can you please advise me on what the best way to go is? Niall Hello Nial, I agree with the bluedreamer, one more tip is to ad a submenu to for example about us (when visitor hover over the about us link, comeup nice slide dropup menu with those 2 new links), so you don't need to resize other section links, and the layout size will stay the same as is.) http://sld-webdesigner.com
October 9, 200818 yr Author Thank you both for the quick and helpful replies along with the warm welcome, I'm starting to feel at home here! As for the site, I'll try a few of the suggestions made and show them to my brother to see what he thinks. The Careers section is simply a page that will allow users to submit their CV (they can attach a file) so I don't really think it would belong under About Us, probably CV though. Another idea might be to use a more condensed font such as Arial Narrow. To go off topic a little, can you tell me what you think of the site overall i.e. the design, accessibility etc.? I'll keep you informed of what happens! Niall
October 27, 200817 yr Author Hi guys, So I decided to go for a more condensed font (Gills San Condensed Bold) here are the results. What do you think?
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