I would love your thoughts and crit on this site please.

 

www.Urbanismzine.co.uk

 

Coded with XHTML and CSS.

 

The client was very happy with the design but i'd like to know where to improve in the future.

I dont mean to offend but there is not much there to review, the design that is there is simple and functional, the site is not unattractive, just not much of it, it does its job nothing more nothing less.

 

The site does not validate you have a mismatched character encoding and a missing alt tag but this is very minor and will only take 5 mins to sort.

I agree with you there mate. I think I concentrated on functionality more than design.

 

I'll look into the error tomorrow.

 

Cheers.

As T_break said, it's simple, but not unattractive. By the looks of it, you didn't have much content to play with, so there's not a great deal that could be done.

 

My suggestions would be:

 

1) Create a nicer navigation at the top, and a bit more spacing between the navigation items.

2) Carry the design over onto the shop (or as close as possible)

3) Don't use "Issue one out now" and "Click here to buy" as part of the magazine image. Especially since you're not using a special font for those words.

4) Since you dont have much content per page. Increase the font-size and line-height a bit.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Later

The spacing issue between the navigational links can easily be fixed by something as simple as:

 

"Home | Shop | Submit | About | Contact" - They'd probably look a lot better if they were underlined as well!

 

Since there's not a great deal of content I would think that scrunching the page together to make a centered 900 pixel wide layout, and then add a plain white background to the excess with a subtle left and right gradient. Kind of like here on this board but not as wide. I do love the orange, black and gray color scheme! But a little white would narrow the viewing field and not make your site look like a giant bulletin board. Though when the page fills up it should look spectacular anyway

As T_break said, it's simple, but not unattractive. By the looks of it, you didn't have much content to play with, so there's not a great deal that could be done.

 

My suggestions would be:

 

1) Create a nicer navigation at the top, and a bit more spacing between the navigation items.

2) Carry the design over onto the shop (or as close as possible)

3) Don't use "Issue one out now" and "Click here to buy" as part of the magazine image. Especially since you're not using a special font for those words.

4) Since you dont have much content per page. Increase the font-size and line-height a bit.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Later

 

I agree with these guys. You can see my suggestions in my individual reply.

Hey Frazmand,

 

I decided to take my time and show you what I'm going to suggest.

 

 

As you can see I've done a few things:

 

1. I have used the font from the magazine header, which instantly creates a connection with one another. I have also used some splatter brushes to give it a more "graffiti" look. I took the orange separator (the one that separates the header and the content) and turned it into the navigation. The gray behind the white colored HOME" "text represents the hover.

 

2. I have rearranged the content articles, the date published being aligned right, skipping a line, then placing the title (which shouldn't be click-able), followed by a "read more..." link which will take you to the article. This eliminates the confusion, because I didn't know where to click to go to that article and its very inconvenient to have to look for the link. The articles are separated with a lighter gray line to create an order.

 

I hope this helps, and if you have any questions feel free to contact me.

 

-Empek

Thanks for the reply guys.

 

I appreciate the time you put into that empek. It's definately an improvement no doubt. I'll get in touch with the client and see if he'd like any of those changes.

Go with empek's solution! It addresses all the concerns that have been stated above and more.

A couple gradients here and there and it'll look superb. It's nice to see that somebody takes the time to post a picture

I don't have a problem with the simplicity, but it doesn't really feel 'urban' to me. It's kinda slick and minimal.

 

Empek's idea is a lot closer, but I guess what would capture my attention is something that showed the designer had put a lot of thought into what 'urban' really means. I'm not disrespecting empek in any way - that was a quick idea and not bad considering the time given to it - but 'urban' doesn't necessarily mean paint splatters and grunge. What is it about urban living that you want to show? Why is it you interested in it at all? There are a lot of angles you could take, there's themes of personal and peer alienation, anonymity in numbers, pressures specific to urban living, rebellion against being one of the masses etc etc...

Well by creating that little art piece all I really wanted to address, was the header (which should be the same as the magazine header), and the article content style. As to what the background image on the header is (the splatters) I just didn't want to leave it blank, but i suggest brightening it up a little so at least it stands out from the header.

 

-Empek

Didn't have time to read all the replies but if it's a magazine it needs to be jam-packed with pictures on every page.

Thanks for all the comments guys. I agree with you all.

 

I did have a few more urban designs but the client liked that one best.