Hey all,

 

Some background:

 

I've been website designing/developing for a while, only really in my spare time, nothing professionally before. I'm looking to start my own business in this field, as I really think I have the capability of making the whole adventure work, but this is my first professional site for a client, and I'm a little nervous, lacking some confidence i guess as I've only ever done it in my free time.

 

The site is at http://iomhouseclearancecompany.ejessdesigns.com. (It's on my own hosting, but I haven't done much with my own website yet).

 

Some honest opinions would make a big difference, i can tell you that for sure! I'm not 100% happy with the background, and the navigation to me just doesn't quite fit in with the look of the site. I've not linked the site map to anything yet, and there isn't any links on the links page. The actually page content hasn't been properly added, but you get the idea!

 

I look forward to hearing your opinions.

Regards,

Jessica

Hi Jessica,

 

I dont usually post in this section, but this is what I think:

 

I will agree that you need to change the background to something else. I think the colours for the background arent bad, but just the clarity needs to be refined (there seems to be alot of pixelation type interferace).

 

Have you tested this in different browsers? Im using IE8 and there is a white strip across the bottom of the site. I will also mention about the spacing here too. At the top there seems to be too many px before the content starts and at the bottom there isnt any px before the white strip/bottom of the page.

 

I would also check out the elements underneat the menu. The twitter section seems to be oddly aligned and the "share" link has a minute scrollbar next to it.

 

Did you send a mock-up to your client before HTML to see what they think? If not then I would always recommend this. The way i see it is that if your client is happy with the look of the site, then everythings fine (even if you disagree). I always think that its a web designers/developers job to make things look presentable and professional. I have had a few clients where I was not at all happy with the end product, but they though it looked great.

Hey Jessica, here's a few tips:

 

As you mentioned, the background can be modified a tad. I actually don't mind how it looks other than the fact it's red. Red is the hardest on the eyes.

 

There's a lot of empty space, perhaps make the main wrapper a little wider, that way once the content is placed it won't require as much scrolling.

 

Treat the twitter box to some padding-left!

 

Name your DIV ID's, it will make it much easier for you to edit, and good practice in the future.

 

Try having a logo along the top instead of the side

 

Try shining up those grey column headers

 

Good luck!

Hey guys,

 

Thank you SO much for the replies, your advice is really really appreciated. I applied the changes you suggested, and can't believe the difference it made/makes. Simply making the main content boxes a little larger really helps the overall feel of the website.

 

Again, thank you.

 

Regards,

Jessica

Part of your about page seems to be in a scroll box with a scroll bar. Is there a reason for this? It would look much cleaner if you just stretched your main page a bit more to accommodate the extra text

Your completly right. I wasn't so happy with the contact me page either really (regarding the scroll bar and the like). Think i'm going to stretch it out a bit. Cheers!

 

Jessica