Hi All,

 

I'm new to these parts, but have been designing websites for quite a few years.

I have done some more artistic projects, but this particular one is quite difficult because my client is very particular, and tends to dislike anything fancy. It took me months to convince them that they had to have some sort of photos/images on the site.

 

They are a Dutch professional services company (management training, consultancy etc).

 

All the images/graphics/photos are currently placeholders and demonstrations as we are in the phase of deciding what to use at the moment.

 

I'd like some general feed back on the overall design please? And any suggestions on how to jazz up the quite bland design whilst keeping it very clean would be welcomed. If you hadn't noticed, I can't say I'm pleased with the way it's going at the moment!

 

Heres the linky: Pangea Groep

 

Thanks for any comments

- Eris

Hi there ErisDS

The green very dominant for me - I hope there's a good psychological reason behind it (apart from sampling the green in the logo), and the particular abstract texture elements you have chosen. However I know that consultants often sell abstract concepts, so you haven't got a lot of clear imagery to chew on coming from the client. I suppose as the designer of websites they are expecting you to conjure something out of thin air that will gain them a fortune.

The two other things that I note is:

- that the logo and the scrabble/bubble representations of team seem to generate a disharmony - the structure to communication function connection or balance is missing.

- the layout is very simple (that's cool) but at the end of the page text there isn't a link text to lead people elsewhere. The pages just seem isolated.

 

I had a similar problem with a client-provided round logo which related to their heat pump ventilation, so not knowing how I could balance it out in a square setting of the frame, I chose to play with white space and drop shadows around it. It is not a perfect result but it got over the challenges.

 

Hope that is useful, and good luck.

Thanks franglix,

 

Those are some really useful comments. Particularly the no leading links thing. I hadn't thought about it because the copy is foreign and not provided by me... but it certainly needs something to lead users off of the page.

 

The green is very dominant I agree, the theme comes from the idea of "pangea" the original landmass before the contents broke up. I am working from the logo (which I designed years and years ago, and they won't let me update or modify it, which is very painful for me!) and from a brochure which is the source of the textures. The brochure was created by a second company who went down a completely different very abstract route away from the logo (the logo doesn't even fit in with the brochure) and now I'm trying to develop a site around an outdated logo and a strange brochure which are two distinct sources.

All in all its quite a complicated brief! I like the drop shadow idea for the logo, and I know that the team graphics look like they are "Plonked" on the page, which they are at the moment. I'm toying with ideas so as not to have to leave the area blank.

 

In short, thanks for your helpful comments!

 

P.S. don't take this response as a closure of this topic, more constructive criticism please. (I have worked on the site quite a bit today)

The header should fade in the background which it is not doing now!

You have a curious use of the <h5> I have no idea how that will play with the indexing semantics!

 

Sounds like you need to exert a bit of 'designer-diva'-ness, if after all you are taking on some of the perceived (by client) responsibility. You need to kick the project out of the mish-mash of historical influences that currently constrain you.

 

Another thought is that if the land mass in the logo truly reflects their core philosophy/concept you could put together lettering that hints at this - it would take some good photoshop skills to pull it off convincingly, with the overall frame shadowing perhaps matching the coast 'shadowing'. I know that the logo light direction is from the top left (shadow south-east) however if you could resonate that theme on a macro level it might be worth a try.

Hello Peeps,

 

I had a go at making the header fade a bit, doesn't work amazingly but is a slight improvement.

I also changed my use of h5 to an em.

 

I do not have the time to invest on creating lettering or anything of that size because I have already been paid and these are supposed to be the final stages - tidying up and getting the site live etc. It all validates and displays in an "acceptable" manner back as far as IE5.5

 

I have now got two and a half versions of this website one which is what the customer requested, another which is my preferred version and half being the top 5 pages with a slightly different background colour!

 

My preferred version is here: http://www.pangeagroep.nl/new/pref/index.html

And the version they want is here: http://www.pangeagroep.nl/new/pangea/index.html

 

I know that this is a weird way to do website design! I tried just giving them a final version as I thought it should be and they complained about all the changes and wanted to see both!! It doesn't help that the company is part-family owned.

 

I'm negotiating at the moment on additional content for the header.

 

I'd be interested to hear any more thoughts or ideas as to smaller-scale changes which could improve the design.

 

Thanks,

Eris

Hello Eris and welcome to the boards.

 

Smaller changes, I would say give the heading, Pangea maakt mensen sterker! more space from the top as it looks to tight below the navigation/header image.

 

Also the font colour on the roller could be a lighter green so you can see the text more against the darker background.

 

Apart from that looks really nice and clear. Good letter spacing for your text.

 

DK

Thanks DK

 

I have taken your advice, and increased my h1 by 1pt cos I thought it looked too blocky and for some reason 17pt draws nicer than 16... who knows, have to love browsers

 

Eris

To be honest it looks a bit old fashion

 

Try to use web 2.0 trend and layout, here are some ideas:

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/current-style.cfm

http://www.designshack.co.uk/

 

Best of luck