Hello everyone, I have been working on a re-design for my web site www.jakeboyles.com. I have came up with the following... http://www.boyleswebdesign.com/Clients/NewJake/'>http://www.boyleswebdesign.com/Clients/NewJake/ . This site is going to be just a place for me to mess around with new stuff and also a place to showcase my tumblr and twitter. The navigation is still not done but its gonna be going up in the header. If I could just get some basic feedback on it thatd be great. Also, I know its slow loading im still working on that also. Thanks!

 

Link: http://www.boyleswebdesign.com/Clients/NewJake/

It's too wide for me screen, the feature goes off the page on a 1024 res. I think the text is a bit to bold for my tatse and i'm not a fan of the drop shadows. Some of the feature pics are pixelated. It does have nice structure and if the content fitted in I think it would be better.

Hi, Thanks for the input. Ill look into the resolution issue. Where exactly is it going off the screen? You shouldnt have a scroll bar or anything. Also, I do agree with the text being too bold. Im going to downsize the font some and see how that helps. Also with the drop shadows, im still experimenting with those. Ive never really used the css3 propertys before and im just kinda experimenting. Thanks again!

Being honest, I'm not really a fan of the site in general. I don't like the scrolling effect of the site. I looks too much like an intro screen for a DVD than a website.

 

Then again, thats just my opinion and it counts for very little in the grand scheme of things. What I can see is that you have a very good eye for design and some great skills. It's just the the site isn't my cup-o-tea.

 

Keep up the god work though, as I am looking forward to seeing the edits

Hi again. No scroll but the text in the feature is half off the screen. The main content is fine.

Being honest, I'm not really a fan of the site in general. I don't like the scrolling effect of the site. I looks too much like an intro screen for a DVD than a website.

 

Then again, thats just my opinion and it counts for very little in the grand scheme of things. What I can see is that you have a very good eye for design and some great skills. It's just the the site isn't my cup-o-tea.

 

Keep up the god work though, as I am looking forward to seeing the edits

 

Ya this site is more of a personal taste kind of site. Its really just being designed for me to have some where to showcase some work and bring all my stuff together in one place. Its also a place for me to show to some potential companys looking to hire and I wanted it to have a "artistic" side. I agree with you on the slider. Im still messing around with that and trying to see what I can come up with, Im also messing with the JQuery some more too.

Hi again. No scroll but the text in the feature is half off the screen. The main content is fine.

 

Oh okay you mean the slider part on the whiteboard? That was designed for larger screens, since most of the people viewing this are going to have larger res's, I will look into a way to make it better for smaller re's though. Thanks!

how about instead of it scrolling horizontal you have it scrolling vertical and then it could almost look like a slide projector. Then at least the slider has some form of relevance on the white board.

Dizi, Thats a good idea. Ill look into that. Thanks

Anybody else have any input?

Update:

 

Its online at http://www.jakeboyles.com

 

Thanks

A little too big overall I think, I don't particularly have a problem with shadows, in fact I quite a shadow!

 

However they are too dark and the distance they cover is too large, and there are too many, don't use them on every item. Make them very subtle. Imagine how much of a shadow a piece of paper has when it is laid on a table, It is very fine. Use shadows sparingly on text to loose that idea of a piece of text being an inch off the screen (and keep them almost illegible, it does work). Shadows with no offsets can really make some type jump off the page, Like a fine bright white text shadow on black text sat on a cream background (I like it anyway)

 

The darker areas need some texture to them too (by that I mean add depth), and separation of the columns with a divider might be nice.

 

The logo looks funny where you have joined the K and Y, it's a bit wonky and the icons are a little lack luster, they need to be crisper and brighter.

 

You could try a more arbitrary way of displaying skill set? Like the braingame on Facebook, different robots depict different levels of skill. This way you're not saying I am not as good at this as that, it means you have to update it less too!

 

Waffle over, good luck.

Thanks for the tips. That was a good post, and gave me some good ideas. I have updated it a little bit more at www.jakeboyles.com. Is that update better or worse? Thanks !

To me I'm seeing two sites almost in a sense. You've got the nicely designed, modern looking top part with nice smooth fonts, the wood effect etc, it all looks pretty nice. Then you get to the main area and things go a bit low-fi. You've got basic big white Arial titles and big arial text on a plain background. It just seems a bit dull compared to the top design to me, but again, that is just an opinion. If it was me I'd be looking at some fancier fonts for the headings, making the main bodies of text smaller and maybe doing something with the background.

 

Also I'm seeing some errors on the right hand side:

 

Warning: simplexml_load_file(http://jakeboyles.tumblr.com/api/read?type=photo&start=1&num=3) [function.simplexml-load-file]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable in /homepages/12/d178860016/htdocs/NewJake/index.php5 on line 118

Warning: simplexml_load_file() [function.simplexml-load-file]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "http://jakeboyles.tumblr.com/api/read?type=photo&start=1&num=3" in /homepages/12/d178860016/htdocs

 

Might want to look into that. On another note, why have you got "© 2010-2012", does the copyright end in 2012 because the world is going to end?

Good advice, Thanks I'll look into some sIFR fonts for my headlines, I agree with you on that. I have updated that site is that any better or is it worse?

 

The errors are from Tumblr matience that has been going on. Im working on a fix now. Thanks!

 

PS. Yeah the real reason I put it on 2010 is because of that lol

New Update. Still working on the Headers. Is it better or worse?

not a fan of scrollers in general but if you must, when you click on a tab/number I expect it to go to it and remain on it. Just when I've clicked to have a look and read the content it's moved :S

Okay ya I agree. Im not a developer and I got the JQuery plugin off the web, but I will try and see if I can find a way to edit it. Thanks!