February 14, 201115 yr Hello all I have a new beta design for my site - I need to update as it has been a while, but I did get good feedback from clients and fellow designers alike from my old site, so the design has the same feel and elements, but this new beta site is set to have a lot lot lot more content, I am aiming this as much for SEO as I am for a better user experience. So here it is: Thoughts and opinions required asap Thanks all Tel (aka Rob)
February 14, 201115 yr Yes, I like your new design it is simile and effective. The navigation is simple and CSS is unique.
February 14, 201115 yr hey Rob, I'll do it for ya.....only messin. yeah, i like the layout n colour scheme. i wouldnt be mad on the font used for the nav bar n headings etc. maybe introduce another font for the nav, i think its a little too hard to read. Also, i'd build up the lower sections. they look unfinished. Perhaps strengthen them alittle, maybe a small image over each of them. the footer could be worked up a bit too. but like i said, you defo have a good solid strucuture and colour scheme, now its time to build it up from there! give me a shout if ya want any help on it.
February 14, 201115 yr Author 'precciate that Alan cheers mate Yeah it is very much Beta at the moment; I know the bottom half needs to be worked on a bit more. I am very tempted to change the hand-written font altogether to be honest and go with something else... but not 100% sure. Thoughts everyone?
February 14, 201115 yr i'd keep it but try use it less. try it with a more standard font for the navigation. have a wander around here for some inspiration on navigation layouts: http://patterntap.com/tap/collection/navigation
February 14, 201115 yr The font is very distracting and honestly your navigation gets completely lost. The ninja is also confusing to the viewer unless they read very carefully. Which might be fine, but also might make your site seem a little amateurish and kiddish. The layout is "alright" but the handwritten font seriously needs to be toned down.
February 14, 201115 yr Author The layout is "alright" Can you elaborate please cib? When you say "alright"; what do you mean? i.e. it could be more like... - I am never one to defend my work to the hilt and I totally appreciate your comments, but I just find 'the layout is "alright"' to be a really general and opinion based statement that doesn't actually help me at all The comments you made about the hand-written font I take on board - appreciate the feedback
February 14, 201115 yr Hey, ok here goes... I like it the colours they work well, but I would change a few things if it was mine. Logo I'd make it smaller and fit it across the top blue bar, it's going to be pushing your page content way too far down on other pages and it's not that important in comparison to your actual content. Menu The font works well for the logo but it's not super easily readable, I'd think about switching it to something a little more commercial and easy to read. Also try changing the colour of your menu splitters (//) they shouldn't be as prominent as your menu wording as they aren't as important. Slideshow I think your arrows could stand out more, they aren't obviously clickable and maybe make the option to view the full portfolio more of a button to make it clear you can jump off to another page. Content I noticed you said you are aiming to improve your SEO, you will need a lot more content on the page. You have no paragraphs it's just straight jump off's to other pages. You will need to talk about what you do a little, it doesn't have to be in peoples faces. Work on your keyword density while writting about what you do. I think your links near the bottom should be capitalised too and try changing... Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Content Managment Systems (CMS) to... SEO | Search Engine Optimisation CMS | Content Managment Systems ... may look a little neater, not sure without seeing it. Footer Again, change the navigation split colours to be a light blue so they don't stand out as much. That's about it, good job on the designs so far! Edited February 14, 201115 yr by Mollart
February 14, 201115 yr Author Mollart - thanks for the comments that is a fantastic review mate, really appreciate it. With regards to content - yes I know what you mean re: paragraphs and more content on the page, but I want the homepage to be an overview as opposed to a wall of text they immediately hit. I'll be focusing on heavy content for the inner pages more than the homepage Will be tweaking etc.. over the next few hours and then more over the next few days - so please do keep adding feedback everyone and I will be posting up here with every iteration
February 14, 201115 yr Mollart - thanks for the comments that is a fantastic review mate, really appreciate it. With regards to content - yes I know what you mean re: paragraphs and more content on the page, but I want the homepage to be an overview as opposed to a wall of text they immediately hit. I'll be focusing on heavy content for the inner pages more than the homepage Will be tweaking etc.. over the next few hours and then more over the next few days - so please do keep adding feedback everyone and I will be posting up here with every iteration No problem at all, just remember your home page is your most important page for SEO content and then your link juice is spread to your other pages from that page. If you want the site to be optimised you have to start there. What you can do is have all the nice stuff at the top then a little further down start adding your SEO content in there.
February 14, 201115 yr When I say alright means it could be better, but I've seen worse. AKA, I don't really have any comments to say.
February 14, 201115 yr Author Ok - tried something different based on the feedback from here and some of my friends within the industry too: Thoughts on my new ninja-less design? Obviously - still in beta - footer needs a total overhaul - but general layout... better? Edited February 14, 201115 yr by terydinho
February 14, 201115 yr Definetley getting better... LOGO Fine as is, might work even better with the strap line in a slightly different colour? MENU Try changing HOMEPAGE to HOME and ABOUT ME to ABOUT to free up some extra room (maybe change // to | too) so you can make the font bigger, it's too small for EVERYONE to read easily at the moment. You could make the letter spacing slightly tighter too if your having them as images. Maybe even make the background menu option you are on darker to show where you are on the site right now. A nice little trick I sometimes do to split the text is have 2 straight lines right next to each other, first one dark second one light and it looks like the page bevels a little to split the menu options. CONTENT You could possibly squeeze the little grey about me text a little closer together so it's more compact, hard to say without seeing it first. Also that's a sentence so it should have a full stop. In your main body text, bold important words and add a few links to other pages with your services. SIDE CONTENT Maybe underline your links, as it's all the same colour as your main body text. You could also maybe add arrows to the start of each <li> rather than a straight bullet point to make it look slightly more attractive.
February 14, 201115 yr I would put the next and previous links on the outside. It is really hard to see them. Also, still not liking the header font. Just really seems out of place.
February 14, 201115 yr Author Definetley getting better... LOGO Fine as is, might work even better with the strap line in a slightly different colour? MENU Try changing HOMEPAGE to HOME and ABOUT ME to ABOUT to free up some extra room (maybe change // to | too) so you can make the font bigger, it's too small for EVERYONE to read easily at the moment. You could make the letter spacing slightly tighter too if your having them as images. Maybe even make the background menu option you are on darker to show where you are on the site right now. A nice little trick I sometimes do to split the text is have 2 straight lines right next to each other, first one dark second one light and it looks like the page bevels a little to split the menu options. CONTENT You could possibly squeeze the little grey about me text a little closer together so it's more compact, hard to say without seeing it first. Also that's a sentence so it should have a full stop. In your main body text, bold important words and add a few links to other pages with your services. SIDE CONTENT Maybe underline your links, as it's all the same colour as your main body text. You could also maybe add arrows to the start of each <li> rather than a straight bullet point to make it look slightly more attractive. Once again - fantastic input much appreciated. You can kinda ignore the copy, as it is just glorified lorem ipsum for now; so not bothered to bold and link stuff at the moment. Side content - I agree, it needs more, but underlines in photoshop look a bit crap, so will fiddle during the coding to get these right Menu has now changed (see below) and I have squeezed the strap-line in a bit; thoughts? Cheers p.s. again - ignore the footer for now
February 14, 201115 yr Cool, I think it's come on well!! Take a look on iconfinder.com for some decent arrow icons!
February 14, 201115 yr Author Cool cool - I will do, maybe not arrows though, I may use icons to depict the service (like design, development etc...) just to add something extra to it Cheers for all of your help and feedback everyone - I am sure I will post up a new version tomorrow with some changes
February 14, 201115 yr I can't really add much more than what has already been covered, but I'll offer some positivity; the 3rd version you posted is my favourite, I can definately see the improvements running through each new version. Good work Kyle
February 14, 201115 yr I would align center of the banner with horizontal axe of zigzag. And bring back the ninja!
February 14, 201115 yr Author Thanks so much for all of your input - this is where I have got to and I am now signing off, going to cook up a spaghetti bolognaise for me and the missus - so any feedback you have, I would really appreciate and will get back to tomorrow Thoughts: Cheers all Tel
February 14, 201115 yr hhhmmm im not sure its working for me. Spaghetti bolognaise on valentines night is nice but it just doesnt sit right. im sorry but its just how i feel.
February 15, 201115 yr Author hhhmmm im not sure its working for me. Spaghetti bolognaise on valentines night is nice but it just doesnt sit right. im sorry but its just how i feel. lmao -
February 15, 201115 yr Couple more things that could maybe improve it further... Try splitting your "Services Offered" section with light blue lines and try making the first paragraph in your text bold, that can be a summary right at the start about who you are and what you do.
February 15, 201115 yr Author Thanks Mollart - good call; I will try both of those - but overall, do you feel it has improved from the first design? I wont be coding this for a few weeks to be honest - so I will probably keep tweaking here and there
February 15, 201115 yr do you feel it has improved from the first design? I think there has been a huge improvement, well done mate!
February 15, 201115 yr it defo has improved. to be honest im not 100% taken on that handwritten font. i think it brings down the professionalism of your services. i've knocked together this. i've dropped the font n introduced a more stylish font. i've also enlarged the slider and dropped the zigzag design. think it makes it look alot more professional Edit: lookin at that mock up i did, i wouldnt be mad about the amount i've used that new font either. its fairly hard to read too haha. sorry. maybe try introduce another font thats easier on the eye for the important headers.
February 15, 201115 yr Author I just manually did it using the rectangle shape tool in photoshop mate - just got a small square, aligned it and then repeated all the way along the page
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