Hey guys,

 

Firstly, I've made a few comments on posts but not actually introduced myself in the Introductions! My name is Dave and I'm a freelancer by evening/weekend and metallurgist by day (until I take the plunge and go full-time on the web design!). I'm also into doing up classic Mini's if anyone has an interest in that...

 

I started a couple of years ago learning html, css, javascript and am now getting into php, mysql and ruby.

As is probably normal, one of the first sites I made was my own...making it also one of my more rubbish ones! So, I decided a couple of weeks ago to put aside some time and give it an overhaul. This is what I have so far:

 

http://www.rhdtestsites.rabbitholedesign.co.uk/rhd/index.html

 

I'd really appreciate your comments, good or bad. I find the coding side a lot easier than design so I will glady take any critisism! I've gone for a grungy look but not sure if I've overdone it a bit?

 

Anyway, let me know your thoughts and thanks for looking!

 

Dave

Hmm, quiet on the forums today...or my website is so pants no-one wants to tell me! I hope it's the former

Hey Dave.

 

I have nothing major against the site except that everything seems too big. The width for example, 1250 pixels means people with monitor screens of 1024x768 pixels will never even see the left and right of border design you created.

 

I would squish everything down a bit, making the maximum width something like 960 or 980 pixels. I think the whole site would look more professional that way too.

I actually thought it looked quite pleasant whilst it was loading and then the black border appeared! Without that, it looks much better in my opinion.

Hello Dave welcome to the forums,

 

I agree, the images and text look huge and looks like you done it like that as you dont have much content? but looked at your source and thats nicely done.. I also agree with the width, you could try using the 960.gs grid system?

Excellent, thanks for the feedback guys!

 

I'll make some changes to the layout/image sizes tonight and let you know, see if you think it's better.

 

Dave

brrr. cold. black border and midnight blue (well late evening)

 

rabbit too small in the logo

 

"high standard coding" but 6 errors

 

links are blue text on first page (headings) but then mysteriously the blue headings on further pages are, wiat for it, not links.

 

link logo to home

 

favicon

 

facebook and other icons bit big

 

the bevel on the logo text is too harsh and maybe separating design from rabbit hole would increase readability (looks like ' RabbitH le design" bit french

 

background is still a firworks png ... export is your friend (but guess you know that, and jpeg would alsmot certainly be smaller: certainly smaller than 625kb )

 

fully justified text? too hard to work with on the web measure is too short for it, and no hyphenation = high chance of the dreaded white rivers or even rapids

 

not so sure about the grunge feel - seems a bit heavy and doesn't fit with the cute/quirky/cartoonish rabbit

brrr. cold. black border and midnight blue (well late evening)

 

rabbit too small in the logo

 

"high standard coding" but 6 errors

 

links are blue text on first page (headings) but then mysteriously the blue headings on further pages are, wiat for it, not links.

 

link logo to home

 

favicon

 

facebook and other icons bit big

 

the bevel on the logo text is too harsh and maybe separating design from rabbit hole would increase readability (looks like ' RabbitH le design" bit french

 

background is still a firworks png ... export is your friend (but guess you know that, and jpeg would alsmot certainly be smaller: certainly smaller than 625kb )

 

fully justified text? too hard to work with on the web measure is too short for it, and no hyphenation = high chance of the dreaded white rivers or even rapids

 

not so sure about the grunge feel - seems a bit heavy and doesn't fit with the cute/quirky/cartoonish rabbit

 

Wow, now that's some comprehensive feedback! Thanks very much.

 

I knew about the 6 errors but holding off fixing until I've finished playing around with the design. I'll repost the link when I've made some changes.

 

Cheers.

Okay, I've made some changes based on the feedback (used a 960px width, ditched the black border, added some colour to the homepage and reduced the image sizes).

 

http://www.rhdtestsites.rabbitholedesign.co.uk/rhd/index.html

 

Let me know what you think, better or worse. Here's a screenshot of the old version as a reminder

Edited May 19, 201115 yr by DaveJ

Huge improvement.

 

I like the addition of that new brownish colour. I wonder if you could include that into the other pages a little too. Just feels more warm and welcoming with it. Or perhaps use the orange from the bunny in the logo to complement the blue.

 

Anyways, good work!

 

EDIT: One more thing, the website right now doesn't show exactly which page you're on. I figure a good way of introducing the colour throughout the rest of the pages would be to make the active page this new colour in the navigation.

Edited May 19, 201115 yr by Mark-Barry

Huge improvement.

 

I like the addition of that new brownish colour. I wonder if you could include that into the other pages a little too. Just feels more warm and welcoming with it. Or perhaps use the orange from the bunny in the logo to complement the blue.

 

Anyways, good work!

 

EDIT: One more thing, the website right now doesn't show exactly which page you're on. I figure a good way of introducing the colour throughout the rest of the pages would be to make the active page this new colour in the navigation.

 

Thanks for the comments Mark, I like the idea of using that colour for the active page link. I'll also use it for my headings on the other pages.

 

Cheers,

Dave

I would advise you to get rid of (or, at least, to decrease in sizes and move it somwhere) "I am actually a superhero". It is not interesting, sorry. Because every one is actually a superhero (or a heroine). Better to put on this place an image of your last/featured work.

That would be really interesting.

Okay, last time I'm going to bother you all! I've just finished some more revisions and I think I'm happy with it now.

 

http://www.rhdtestsites.rabbitholedesign.co.uk/rhd/index.html

 

Thanks for all the comments, they were really helpful and I appreciate you taking the time to help

 

Dave

looks better but still don't like the fully justified text - have you tried it left aligned?

Menu typography is a bit clunky.

 

Not sure abut the gold colour - I find it and the dark blue a bit too "rich" colour wise. Perhaps go for a slightly more pastel version of these?

 

Not sure still about grungey papery thing at the bottom.

 

You've got a few validation errors as well.

 

It's ok, it's quite a good start - it needs polishing and refining. Carry on.

looks better but still don't like the fully justified text - have you tried it left aligned?

 

Yeah those paragraphs in the buckets are too small for fully justified text. Some of the word spacing is massive and looks strange. I've found that paragraphs need to be above a certain width for full justification to look any good.

 

If you went for left justification, perhaps you could make some outliney bucket containers to compensate.

Left align your headings and unjustify your text, get rid of the smudged background image and it's good! And I agree that the menu font could come down a notch in 'chunkiness'!