Hi everyone,

 

Iv got a bit of designers lock with my current project for a horse stables so i thought id try seeing if anyone can help with ideas.

 

The site is currently hosted at a temporary address - http://lowerbussowtemp.netne.net/

 

Any thoughts / ideas on the general layout of the design and especially ideas on colour would be great. I think the layout looks ok at the moment but really needs a good colour scheme to shine. The client has request greens and reds so i may have to rethink the whole look...

Header image doesn't tile.

Definitely has great potential, I'm actually working on a similar project at the moment and you have some nice ideas which have inspired me...

 

I like the background image, although maybe you could fade the edges and not repeat it so you don't get the tile effect on larger monitors or when you zoom out.I'm not so sure about the mainly black backgrounds, next to the bright and sunny header it makes it look a bit surreal. Perhaps you could experiment with the colours of these?

 

I really like the navigation buttons, they look very slick and realistic.

 

There are a couple of problems though. Firstly it took about 5 minutes to load and secondly, the navigation should be above the fold.

for me the header image - though nice - is too prominent, it fights for attention with the image slider. main content could sit little over the header (subtle drop shadow or bevel on the edge)

 

the slider tabs are too bright - have you tried some subtle leather textured tabs?

on the menu i got an intial delay loading the background image so got a black background for a second or so. change the bg colour to near that of the image

 

content starts too far down the page

 

main content area is too dark really - aren't you promoting a cosy, bright and sunny experience? and light text on a dark bg will be uncomfortable to read much text on

 

i think you have some good basic elements but the design justification for the size and even use of those elements seem tenuous: do you really need a header that big? 2/3 the size or less might work better. does there really need to be so much room above the slider?

 

shows promise but need to take a step back and rearrange things a bit

 

some of your stable grahpics are still native fireworks png (noticed when i opened them in fireworks )

something more like this? (at least as far as arranging elements)

Edited September 11, 201214 yr by dap

Hey guys,

 

Let me quickly point something out before i carry on with my post:

 

1. This is a temporary design hosted for my benefit and so you lovely peeps can help me regain some focus and spark of ideas, with that in mind iv paid almost no attention to loading times, image optimisation etc. Once iv got a design full layed out in my head i will be recoding from scratch.

 

Right, so after staring at the screen for a few hours and reading your posts iv decided to completly axe the header image, I agree with you Dap in saying that it was competing with other main elements. So... with the slider moving up the page (now becoming a more suitable header) I now have the navigation above the fold and a cleaner overall layout to work with.

 

Colours in place at the moment are just temporarily set to high contrast so i can cleary see my elements. Client has asked for reds and greens so im gonna spend a while on good ole' Adobe Kueler for a while tomorrow.

 

As usual and feedback is welcome (same link as op)