First of all, no domain yet so I will just post pics. I don't have much of anything yet but the basic design and that is primarily what I need help on. Anything you can think of to critique the website is fine by me, considering it's my first. It is a gaming community/clan website, so keep that in mind. Here are the pics:

 

(top)

 

(bottom)

To be honest the site doesn't give off the gaming feel enough in my eyes. From the pictures it looks like a shooter style so you need to man it up a little. At the moment it seems like it could be used for a site to sell adoptive kittens. (Please dont take any offense of course) but what you need to do is some research. Have a look at other gaming websites to get inspiration and see how they capture the feel of the game on their sites. I can understand you wanting to use the blue color but (just an idea here...) camouflage also comes in blue (sometimes ) try making it feel like the game a little more. Also the logo is a little too simple for the title. When you say "Iron Hammer Gaming" you expect a little more than plain writing and a hammer. look at the logo's for CoD and battlefield. These capture the atmosphere of the game well.

 

I will be interested to see the site when done/live as everyone likes gaming

What's your grid?

Added a new bg that I made. Tell me what you think.

 

I understand that you said that the text at the top was plain but can you give me some suggestions as to what to do it?

 

Also, what should I add to make the website look fuller and more professional? How should I do my content boxes?

 

Thanks!

The darker background definately gives it a better feel i think. With the logo might i suggest trying to make it look more like an erroded metal effect. Because the picture includes a tank it would tie it in nicely. A little bit of colour to tie the image into the rest of the screem would also go well.

I've tried most of the metal textures and it gives too much of a dark feeling. Any more suggestions?

 

I really want to completely redo the text on the top for a better feel but not sure what route to take.

Posted in the graphic design forum to get ideas to make a better logo for top. I am kinda gainst the plain text and bad looking hammer so I figured that would be the best place to post something for that.

Your right on that one, I have browsed through the Graphics section of this site and some of the work I have seen people create is incredible. I was chatting to a couple of guys in there and they recommended using illustrator or a vector programme for logos, have you tried that? Add some 3d into it then run it back through photoshop or whatever you use to give it some texture.

New top pic (bottom looks the same), lmk what you think.

 

I still need lots of help with everything else, like what to do with the content boxes and how they look. What else could I add to fill up content? ect. Thanks!

Well the top graphic is definately getting there!

 

Have you thought about adding a follow us link for facebook etc? The idea of a gaming clan website is good, if done properly. You want people to be able to chat and communicate through as many channels as possible. You may want to think about maybe a twitter account giving news etc of up coming games that are being organised and then add in a twitter feed? Thats just what I think. For a site like this (a community site) you want people to be able to communicate through all their normal channels like facebook, twitter, etc.

I'm liking the idea so far but i'd say that header is a huge waste of space.

Which header?

 

I am really not down for getting a Facebook/Twitter. I intend to have a recent news post/calendar or something added to one of the content boxes later. As well as a forum.

 

I am thinking about getting a youtube for the clan though, so maybe I could post a youtube button somewhere.

 

My main problem now is what to do with the content boxes. As of right now they look very unprofessional with the rest of the layout.

 

Also, what do you think about the navigation bar? Any tips or quirks?

I would say he's talking about the image with the tank. It doesn't serve any purpose other than set the scene and push all the content on the main page below the fold.

In my opinion the main title of the page is also wasting space. I'm a big advocate of whitespace but that title just seems out of place. I suggest playing around with size and position of the title and the logo to make it fit better; perhaps you could move the menu up into that space.

I got a big idea actually after the response, will try it tomorow and post the results.

Heres the new layout. For whatever reason the navbar will not go down to close the gap in between it and the content wrap DIV box. I have no idea why because I have checked the codes and nothing appears that way plus it doesn't look like that in the DW design view, just firefox preview.

 

 

Any suggestions on everything would be appreciate , still need lots of criticism. Again, I am not sure how to make my content boxes look good either.

I will be honest I think that the gap between nav bar and content box looks good, spaces it out just enough.

 

My only critisism is that it looks a little boring. Possiblt change font/colours. Black is the right colour but too much makes it way too dark. Try mixing it up a little. It may not be the kind of site where you want nice colourful stuff but plain black is abit too boring. Mix in some grays etc...

Ok, here is a quick little center content I drew up. Might need some improvements but I need to know how/what is the best way to incorporate it into a DIV tag or if thats even what I am suppose to do.

Its getting there mate, the text unfortunately looks abit standard and boring. but it works and gets the message across. Obviously you want to concentrate on the reason for the website, ie gaming. The website is a link, somewhere you can all come together and get info without having to dig around, it begs the question how fancy does it need to be?

 

If your happy with it then I would leave it, the more time you spend making the site design perfect the less time gaming you have. Which is what Im guessing you enjoy most ?

Hi Acoustic,

 

When you said:

I understand that you said that the text at the top was plain but can you give me some suggestions as to what to do it?

 

Also, what should I add to make the website look fuller and more professional? How should I do my content boxes?

 

Look at the ones rp linked:

Have a look at http://www.lowlandlions.com/ , http://www.fnatic.com/ and http://www.four-kings.com/ for some inspiration. They are more typical gaming clan websites to me.

 

See how they did their content boxes, their text, etc. Really just look at them, spend 20mins studying them and use webkit inspector to see how they did them. the 4k site is actually really simple once you remove the bg graphic. Copy them and put your own slant on the style.

 

Goodluck,

~evu.