Designers: pull it to bits

ngray · 12th February 2007, 02:50 AM

Hi folks

Anyone who knows me in here will know that I have zero design skills, but that I have been learning quite a lot in the last year.

Could a designer please take a look at my latest work (yeurgh it's horrible) and let me know what you think. Give it to me on the chin. I'd be interested to see if I've learn't anything about design, if it works, or not, or any suggestions on the design front.

The website doesn't have any content YET, it's just the design & layout I'm interested in.

Thanks in advance

nomish · 12th February 2007, 09:16 AM

mmm where to begin....

youve done a good thing in design which is made good use of leaving some white space. my design teacher always bangs on about some times its good to leave white space...however I think youve left alot, I suppose it would look different when content is there.

what are them 3 symbols suppose to be at the top of the page? are they adverts? for some reason they look like buttons for the site on a design aspect. possible if you make them animate or somthing it would give more of an advert feel.

Why is there a bit of a a gap (about 150 pixels) at the top? possibly if you remove this you could get rid of the scroll bar :P

them tabs....they dont screem buttons to me. maybe if you have the page your on slightly raised than the others this would be a better effect and let the end user know which page they are on.

how mnay different font styles are you using? the three colours I would say are ok but watch out for that shade of blue down the bottom its hard to read, but I suppose thats the point as these details are not imortant, however I would change it to a slightly darker blue so it fits better with the other two colours on site.

going back to scroll bars and space....

are you going to be having alot of content on the site? is this box going to be big enough that you have allocated? If it was me using this design I would make that box into a #div in the css and add in a scroll bar to it incase I wrote more text for the box and then moved the whole thing upwards slightly to remove the browser scroll bar.

going back to the adverts / graphics / i dont know what they ares.....

the graphic to the far left is slightly lower than the other two. the main thing in design is alignment this might have to be rectified :P

more on alignment..

what is it with everything being centre justified, did you know thats one of the hardest of alignments to read? acording to the "non designers - design guide" book I read for one of my uni projects :P.

Maybe think about the title of the page you've got "Affordable website /n design" seeing as the design is on a new line my eyes dont quite read the design bit so I think affordable website...what is an affordable website. maybe if the design was on the same line the title would flow better.

going back to links.....

whats with the [ about us ] being in brackets? is it because you were trying to seperate it from the other links along side it?....

an idea.....

how about moving the about us near to the client login?....

contact?....

I noticed you dont have a contact link on the site so maybe you could have a little navigation where youve got client login so it could look like:

Contact Us | About Us | Client Login

think that would look better than being placed a the bottom as these details are qwite important.

-------

anyway I'll stop nit picking for now, have a think. Hope I have gave you some ideas

sticky · 12th February 2007, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ngray

Anyone who knows me in here will know that I have zero design skills...

How can you offer 'Website design' amongst the list of services on your website then?

Terra · 12th February 2007, 01:31 PM

I agree with Sticky - I started writing a site review but then I saw that you're selling website design. Not sure what to think now. Edith

nomish · 12th February 2007, 02:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terra

I agree with Sticky - I started writing a site review but then I saw that you're selling website design. Not sure what to think now. Edith

maybe hes one of them free lance designers that higher other free lance desigers to do their design work

ngray · 12th February 2007, 04:41 PM

Hi, thanks for the initial thoughts, definitely given me food for thought.

As you know I don't have good design skills, but I've done a few "ok" websites that in my mind and in others' minds are improvements. so I might not be the hotshot of the year (yeah right) but i feel I can at least offer a layout service, and if people want fancy graphics then we outsource that.

And, more to the point, when I was looking for inspiration for the site I googled for similar services and a lot of the websites that still had raised borders on tables, and really horrible dated colour schemes and times new roman fonts, it was about 50/50 and I thought to myself well I can do better than that at least!

UH-Matt · 12th February 2007, 09:31 PM

Nothing wrong with offering design. You can obviously build a web page as you have posted one here for review, and it has more usability than a lot of pages ive visited elsewhere today - so nothing at all wrong with offering design services, even if you are requesting critique from a forum - everyone is always learning!

nomish · 12th February 2007, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UH-Matt

Nothing wrong with offering design. You can obviously build a web page as you have posted one here for review, and it has more usability than a lot of pages ive visited elsewhere today - so nothing at all wrong with offering design services, even if you are requesting critique from a forum - everyone is always learning!

couldnt agree more with UH-Matt on the topic...

everyone is learning...I learn new things each day

Andy · 13th February 2007, 10:03 AM

Everyone has to start somewhere! Just how many "web designers" out there actually have relevant qualifications and training? I'm guessing very few!

Andy

percepts · 13th February 2007, 01:25 PM

Yup everyone does have to start somewhere. Unfortunately the about us page says 20 years + experience and in web development from the start. The logo doesn't doesn't exactly convey that to me.

ngray · 13th February 2007, 03:21 PM

"development" not "design" lol

Give me a server and a code environment and I'll make anything you want. Ask me to design something and I've had about a year of experience, no formal training, and just go looking at other sites and projects for ideas.

percepts · 13th February 2007, 03:48 PM

Its the same old story. Programmers usually don't have a clue about design but their saving grace is that they can put together a fully functional website even though the graphic design looks like ****. But a graphic designer can't.
I'm in the same boat coming from a programming background but I have always had an interest in the arts and have slowly begun to learn about design.

Fact is that most design is a copy of a style which has evolved. Very very few designers do anything truly original. Its all been done before so don't worry about plagiarising other designs. I don't mean literally copying, but making your design look similar is what most designers are doing anyway. They have their influences which is bull for plagiarising.

Look in design / decor / home magazines for use of typography and layout ideas.
Look on the web, but you will have to look hard because there is a lot of ****.

Learn about fonts for titling and headings such as Century Gothic, Futura and some classic Roman styles. And maybe Frutiger or some Zapf fonts. Then learn about colour and read a graphic design book or two and it will come together.

But first design yourself a logo which is a whole lot better than the one you have now.

percepts · 13th February 2007, 04:04 PM

infact for an educational exercise why don't you design three logos for your company and submit them for crticism. Limit them to 100h x 300w pixels.

Terra · 13th February 2007, 05:08 PM

I find the arts section in my local borders great for logo ideas - there's lots and lots of books about logos and browsing them doesn't cost anything! great to get design ideas on a budget. My favourite logo book at the moment is "Colour Management for Logos" by Drew & Meyer. I find logos the hardest part to design .. which is why our site doesn't even have one (dare I admit it). Edith

ngray · 13th February 2007, 05:16 PM

Thanks Percepts and Terra, good advice.

I've been doing that anyway, learning more about fonts and colours. But I realise I've got a lot more to learn! You've given me a few more pointers though. I personally like Eurostile as a font to replace Arial, is it any good?

I had a logo for years but decided it was time to update it and quite liked the glass button effect that's in use a lot these days. Might well take you up on the idea of submitting 3 for plenty of critisism

Adam · 13th February 2007, 05:20 PM

I've gotta give you credit for trying and taking the criticism on the chin - I'm not fantastic at design (yes it is a service I offer as I have seen much worse than me, charging much more!) but I find it hard to take the criticism!!

Practise makes perfect you know, so never be discouraged. The tips are great and ones I try and use. I always catch things when I'm walking around, shopping, etc that make me think - yeh that's cool!

Ad

ngray · 13th February 2007, 05:28 PM

LOL I'm with you there Adam. When I look back at some of the first "designs" I tried, it's even making me cringe :P

But I needed a good kick to try and make some money doing this, and as I said if someone wants fancy graphics then I outsource...

percepts · 13th February 2007, 05:30 PM

eurostile is good, very modern and techno which is good for IT sites.

Adam · 13th February 2007, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ngray

LOL I'm with you there Adam. When I look back at some of the first "designs" I tried, it's even making me cringe :P

But I needed a good kick to try and make some money doing this, and as I said if someone wants fancy graphics then I outsource...

looks like we are in the same boat lol! The very first site I did about 6 years ago. Eeek bloody awful!

ngray · 13th February 2007, 06:04 PM

Quote:

here's an example

look familiar? It should do. Have a look at the logo on the top of this page

Hey you did that for me?! Thank you, yes I agree the font looks nice. I've updated the preview now taking on your comments, just need to do those logos now and tidy up the content area...