Small site for a friend, comments appreciated

[tubaguy0]

I just finished a site for a friend of mine, who is trying to get a side-business going for Final Cut editing.

Her old site is here:
http://www.globalshout.com

So, as you can see, she needed something a little more... professional... if she wanted to put her website on her business cards.

Here's my solution:
http://globalshout.livingtributeproductions.com

I've checked it in IE and Firebird, and it seems to be laying out pretty consistently. Mostly I'd just like comments on the aesthetics, although layout bugs would definitely be appreciated as well... hopefully, there just won't be any to find!

She'll be changing her DNS names to point at the new site this weekend; hopefully nobody's gonna hate it too much ;)

Thanks,
josh

[Inf the Novel]

It looks 100 times better. The original looks like it was fone with one of those "instant website" programs. I wasnt feeling the gold that flashes under the links at the bottom though.

in the very top right of the image, the clouds look like a face...kinda like a hockey mask.just something I noticed, lol.

nice job

[tubaguy0]

Gold flashes on the redesigned version?

The links at the bottom should be white on black, then black on orange when you roll over them. Is that not the case in your browser?

[Sardtok]

I think he means the orange is the flashing gold...
Anyway,
a lot better than the original.
I'm not too fond of the background picture used for the dark orange edges,
but I do like the color scheme gives a bit of a dramatic feel to the site,
especially the picture with the silhouette against the sky,
although it gave me a bit of a Christian Fanatic site feeling, hehe... ;)

[FractalGirl]

I like the picture; I think it really portrays a sort of hands-in-the-air shout, and with that backdrop, it's like her hands are spread wider than they are, symbolically.

The only thing I don't like has to do with color. That blue is not found anywhere in the image, and I believe it just kind of is a sore thumb. I think it would look marvelous with a plain background in this color: #293950.

JMO, though. :)

Tina

[tubaguy0]

Tina,

That ugly blue background was an experiment that i had forgotten to change back to the original before i switched to another project for a few days. Thanks for reminding me about it!

And I like your background color choice much better than the dark orange I had before too, so thanks for the suggestion.

Much appreciated.

josh

[FractalGirl]

You are most welcome, josh. I think it looks great -- understated and classy. Glad you like my color choice. :) It looks as I envisioned, and I think it does suit the photo and page.

[farmer]

What an improvement over the old one.

The buttons at the buttom - wordings are not very clear, could be the font used.

[deker]

It's definitely an improvement.

However I don't like how the header is so tall. Even with the site maximized at 1024 x 768, all I see is the header image. No words, no company name, no tagline, no description of the site, just a picture of a person with their hands in the air. You have to scroll to see the name of the company and description, etc.

I also don't like how the navbar is at the bottom, forcing you to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to navigate. Then on the next page you have to scroll all the way to the bottom again to find the navbar again.

It's also confusing that all of the links in the navbar look the same, but 3/5 of them go to a completely different site. I would only put inter-site (is that a word?) links on the navbar, and mark the external links differently.

The text is also quite large throughout the site, but I guess people can resize that themselves.

The coding is great though, very nice CSS work and semantic xHTML!

[tubaguy0]

farmer,

thanks for the comment about the legibility of the nav links. i've changed the font, and it's much more readable.

deker,

i appreciate your concerns about the site design, but the header is basically what the entire (admittedly dinky 3 pages) is based around. we (my friend and i) thought that the picture was perfect for her purposes, and that it shouldn't be changed at all. This made for a pretty lengthy header (even at my 1600x1200 res), but personally i think part of its charm is that it is different from the norm. the nav bar being at the bottom was a compromise to the oversized header, and i think we're going to leave it alone too, after considering alternatives.

i totally agree that having external links looking exactly like the inter-site links is a problem. unfortunately that's a legacy from the old site, and my friend and i are going to have a discussion about what to do about them. i really don't have any good ideas about how to differentiate them elegently, other than adding something like [External link]: to the alt text... and i'm probably the only web user who actually reads alt text before clicking through links.

finally, text resizing is the one thing i can easily handle... done. i also made everything percentage ems, so resizing in IE/Win isn't locked out (like it is on so many websites now).

thanks for the compliment on the coding. i make a lot of stupid mistakes when i code, so i keep things as clean as possible so i can find my stupidities. ;)


i really really appreciate all the great comments. the site looks 100% better because of you guys!

[FractalGirl]

I don't have a problem with the size of the graphic for two reasons:

1) I have DSL and it loads quickly. Maybe someone on dialup might not see it that way.
2) The graphic and the title are visible to me, running 1024x768 res, so that it kind of looks like a splash page at first, then you scroll down.

As far as the navigation, again two things:

1) The menu could be moved up, to right under, or above, "Non-linear Digital Editing, Video and Film Production." That way it would be more visible, though it really doesn't bother me where it is, though I think had I designed it, I personally would move it up.

2) All external links should ALWAYS pop out a new browser window. If not, you're screwing yourself because you've just taken the person away from your site, where they will meander around from link to link, eventually forgetting where they came from.

Slipping a {target="_blank"} command into your html will instruct a new browser window to open when the link is clicked.

Yes, the type is big. Personally I don't care for it that big, but it doesn't look hideous that large to me, for some reason.

JM .02 :)

Tina