I need design help... 4

[LilProgrammerGirl]

Hi all,
I have a site that I am working on and I don't think it's flashy enough. I have up what they provided me to publish - which isn't much. I have not started the Map or Contact Us pages yet.

Any ideas on how I can spice this up a bit??

Thanks for the feedback...

Hailey

 

[confusedlady]

Yep. Someone better get that coffee going right away today! I know where I'll be from time I get home till early morning hours again-on that hard chair! lol

I should have gone with css from beginning.....Wasting time with Firefox and whatnot!

 

[RISTMO]

I like the new design a lot better than the old one. And I do like the new menu, but I agree with subcarrier that replacing it with the original menu would make the site look better. And try to delete the blue background around your white text in the logo. The blue in that image doesn't quite match the blue background. Just make it a gif and you can leave the background transparent.

Rick

http://www.ristmo.com/

 

[LilProgrammerGirl]

Very cool Ristmo!
I didn't know you could make a gif's background transparent. That would help me out tremendously because I was planning on providing 3-4 differnt color scheme options in my final presentation for this company and the way it is now..I'd have to recreate the jpg's in all of the different colors - with the transparency option, I can just change my style sheet!

Do you think it would be better if I used my new menu - but changed the hover color to like yellow - or something brighter than the maroon?

Thanks everyone for the input - the site is looking MUCH better and I am learning a TON!

Hailey

 

[RISTMO]

I don't really think that the maroon is such a big deal, simply because the user's already read the text by the time they've moused-over. Sure, it's not really easy to read, but, it's clear enough, and they still have the text outline in their mind from before they moused-over.

The main reason I was saying to use the old menu is simply because it looks good and because it gives the site a more professional feel.

Have you used Adobe Photoshop? It's an invaluable tool for a designer. Although it costs around $400-$500 (

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?hl=en&lr=&tab=wf&q=adobe+photoshop+7&btnG=Search+Froogle),

I don't think I could design well at all without it. Tucows has a demo for the 6.0 version. It's not as good as their new one, and some of the features are disabled, but it can give you an idea of what it's like:

http://www.tucows.com/preview/214261.html

See if you know someone who can get a student discount on it for you. It's a great tool. And it's not terribly hard to learn how to use, considering how many tutorials there are for it.

I think that Fireworks is able to make transparent gifs, too, but I never use it.

Even so, transparent gifs most likely wouldn't work for the multiple color schemes, because they can't do partial transparency (like you'd need for the top part of the logo). You could still use stylesheets, though. Just set the logo as a background image, specifying the width and height, and have the stylesheet load the right image depending on which stylesheet's used.

Rick

http://www.ristmo.com/

 

[JRundle]

Paint Shop Pro is a good choice for the budget designer

 

[trollacious]

Gimp, at gimp.org, is a free Photoshop clone that isn't bad at all, and it handles a lot of the plugins.

Lee

 

[ChrisHunt]

Personally, I liked the first design much more then I like the second. It only needed a little work to give it a fluid layout that would work in smaller screen sizes. All those different colours clash with eachother and that busy background image - the old blue-and-cream colour scheme was much more harmonious.

I think you need to keep the top & bottom balanced - if you have a margin at the top of a box, you should use the same margin at the bottom; if the top corners are rounded, the bottom ones should be too. Take a look at

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/customcorners2/

to see how to do rounded corners in CSS.

Those pictures are horrible - to be brutal, it looks like some kind of Eddie Murphy Nutty Professor tribute band. As a potential client, for two out the three guys, I can't help thinking "are these guys going to lay off the pizza long enough to work on my case?". Get someone to take some more flattering pictures - tight head-and-shoulders shots like Darrin's (really good) one. The current huge-body-tiny-head look is doing them no favours.

On those individual pages, I'd go with a larger font size (not all your potential clients have 20-20 vision!), also be sure to have some padding between the text and the border.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[wantstolearncfm]

The "your neighborhoood law firm" image, seem very pizelated around the edges, save as a gif and it should sharpen up a bit
Otherwise a damn good site, my design sense is a bit weak

http://google.com

http://support.microsoft.com/

CF Reference
The links of my knowledge

 

[PaulBricker]

I just need to weigh-in on the pictures (no pun intended ). The site in general has a formal appearance and the photo on the homepage runs counter to that look but projecting a very informal atmosphere. When you click on the individual pictures, the ones of Christopher and Michael have the appearance of something from a High School yearbook, and the one of Darrin looks like something you would see on a Theater Playboard. If I was shopping for a lawyer, I would have a hard time getting past the photos. I think they are a major drawback to any good work you will produce.

Paul