I work for a company that has an es

[ecojohnson]

I work for a company that has an established well selling product. We are now working on moving our product to the web for the first time. I am looking for any design ideas that anyone may have that could make our web page look a bit more classy. Here’s a little bit of background info:

Our product is used in the medical industry, and most of the people who will be using this will be in semi-dark rooms, therefore, we have decided to go with the black background. However, a gradient from Black to Blue or Black to Gray might work.

The top section (with the company logo, the name, and the save/cancel buttons) will be within a frame. This section might become dark gray. Our logo is Blue, and blue is a little hard to see with a black background, so that is why I am considering gray.

Any tips on what to do to make this page look more classy? Any ideas on designs or better use of colors would be much appreciated. If possible, I could provide a bitmap so you could see the template to get an idea of what it looks like.

 

[GUJUm0deL]

Well, to start with i'd forget about using frames...nothing good ever came out of using frames...
Umm, the color scheme is good...black background color with a soft white text color (such as: #FFFAFA)...the logo color blue, what color shade is it?? Cause blue has alot of shades, if it turns out that the blue-on-black combo is not good, then use this color for background color: #A9A9A9 or #20B2AA...if the logo blue is dark blue, you'll have to use a soft color for background (its easy on the eyes then) and a hard color for text...
For a more in-depth color chart go here:

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/colors.html

As for the layout...you can do a variety of ways:
1) Logo on upper-right side, then the buttons underneath that...then the rest of the main page content...
2) Logo in the center, buttons underneath that, then the reast of the main page content... I have not failed; I merely found 100,000 different ways of not succeding...

 

[isNaN]

I don't think frames are all that bad ... if used properly and for good reason. More often than not they are used poorly and the site builder could have solved the same problem with tables. If you want users to be able to easily bookmark or link to any page in your site than frames are not the right solution.

As far as color is concerned I think the two main things to think about are color contrast and value (if you are not familiar with the term 'value' applied to color, it is the difference from dark to light...or the B(alance) in HSB). A dark blue on a light gray will read fine but a dark blue on dark gray most likely wont read at all.

Providing a link to a .gif or .jpg would probably get more feedback.

g'luck,

jaxon

 

[ecojohnson]

Hmmmm. Well, for now, it's just a conceptual idea. Meaning, all I have is a bitmap of what it should look like. Is there anyway to post bitmaps on this forum? If not, I can look into creating a dirty little page that has the basics on it, so others can see what I am talking about.

 

[GUJUm0deL]

That would be a good idea...this way we can see what you want to do by working off the "dirty" page... I have not failed; I merely found 100,000 different ways of not succeding...