Feedback on some of my layouts please.

Hey, i've designed some web layouts. I am a website designer, i don't code.
I'l be grateful for you to give your opinions/critique/advice! I need as much as possible to know if i should continue in designing, or completely give up.
Designs:
One|Two|Three|Four
Five|Six|Seven|Eight
Nine|Ten

All feeback-much appreciated!
Thanks, Sarah.

 

Thank you !

 

Good clean designs, but you should also learn some html and css to code these...

 

Thanks. Yeah i should code them abit and then sell them, right?

 

Well, I'd recommend learning html and css just because they're not hard to learn and it will definitely benefit you as a designer in the long run... I dont code manually, I just use Dreamweaver for all that. I learned it with video tutorials from lynda.com. I dont know much about selling website templates, not really sure if there's a lot of freelancers who profit from those.

 

They look great! I personally like the ones with the scissors at the bottom. That one stood out to me the most. And the DJ one with the vinyl scratcher at the bottom, with the buttons on the left that looked like they were pointing off into the background for a sort of 3d effect. Only thing I'd like to have seen, is on the DJ one, if it had a more flashy "glossy" button effect and layout...one that screamed "I'm smexy!"

Seriously though, you do great work, give urself a pat on the back

 

Your obviously starting to get the hang of it, I wouldn't give up now! There are plenty of UI designers out there that are scared of coding, and couldn't do it if their life depended on it. However they are VERY skilled at designing, so if you don't want to code you'll have to become a very strong designer.

 

The designs are fine, they look like typical templates people offer for sale

You need to have the code behind them so you have a theme that someone could actually use. Until you learn html and css well enough to build a theme from scratch, you might want to use one of the sophisticated adjustable Drupal themes as the guts, then adjust the settings to fit your designs, thus creating a sub-theme. That way your design is usable and you could sell it as a package of graphics.

 

Thanks guys! I wont give up then ^, lol.
I have learnt actually quite abit in this day about slicing & optimizing the layout in photoshop & then exporting it into dreamweaver and coding the buttons and content etc using html/css. I've done that for some of my layouts, would that be all? would they be ready to be sold if i did that?

 

New layout!
http://hgupload.net/u/1284925536.png
Feedback Appreciated.

 

Number 3 and 10 are nice the rest are just plain old average .

 

Ahh, well thanks.

 

Your designs are pretty clean, and "put together" if that makes any sense, but I have a few criticisms to offer.
I'm not fond of the repeating words in some of the backgrounds, that sort of thing tends to clutter a layout, and can make content hard to read. There's also some places where you have very low contrast in the text. That's something that one should be careful to avoid, it really makes text very hard to read. In design 5 readability is an issue due to above mentioned contrast problem. That design also has some images to the right that I don't really get the purpose of, they are blurry and cropped oddly.

It is a good idea to learn code, but really depends on what your goals are. If you really focus on design, you can make a career out of just doing layouts. I have a client that has me do all the code, and someone else that just does layouts, so it can work. If you do decide to do code, really learn it, there are too many people out there whom just throw together websites in a WYSIWYG website program, and it typically ends up being atrociously bad error filled code, which can lead to all sorts of problems, and it makes the geek gods sad (kidding, but still).

I do think you need to work on finding something that is really unique about you as a designer, something that when someone sees it they think "hey that's so and so's design..." a trademark style that makes you recognizable, in the same way a good artist is recognizable. You have some well put together designs, but I've seen a million that look almost just like them. Not that that's always a bad thing, it has it's place certainly, but if you have something to really distinguish you from others then that will really help you. Since I'm pretty new to designing layouts (in fact I'm willing to bet you've done more designs than I have), that's something I'm working on as well right now.

Designs 7 and 8 are quite good, 7 is my favorite.

 

Thanks for your advice/critisizm. Number 5 is a '10 minute' job, i just thought i'd add it in. I do though need to make myself a trademark, something that represents myself as you said above. I will take a think and sketch some ideas down. Maybe a logo that you can see it represents me? & then maybe place it at the bottom of every layout i make/sell? I also need to focus more on the images & themes. I have realised im making loads of different themed layouts & they just look like ordinery layouts you would find anywhere on google. I need to make myself a theme and base my layouts on that theme.

I am having difficulties downloading illustrator at this moment, i click download and it says 'your download should start automaticly' but it doesnt. Once i get that downloaded i'll think of a design/logo/trademark for myself.
I've been designing for around 2 years ON & OFF. I want to stick to it, but i don't know whether i should code the layout's into templates first before selling or just sell them as a PNG image file.
What do you think?

Thanks for your comment & advice. Much appreciated.
Sarah.

 

Ive created a number of logo's now to represent me, do you think these are ok?
Click to see all images.
let me know. OR let me know which one is best..
Thanks!

 

I'm sorry if my post looks a little to harsh . I'm quite critical of all but the most brilliant website designs . I'm glad to see that you're putting the proverbial back into it .

As for your logos : the 3rd and the penultimate logo look quite good , and by quite good I mean I would buy from the person that has such logos . The last logo has potential but you should redesign the face , it looks a little childish which has more cons then pros . May I suggest you go for a feminine face that looks sexy and slick , perhaps even a digitalized/cyborg looking face something in the lines of the colors used in the text ? Brushed dark violet chrome can make a feminine cyborg face look spectacular IMHO .

I'm not sure how professional SLM sounds but it's not a bad choice . I suggest that you keep open for name change in the future .

 

I don't have experience selling templates personally (though I'm considering trying it eventually, I've always just designed on demand for clients), but I suspect you'll have a hard time just selling as PNGs, or layouts just as image files period. If you are going to do it, sell them as PSDs or tifs with layers, because people are going to want to be able to edit the templates they buy some, and PNGs are a very far cry from ideal for that. If you are going to include a PNG include it along with other image formats that do have layers.

One thing you may want to consider doing is finding a coder to work with. Again, if you are going to code templates yourself, I suggest really making sure you have an really solid understanding of how to write good code. Plus you may want to learn how to build custom Wordpress, Joomla, etc... templates, or find someone to do that for you, I think the demand for those is higher than for static HTML sites, or just layout image files.

 

ApocalypseXL: Thanks for your adive i will try and re-design the face on the last logo. SLM is just my initials, it's the only name thought i have atm. I will think of a name change soon. Thanks again!.
EmeraldToucanet: Ok i will try and find a coder as a partner and 50/50 the money we make. I hope there is a coder out there. Thanks again!

 

Well there's always Craigslist, you could look for one there, or post a flyer on whatever bulletin boards are to be found around your community, and also you could try colleges in your area, if you want to work with someone locally. Otherwise forums like this one, and freelance job sites are full of coders, then your main problem is there's just so many to choose from, and figuring out who you want to work with is the issue.

 

Hmm what's craigslist? I'll post around, i might post here too. Thanks again.
Btw check out my new layout,
clicckkkk.