Hello! Good or bad it would be nice to get some feedback on my newest version of www.lpmvoice.com digital rock magazine. Thanks!
There's too much going on on the page, it made me want to leave straight away. Everything seems really big and there's too many conflicts going on. All of the font is Times New Roman, it's not a good look (you've probably used a font that isn't installed as default on computers). I would seriously reccomend you get a free template and work on it that way. Something like www.freecsstemplates.org/preview/newsflash would be good. Obviously you can change the colours, etc as you wish. At the moment it has an 'amateur' look about it, and it's a shame because it looks like you've put so much time into getting the content done.
The header is fine but there is a lot going on in the pages (too much). There is a lot of distasteful gray color gradients going on that are distracting I would suggest cleaning it up a bit to add a professional look.
If you still want to keep that header, you should chop it into several images to improve its loading time, plus I would add attributes to the fonts and link colors. That font associated to blue links are proper of newbie designers.
I have to agree. There are so many Premium Wordpress Magazine templates out there that will really make it look a little more professional. I speak from experience, I have 3 magazine style blogs (and yes one is a music magazine), and it has made all the difference in the world, and worth every penny. This is not the best look for you. First, everything is really big, and it doesn't fit on the screen. (left to right scroll is bad). By the way, what does "LPM" stand for ?
Ok these all sound like good ideas to me, this is my third attempt at designing a kind of different style of a website than most blog styles by incorporating flash and using a bigger look. I will admit that I am new to designing but I did all the graphics and flash along with the code myself, I will work on cleaning up the main page simplifying it a little and getting some new fonts through out the site as well. I appreciate all the advice and welcome any other helpful suggestions as well.
Forgetting the main page and all the others pages for a moment and only taking a look at the magazine itself www.current.lpmvoice.com do you think that I should keep the Flash flip book style and use that with a WP template?
The flipbook makes it hard to read as it sqaushes the pages. Look at the image below - I just mocked this up extremely quickly, but it shows what you could achieve if you just make the images a little less crazy and effect filled, and use a font other than Times New Roman (Verdana is my favourite).
Hmm.. that does seem to simplify the page, I think that I let Photoshop get the best of me when I created the layout and used to many graphics. I can see how this would be more effective in presenting the material to my viewers with out overloading there senses.
I would like to see the site a bit simpler it is a little crowded for me. The music scared the shit out of me when I loaded the page.
Check out the 2 themes in my sig from Solostream (Dance Music Magazine) , and Woo Themes (Weight Loss Products). Something like that would give you the flash that you need for images and features, and the magazine style organization that you need to pull it off. There are many of them out there, beside those , but when you say magazine, I really think that you would be really happy with a premium wordpres theme. JMO
The site has potential but I think the header is too big, it's occupying too much of the page. The text links at the bottom of the page is blue that makes it very difficult to read, I think you should change the color of the text links. Although the theme has potential I think you should get a different theme for the site.
After thinking it over last night and taking a look around some of the inks offered up I found this WP temp. http://www.darrenhoyt.com/2007/08/05/wordpress-magazine-theme-released/ Would this be a good match for the material I am trying to publish?
Very unfamilliar feel to it. It would be beter with a Joomla or WP implementation. The colors make the text hard to read in spots and don't really add anything to the design.
I Contemplated that same theme before. Notice that it is a design from 2007. Wordpress has gone through a few updates since then. First ensure that it is compatible with Wordpress 2.6.1, which is the version we are on now. (which it should be, it is a popular theme) Secondly, when testing out the theme, I found it hard to configure to get the look that I want. (That's just me, I am every impatient and I was also a total "Newb" last year). I personally prefer buying from established designers, first of all the support should you have any configuration problems is there, as well as updates should you need them. Not to say that you can't find some nice free themes out there. Wordpress has 100's of them available. Mimbo is a good looking theme, and yes I think it would do you a far more justice than your current design.
Thanks for the insight on that theme, I will continue to look around for one that will work a little better. I made a few changes to my website (main page only) www.lpmvoice.com , some of the changes included the header, text font, color scheme and adv. placement, please let me know what you think of them! What I think I will do is make this change across the entire web site for now and in the mean while in between the making of each months magazine issues I will work on getting a WP theme together.
Huh... www.lpmvoice.com it seems to come up fine for me, is it even pulling up for you or are there errors on the page? Thanks for checking