Advice on website design.

Hey, I just finished the home page for a sample site (not an actual site) and I'd appreciate some criticism.

Thanks for the time

http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k130/misha_val/?action=view&current=LuckyDesign.jpg

 

Not too bad...

 

Menu text is too large, the 'welcome to...' text is a little bland and the white pattern offers no real structure... In my opinion anyway.

 

Concept is ok, but color scheme is not so good.

You need contrast.

 

Thanks for the advice.

How shall I acheive more contrast?

 

I know this is off topic, what does Misha come from?
My Fiance's nickname is Misha..and also my former sister in law's name is Val...so Misha Val just hit me..hehe.

As for the design, it looks okay, the text is too big and the rest of it is fairly basic..I wouldn't want to purchase a website from there..no offense..think some brushing up needs to be done on graphics skill

I mean this in a helpful way not to be rude..I'm not that great with graphics either..hehe

 

Ugly fonts, needless decoration, and title elements are too large. All in all not good.

Try thinking about your design from the perspective of some one looking to have a website built for them. What would they want to see? Remember, your design should be more about effective communication than artistic splendor.

edit: Also green and black rarely work together. It evokes early computers and low tech. In fact, black backgrounds rarely work.

edit: To clarify, the white text is fine, but the green one looks like some one blurred it in photoshop then used levels to re-sharpen it.

 

Thank you guys. Your advice is really helpful. I'll try a couple changes. What font do you recommend for the Welcome To Lucky Design and the Featured Projects part? I'm not very good with fonts.
Also, what else do I need in the main page. It seems a bit bland.

And the name Misha is my name, it's Russian in origin.. Val is short for Valentine, my last name.


Changes

Decrease header size
Change title font
Remove decoration?
Change background size to white.

 

I would change pretty much every font you are using. I would also change the color scheme (black/orange/green) looks a bit odd to me. Also the waves clash with the style of the banner IMO and I would also bring the font size down a fairly good bit.

I do however like the layout and the entire idea you are going with.

 

There's too many different types of font that you're using. Just a suggesting, but try simplifying the amount to two kinds. I agree with someone's comment on removing the decoration. The white lines just don't go well with your clover leaf. If anything, i would remove the clover leaf. it's a tad cheesy (just my opinon). Plus the main links near the header is too big.
Also, try to vary up the overall layout. right now you have everything centered. Symmetry is get's boring. Try re arranging the text and images around. I loved to see what you'll come up with. let me know if u do!

 

From my experience, when starting a new design always use the most space available, and generally this would be 800 pixels wide and 600-800 pixels long...but that can always be adjusted later. The bigger the workspace, the more creative your mind can be...try not to worry about structure so much at the start, just work on little designs like headers, banners, logos, navigational items etc. Once you think you can design all of those, then all you're doing is implementing it.

Colours are EXTREMELY important as they are the key to convey whatever message you want. For example, a light blue can convey fluffiness/calm/relaxation .. and can be commonly used as a professional colour if used correctly. Red is a very abrupt, strong colour.. so if you want to be direct with something in particular, red is great for this......but remember one thing, as with life, there needs to be balance and that's the same with designing... keep things in balance, black/white, blue/white, orange/white... again, look at designs on the internet, shop around see what excites you and what you WANT to design.

You'll get there...

P.S. I can only hope you're using Photoshop as from my experience, that's the best to use.

Good luck mate

- A

 

I would suggest you read up on font families if you're not sure which direction to take.
(www) yourhtmlsource.com/text/webtypography.html ( i cant post live links so copy and paste)

Remember, using any font you have on your computer for text is fine until you put it online where in all likelihood the user doesnt have that font (this is where a font family comes in - if one isn't available the browser checks for the next one in the list and so on to help keep some consistency).

You can get around the above by converting title text to images but I think considering the visual impact (which can potentially be better when using images) against efficiency (who wants to create a new image when they make a new page?) all headings should be plain text which would of course allow for easy customisation too.

Hope this helps.

I disagree with this. Before designing your website its best to think about how you will code your design and to do that effectively I disagree with the quote above and say that you should worry entirely about structure and nothing else, especially when starting out. Your designs will move on from just a few elements thrown together in Photoshop to a more crisper, cleaner finish... But that will only happen once you know how far you can go with CSS and HTML.

 

You'll disagree, others will agree. It's simply a matter of opinion. I'm focusing on towards the more creative side than logical. You can always invent structure, but you can't invent ideas instantly if you're in that type of frame of mind.

At the end of the day, you need to do what feels right. If you have a passion for design, then simply stick to it, keep designing, who cares what we say, we're just going on OUR experiences, not your capabilities.

One will say this, another will say that - it's how you WANT to learn, not SHOULD

- A

 

Alright, I've done a bit of work. Lets see how you guys like it now.
The main page needs more content but for now it's the basic layout.

http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k130/misha_val/?action=view&current=LuckyDesign2.jpg

 

hi
nice design but change the menu.your menu is old fashion.
thank..

 

Not bad i think your design is good!!!

 

This would make a better print design than website design, better but still nothing I feel should be printed. As others have mentioned, navigation is too large. Change that and remove the needless items. After that, play with the formatting and spacing a little, and then add in visual items with little purpose later.

 

The colors are very loud and I feel it takes away from the site. I agree with robotic it does look like a print ad. How do expect the site to work? inline frames? _self/_parent tags?

 

Regarding the last two posts, were you talking about the original link or my updated one a couple pages down?

And mikeyoneshot, I'll convert it into Dreamweaver.

 

It's too dull colours. Try to use a new font for heading - "Welcome to Lucky Design" and "Featured Projects" Choose a new one more professional.