My site http://www.spectrumhaven.com which is for people on the autism spectrum just had a new logo made for it by an artist. Problem is that I have a set of images as links for related sites and they look messy, is there a way to do the same thing in a table without the images?
A friend of mine said, "Why are you so negative?" To which I replied when I view a site whether it is my own or someone elses I always see what I think needs to be fixed. I keep tweeking until I get something I like. My obversations: Logo is too big. About all you see on opening screen in logo and no content. Site take too long to open. Compress your images and go for smaller ones. Centered text harder to read than left justified. I would go for smaller text. Good luck with your site.
Logo is not looking like a logo. Your site needs more and more modifcation...If you want to have same logo, match rest of the colors on home page with logo colors. I too suggest go for small fonts.
Thanks for the advice, I am now using a smaller version of the logo, and made most of the text smaller. Does it look better now, and any advice on the block of images/links?
my 2 cents, well you did ask...... Make a white table 750 pixels wide with a 5 pixel navy border, Slap all of your content in it. Get a proper logo...(thats a wreath of flowers) I prefer the one in your avatar. Lose all the coloured boxes and just have standard hyperlinks to the various topics, and dont have those sites opening in a frame... just open the sites in a new window. good luck with it though. James
I will consider doing that. I changed the links to open in a new window. I still wish there was a way to keep something like the boxes rather than having plain links. Would images from the other sites look better than just the coloured boxes maybe?
The logo is below average. You might want to consider and hire a pro to design your site. Remember a first impression is the only one you get. Also it took a long time to load your site. Good luck!
Amy, I think images that represent the other sites would be very appropriate. You could incorporate the some of the logos from those sites into the design of your link buttons. I like the boxes also but I would suggest placing them all in a three by four grid--without the blank spaces in between. Good luck with your site! Buzz
Thanks Buzzfretz, that would look more professional. Someone very kindly made me a new logo yesterday, someone from here, so that was really nice.
I've always felt the logo should tell something about your business. I've also felt the logo should be small and in your header. If it was me I would try and come up with a logo that if that was all you saw you would have an idea about what my business was about. I would then make it small enough so if I had to use it in print it would look good on a piece of paper. Just my two cents.
Hmm, its not really a business, its part of a non-profit org, not sure how I would get across autism spectrum forums in a small logo. Any ideas?
I really don't fully understand the site but might be able to help more if I did. What does spectrum have to do with autism. Is that just the name of the site?
Autism is a spectrum condition, its varies in severity. This has a lot of info if you are interested http://www.autism-wiki.com
Damn it! I just wrote a reply and deleted it by accident!!!! Anyway here's my reply again... ======= Heya, Few things that came to mind: 1. Logo - The size of the logo is still too big as people have mentioned. Also the grey background of the logo makes it stand out from the rest of the page - not in a good way either! Reduce the size of the logo and either make its background transparent or change the rest of the page to compliment the grey... Also in my opinion nothing should be at the same level as the logo. By this I'm talking about your menu unit that is at the top left... Try using tables more effectively and placing the menu unit below the logo, with the left hand edge in line with each other... 2. Size - Size Matters!!! Anyway jokes aside the size of the logo is waaaaay to large in my opinion. At 500kb some visitors will experience some slow load times. Try converting it to another format such as .GIF 3. Font - The size of the font is large as well. Normally 10pt is a good one to use and I personally like using arial. Basically experiment with it! 4. Colour Scheme - I'm soooooo bad at choosing colour schemes!!! Anyway your website isn't very attractive in terms of colours... Grey, black, the 2 shades of blue + the others don't compliment each other at all! Try changing it... 5. Ad Layout - The adverts you do have on your homepage aren't very well placed. You want them to be noticed! Place them in more visible areas. Click here for optimization tips and more specifically here about advert placement. 6. Layout - As people have mentioned you should left justify your text to make it easier to read for the visitor. At the moment you have stuff all over the place. Also the fact that the logo, text, table and advert are centered at different locations on the page doesn't help. They're my thoughts on your page. Hope you found it useful. Also if you interested I prepared a very VERY quickly done example of what you could do. It actually isn't that much better but with some modifications here and there I think it could be used to create a much better looking page. Feel free to take the logo, coding for the page etc... You'll need to replace the Google Adsense ID though as I just placed some of mine in there so you could see what the page would look like. Anyway the page I prepared for you can be found here. (God this turned into a little essay! I should be studying for my exam right now but I just wasted time doing this... )
Aww that was very kind of you to offer so much advice, I will take a look and consider all that you have said.
Yeah I just had another look at the example I gave you and it does need a LOT of work! But considering I didn't spend much time on it I think it's a good starting point.
Go with Darkhodge. Tons better. Page is not overwhelmed with color. Loads eons quickly to lack of two large graphics.
darkhodge: thank you amy: i salut you for doing a nonprofit site to help those people altough the site itself need more to be done i think with some enhancments the site will help its purposes