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sk3pt1c

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 29, 2005
918
6
a simulacrum
right, this is my first "pro" attempt at a website

http://www.koutsoulas.gr

it's done using fireworks and dreamweaver and
it is in greek but that doesn't really matter,
i'd like you guys to check it out and let me know what you think
about it overall.

since it's my first official work i have nothing to compare it to so i could
really use the input so please feel free to play around with it as much as
you want and send him some dummy text using the form just to test it.
(please no insults or anything abusive cause that goes directly to the client's email account)
:)

and another thing, i charged my client around 650 u.s. dollars for it (500euro)
(i also set up the domain registration and web hosting for him
and took some photos from an expo he went to-
that's in the "Nέα" section)

do you think that's a fair price for the work done?

thanks in advance for your time and your constructive criticism :D
 

Jasonbot

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2006
2,467
0
The Rainbow Nation RSA
Well it's a single size. My 20" display kinda squashes it up all small so make it fit up against the edges of someone's browser. And I think the pics should be slightly lower quality to load quicker. But I enjoyed the theme even though I don't undersatnd anything
 

MrSmith

macrumors 68040
Nov 27, 2003
3,046
14
There are a few typos on the first page.
:D
No, but it's all Greek to me.
:D
Etc...
:D
Seriously, though, first impressions are everything and given that I can't read a single word of it I thought it was very nicely designed indeed. One small thing - the photoshop guys might suggest cleaning up the handshake picture. Otherwise you should be proud of that, IMHO.
 

rogersmj

macrumors 68020
Sep 10, 2006
2,161
1
Indianapolis, IN
Not a bad layout. Looks pretty good. My only suggestions are to center it on the page and to make the links something other than royal blue -- they really look out of place.
 

Aniej

macrumors 68000
Oct 17, 2006
1,743
0
I think it is a bit of an odd choice to have a telephone image appear when you are providing a web contact/feedback form. I would reserve that image for your contact numbers instead. Which, leads me to my second point. This appears to be a business and the whole point is to attract new business easily. As such, placing your contact information on the first page at the bottom is very useful, especially for a website that is small and does not need major levels of compartmentalization. Overall, the aesthetics are pleasing so keep up the good work.
 

heehee

macrumors 68020
Jul 31, 2006
2,469
233
Same country as Santa Claus
1) Have buttons on all the pages. You don't want people to have to go back to the home page to look at other pages, it's annoying. ;)

2) In one of your pages, you have a pdf link. You might want to have it open in a new page. Shouldn't have links that make you leave your site.

3) I like the layout and graphics, but that handshake looks weird for me.
 

sk3pt1c

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 29, 2005
918
6
a simulacrum
first of all, a big "thank you" to all you guys for taking the time to play with the website (i hope no one sent any abuse to my client through the form :) )
1)sorry that it's in greek but that's where i live and there's no reason for it to be in english :) anyway, i wanted comments on the design aspect.
2)the handshake and telephone icons were kind of a last minute decision as i was looking for something more appropriate for hours and hours and finally got pissed off and put those in :)
3)i like to design stuff so that it will look ok on a low resolution screen because not many people are fortunate enough to have high-res screens like us mac users, hence the small size of the site.

one thing, no one answered the question about the charge :)
do you think it was appropriate? was the money i got ok given the
website and setup i did for the client? what do you think?

i promise my next one will be better.
sometimes i get carried away with trying to make creative adjustments
and a pleasing "environment" that i forget functional stuff, must remind
myself not to do that :rolleyes: :D
 

xoreu

macrumors member
Nov 12, 2006
41
0
I think your site has a nice sense of simplicity, but you might want to consider it in terms of accessibility and search engine placement.

Most of your site is composed of images, which can be easier to deal with (fonts, etc), but will also create problems. Because you don't use alt tags, if your images don't (or take a long time) to load, there will be nothing left of your site. Also, as discussed in this thread, having an all-image site will likely be hurtful to your search engine rank.

If you're fine with those two things, I see no problems with your site.
 

mikes63737

macrumors 65816
Jul 26, 2005
1,147
338
On this page, the link is over the background image and it is a little bit hard to read (not that I can ;) ). But other than that I think that it is a good theme. I'm not sure about the pricing because I haven't done any professional design yet.
 

sk3pt1c

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 29, 2005
918
6
a simulacrum
xoreu, you are right and i was really troubled about that before i started. that's exactly what they taught us at uni, accessibility and usability and all that. but i thought to skip that cause i've really come to hate css (since it doesn't really "work" all-around yet and you need all sorts of "hacks" for each browser). so i decided to use macromedia's workflow and create the layout in fireworks, export the html in dreamweaver and create the website there.
as far as search engine problems, i have come to realise this now, i didn't know about it, but the client has agreed to create an ad on google for the website, so problem solved :D

mikes63737, you are right too man, they are kind of hard to read over the background, that's why i've brightened the color when you hover over the text, to make it easier to read.

anyone on the pricing?

thanks again for your time guys, this is all really helpful :)
 

Fuzzputer

macrumors newbie
Dec 12, 2006
1
0
Charge

I had somebody do the design for a web site a few years ago, here in Switzerland. It cost something like 10 to 15 times more. Mind you, I did the whole production of the site (so I wrote the individual pages) as well as database programming for a marketplace site. The design is nice (I really like it) and the web designer threw in a logo for the new business and letterhead and envelopes. Still, I would say your price is very competitive...
 
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