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New Website Design

ClassicFan

ClassicFan

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 14, 2007
81
0
Hey everybody! Last night I launched my new website! Every month I have a new theme and this month It's a cartoony hand-drawn theme. I already have the plans for next month so if this one is a flop I'll have a new one ready to go! Let me know what you think of it.

NadelmanDesign
 
The following may seem harsh, but I'm just trying to point things out so you can see where improvements can be made.
  1. Well, it's not very accessible. No text. At least not real text. This means blind people won't know what's there and search engines won't see anything either so it really hurts your SEO. At the very least provide alt text for the text you have in the images.
  2. The page shows a horizontal scroll, even though there's no more content that way, just more of your image. Just a bit unnecessary.
  3. The page doesn't validate. Pick yourself out a DOCTYPE and work from there.
  4. You should learn to do CSS-based layouts rather than table ones. It'll make these monthly designs easier too. See the CSS Zen Garden for inspiration as to the power of CSS.
  5. I do like the creativity though. I've done similar designs in the past where my home page looked like a room and different items in it where links.
 
On top of all that, since you do monthly themes - consider adding a means for users to "switch" themes, to demonstrate your skinning abilities and graphic design work. This is not the same as your portfolio - I mean for your site. Of course as Angelwatt suggested, switch from tabular layout to CSS. Yes, even when exporting from sliced images as I know you did. This is how you could switch themes, using simple Javascript to swap stylesheets. Just a suggestion, a personal "that would be cool" thing to add, plus a means to promote your experience with multiple styles and themes, i.e. a professional a cut above the rest in terms of design.

From a standpoint of design, I dig it, too!

From a developer's perspective, that's something different. We hope you realize this is constructive and necessary criticism with both disciplines in mind which makes a great site memorable, popular and -- profitable.

-jim
 
I agree with everything angelwatt said and would like to add one thing.

I realize you said you were doing monthly themes but with this design it would help if the 'ND' and the 'nadelman design' grunge thing were more consistent with the overall theme; for instance handdrawn.
 
One other thing would be the photos on your design page. They are all to close together. It took me a min to realize they were all separate pictures and not a category or section. I would space them out so people realize there are multiple picture there to click on. Other than that its looking good. I look forward to seeing the next one!
 
I couldn't wait to put up my new design... so go check out the new site. It ACTUALLY looks good in Internet Explorer and I didn't use tables you CSS fans! It also validates and such...

nadelmandesign
 
ClassicFan said:
I couldn't wait to put up my new design... so go check out the new site. It ACTUALLY looks good in Internet Explorer and I didn't use tables you CSS fans! It also validates and such...

nadelmandesign
Click to expand...

Looks good. You integrated the suggestions well. Nice new design. I thought you might want to know, just in case you care, your code almost validates under XHTML 1.0 Strict. There was just 3 errors, and they were dealing attributes that would be a very simple fix, if you're interested having a valid strict DOCTYPE. That's completely up to you though.
 
I am with Angelwatt on this. I fiddled about not learning anything really until I forced myself to use Strict XHTML and make sure my pages validated. There were times I screamed foul language at my display over the frustrating errors these reports would produce...

But over time I realized that this exercise saved me so much time and made me a much better designer in the long run. The www.w3c.org validator is your best friend...
 
SrWebDeveloper said:
On top of all that, since you do monthly themes - consider adding a means for users to "switch" themes, to demonstrate your skinning abilities and graphic design work.
Click to expand...

in line with this, I'd also offer a more visually-accessible (if that's the right word(s)) 'skin' as well - you know, like a Saltine Cracker version as opposed to the Double-Stuff Oreo you have now - one that's a bit easier to follow.

Perhaps not the big jump on the mouse overs?

Graphically it sure does make a statement. :)
 
Photomax said:
I am with Angelwatt on this. I fiddled about not learning anything really until I forced myself to use Strict XHTML and make sure my pages validated. There were times I screamed foul language at my display over the frustrating errors these reports would produce...

But over time I realized that this exercise saved me so much time and made me a much better designer in the long run. The www.w3c.org validator is your best friend...
Click to expand...

Way to go! I could not have summed it up any better than that. :cool:

-jim
 
under design, how did you make it so that when you click on the pic, it does that thing that it does [lol you should know what i'm talking about]
 
Try using a single font for all the subtitles (such as School, Mockups). The ones you have are hard to read and make the whole image "not clean". Also, on the main page, I would lower the opacity or lighten up the color spots behind the text. Currently the text is hard to read because you have black on solid colors.

Other than that, interesting design!


irmongoose
 
Despite all of the rest of the HTML-related issues everyone else has mentioned, I think the design is very cool. The paint blotches really add some interesting eye-candy to the page.
 
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