website for C&C

Goodshape

A site to promote my freelance web design services.

http://michael.flanagan.ie/folio/

I was asked for a portfolio of work during the week and realised I didn't actually have one put together. Figured that was a bit of an oversight on my part, so I made this site.

There's a couple of bugs still but It's almost done and I'd like to get some feedback before I finish up.

Known issues : IE6 isn't rendering the 'Services' page correctly. Contact page isn't sending emails.

If you notice anything else out of place, let me know. I've tested in FF2, IE7 and IE6 so far.

Comments / suggestions?

Tech Overhaul

I'm no expert but everything seems very big. Large graphics and huge font. Would it not look better if it was all a little smaller. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.2. My screen is set to 1024 x768.

Eoin

Wizard Archer wrote:

I'm no expert but everything seems very big. Large graphics and huge font. Would it not look better if it was all a little smaller. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.2. My screen is set to 1024 x768.

I think that seems to be the new "in thing" - lots of big icons and text etc. Perhaps a little too big, but that's a personal preference.

Goodshape, I think maybe introducing some other colours into the mix may be a good idea. Although it is standards compliant at a code level, the colour contrast isn't too good, especially for the white links on the blue background. Check out this toolbar for IE. For some reason, whenever I see black and white icons like yours, I expect them to have a rollover colour version. Edit: I see the ones at the bottom are rollovers, so you should definitely do that for the main ones as well for consistency.

I generally don't like making comments like this, but this is a professional website after all; fix the typos! (Sorry - I genuinely don't like making comments like that). This is a marketing decision, but not too sure about talking about yourself in the 3rd person - this is your website, not an article about you. Could be the done thing though.

smcelhinney

nice use of css though..

the Guru

Nit picking- Change the alt tags of your images to something more discriptive instead boxes background (3 boxes ) also the http://michael.flanagan.ie/folio/services.html all alt tags are the same. Page http://michael.flanagan.ie/folio/services.html check spelling, apart from that I think it looks fine

Goodshape

Thanks for the comments so far.

Maybe it is a little too big , though I'm not changing that now. Think it looks fine.

Goodshape, I think maybe introducing some other colours into the mix may be a good idea. Although it is standards compliant at a code level, the colour contrast isn't too good

That is something I was worried about with this design. Although the white on the blue becomes more readable when you hover over, which is an effect I want to maintain. I'll try out a few variations and see if I find something I like. Cheers for the toolbar link.

Edit: I see the ones at the bottom are rollovers, so you should definitely do that for the main ones as well for consistency.

I see your point, but I wanted to highlight the difference between those two sets of buttons. At the bottom is the site-menu, the other three boxes on the front page are more informative. And I don't really want to over-do the glowing roll-over effect.

fix the typos! (Sorry - I genuinely don't like making comments like that).

The trouble with coding at 5am. Will do

This is a marketing decision, but not too sure about talking about yourself in the 3rd person - this is your website, not an article about you.

I thought about that but I figured the current "Michael Flanagan is.." style would be better. My personal blog is somewhere else, so this isn't essentially my personal website.


Cheers for other comments too. I'll get on those alt tags, Guru.

Goodshape

Right, I made some substantial changes to the style and layout.. mostly based on feedback I got from here and elsewhere (such as 'needs more colour/character' and 'smaller text!').

The changes can be seen here :
http://michael.flanagan.ie/

The old site is still available here :
http://michael.flanagan.ie/folio/

Let me know what you think. Cheers,

(and I'm a bit concerned about loading times -- if anyone's on a 56k modem, let me know roughly how long it takes. If anyone else is waiting too long, let me know also).

Seth Brundle

Despite having the buttons and one of youor pages saying that you have an "Excellent knowledge of web standards":

This page is not Valid XHTML 1.1!

mneylon

It's a lot nicer

http://michael.flanagan.ie/blog.html - check your spelling

Why aren't you linking to the previous work?

Or providing a screenshot?

I don't understand why you have the contact form on every page. It's making the page unnecessarily long, so I have to scroll. I'm running at 1280*1024, so I'd hate to see it on a small monitor

frodo_dcu

http://michael.flanagan.ie/contact2.php

?????
some fixing needed

Goodshape

kbannon wrote:

Despite having the buttons and one of youor pages saying that you have an "Excellent knowledge of web standards":

As far as I can see, I had 'disabled' instead of 'disabled="disabled"'. Fixed now, cheers.

blacknight wrote:

It's a lot nicer

Thanks.

Why aren't you linking to the previous work?

I will be shortly.

I don't understand why you have the contact form on every page. It's making the page unnecessarily long, so I have to scroll. I'm running at 1280*1024, so I'd hate to see it on a small monitor

I'm running 1280x800 and it looks alright to me. Should look fine in 1024x768 and I know it's open to argument, but I really don't think there's enough people using less than that these days that I'd need to worry about them too much.

I quite like having the form on each page; I think from both a functional and aesthetic point of view, though I could be mistaken on either count I guess. I think there'd still be a need to scroll (at ~1024x768) with it taken out, and if you're going to scroll at all you may as well get something for it.

frodo_dcu wrote:

http://michael.flanagan.ie/contact2.php

Yikes. Fixed that, cheers.