Site Review

Chardee MacDennis

hey guys just put up the design for my new site, blog isnt finished yet and ie chews it up and spits it out in terms of visuals but some initial feedback would be great thanks!

www.rossmulcahy.info

p

For a developer the sites fine, but not great, for a designer however, it's not that great.

Generally speaking, I often find that when people try to be a designer & developer, it doesn't work out that well.

Chardee MacDennis

p wrote: »

For a developer the sites fine, but not great, for a designer however, it's not that great.

Generally speaking, I often find that when people try to be a designer & developer, it doesn't work out that well.

yeh my design skills arent the best as you can see but i'm working on that. any suggestions as to where improvements can be made?

p

BastardPrince wrote: »

yeh my design skills arent the best as you can see but i'm working on that. any suggestions as to where improvements can be made?

What's your background, what's your plan?

Professionally I'd suggest focusing on design or development, and keeping the other as a hobby.

Regarding design: work on your typography, layout, colours and generally try develop a critical eye towards design.

Chardee MacDennis

p wrote: »

What's your background, what's your plan?

Professionally I'd suggest focusing on design or development, and keeping the other as a hobby.

Regarding design: work on your typography, layout, colours and generally try develop a critical eye towards design.

lol so focus on everything re: design!

well i'm a developer with experience in IT consulting. the design aspect isnt my main focus - i do have contract designers i can use for full design but i wouldnt mind developing my eye for it a bit more.

p

BastardPrince wrote: »

lol so focus on everything re: design!

well i'm a developer with experience in IT consulting. the design aspect isnt my main focus - i do have contract designers i can use for full design but i wouldnt mind developing my eye for it a bit more.

Haha - it's not that bad, just not pro designer level. Since you're a developer I think it's pretty good. The main thing is to learn the basics regarding contrast of items, alignment, grid layout and colour usage.

For colours, a really good tip is to use Adobe Kuler, or take colour schemes from photos as explained here.
http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2004/05/14/colour_schem/

For layout, use a grid system like this:

http://www.markboulton.co.uk/articles/detail/five_simple_steps_to_designing_grid_systems/
http://www.subtraction.com/archive/2004/1231_grid_computi.php


Here's some other good links I recommend reading:


http://www.markboulton.co.uk/articles (quite a few good articles)
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/principles_of_design/
http://www.digital-web.com/types/design_in_theory_and_practice/
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/design1/
http://www.andyrutledge.com/eye-paths.php
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/contrastandmeaning

Also, if you search for older posts from me on this forum you'll find more links.

Good luck!

Dades

It's a good start!
I'd probably change a few things straight off:

• The header banner is waaay too big. It doesn't need to be that high and take up so much browser window.
  
• Your fonts are also a bit dramatic (i.e. too large!). Looks to me a bit amateur like that.
• Your navigation doesn't really show much imagination. Not even a rollover!

Best of luck anywhoo!

Chardee MacDennis

yeh i have rollover images done, just didnt know whether i wanted to use them or not! i'll have a look at the banner. thanks all!

Placebo

i think its hard to tell without much content, the header only seems big as there is not much content below it, alot of sites get away with massive headers as thats the look theyre going for.
Some posts with colourful pics and it will look fine.

designer+developer+model for the win

mambo

Most effective website designs are similar, just as most newspapers or magazines have similar layouts & looks.

I'm not advocating you simply copy other site designs, but...

1 Find a website design you like, and use it as a starting point.
2 Change the fonts, colours, images, adjust widths/heights slightly to your taste, etc..
3 When you finish you'll have a site which looks sufficiently different to the site you started with.