www.paynoxs.com

paynoxs

Hello all,

I would be delighted if you could perhaps take some time out to review my new web site - The address is www.paynoxs.com

All feedback is very welcome.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Regards - HC

Overflow

Well firstly why would a customer choose your services for web design when you have used a Joomla Template for the design of your own company website? It does not demonstrate or give a good impression of your companies services.

http://www.shape5.com/demo/pantheon/

You site looks very amateur, the images you have used are stretched and dont complement the site very well.

Your favicon is still displaying the Joomla favicon.

The font you have used to customize the logo is terrible and looks like something that would be used on a website circa 1999.

If your going to be serious about this business, design something from scratch, something that shows off what your company can do. You should really have a portfolio to showcase your work or some examples of what you can do.

Have a look at some of the latest design trends here:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/04/web-design-trends-2010/

paynoxs

Hello Overflow,

Thank you very much for the feedack.

The reason I used the Joomla template is that my business is actually based on a model which uses them. Hence I am able to offer people very good value website's. (I think in the current environment that makes sense).

The feedback on the images is taken on board, and I will review those today, and edit/change where I need to.

The favicon, again over-looked by me.

The font - I actually thought looked ok, hoever you are not the first person to advise me to change it - So I will do it again very soon.

As I said the business model I am looking at is purely based on using existing templates - hence giving people good value for money - And there are some very good templates out there at the moment.

Thanks also for the link - I will review this.

Regards,

HC

flashforward

paynoxs wrote: »

Hello Overflow,
The reason I used the Joomla template is that my business is actually based on a model which uses them. Hence I am able to offer people very good value website's. (I think in the current environment that makes sense).

As I said the business model I am looking at is purely based on using existing templates - hence giving people good value for money - And there are some very good templates out there at the moment.

Ok I'm trying not to sound harsh here;
Its ok to use templates to design a website but from your site you seem to be lacking the basic requirements needed to turn a template into a good looking site.

The site looks amateurish.
Your menu consists of 2 items, 'Our Process: Keeping it very simple for you, Let PaynoXS design your site using the 5 steps below' and 'Home'
This is not good.
There is no real navigation at hand.
When you scroll over the 'our process.....' menu item the graphic cant handle the length of the text.

This list can go on but I feel it would be more beneficial to you to talk about the below:

Anyone can build a website using a Joomla template, the only chance you have of making a business out of it is to make fantastic use of those templates (editing etc.) to create a professional looking site somewhat unique to the client.

You haven't even managed to do that with your own 'portfolio' site.

I dont think anyone from looking at your site would ever use you to design a site and if they did, I would question your 'Unlimited revisions until 100% satisfaction' as it could take a while.

From my own experience we are taking about the 'eye' of a designer.

Overflow looked at your site and immediately noticed issues, as would the majority of people viewing the site.
You asked us to review, from what I imagine you thought was a finished website.

That makes me think your lacking the 'eye' for design. The fact that you thought the font looked ok kind of confirms it.
Some people have the 'eye', some dont.
Im sure this can be 'studied' and learned, but your already at a disadvantage to someone who this comes naturally to.

My advice would be not to invest much hope in this business until you have learned a lot more and practiced with more templates (I'd advise learning HTML and CSS as this will help you when editing templates)

Just because you know how to use the backend of Joomla does not mean you can start a web 'design' business. (Well you can but its not going to be successful)

As a matter of interest what kind of money are you going to charge for building a template-d site?

Cianos

I would agree with what flashforward has said. Your portfolio site wouldn't convince me of your design capabilities and I think you'd have a tough time trying to get clients with it as a representation of your service.

There's a difference between design and development. If you feel your strength lies in the development side of things, you could consider working in tandem with a talented designer and working on projects together. There are plenty of people out there with that 'eye' for design, who are really good at photoshop etc but who don't know the first thing about putting a website together.

At the risk of sounding harsh, selling yourself as a "designer" won't get you very far. So I'd concentrate on your strengths and find a way to take care of the rest.

tricky D

Templates are serving you badly here. They're broken in so many places and are promoting laziness.

You clearly are starting out in the web business and have a helluva lot to learn, so spend some time learning before embarking on this. Otherwise you risk making many mistakes at your clients' expense and at your own embarrassment. Learn up on xhtml and css, SEO, marketing, graphics, design, best practices, and the hundreds of other things that go into design/development and do up some sites for yourself to figure out the issues and their solutions. Starting with templates before all that means you won't learn the foundations and this will inevitably bite you back. Start step by step at the shallow end, you'll be in a much better position in the long run.

paynoxs

Flashforward / TrickyD / Cianos

Many thanks for your time and responses - I really do appreicate the feedback - All negative and very rightly so. The website at present in online but its the 1st rev so thankfully I can change and adjust it over the next few weeks and hopefully improve it.

As I said all your comments are very welcome and I have a Sh*t lot of work to do over the coming weeks/months in order to come anywhere near where I need to be.

Thanks again.

HC