Old site bites the dust!

[wamboid]

I've been given the task of ridding the world of this poorly coded site (http://www.marshall-saline-dev.com/) in my spare time at work. It was written by their old Administrative Assistant who had been to a night class at a local college. (I don't know what that college is teaching. I was offered the job of teaching the class one year and turned it down. Now I think maybe I should have accepted.) It has all the usual problems such as tables for layout, poor navigation, and basically ugly.

I have made a rough skeleton of the new site and placed it here (http://www.mmumo.net/msdc/) temporarily. I'd appreciate any comments before I get too far. Unfortunately, they like the colors and I haven't been able to talk them out of it yet. Is the navigation intuitive enough? I'm probably stuck with most of their existing pictures, but hope to be able to change some of the worst.

This is very much a spare time project - our company isn't getting paid for it. In fact, we donate quite a bit of money to this company already. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Note: The main site at the temporary location is also being redesigned without tables. Comments on that were asked for in another thread (http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51657).

[the tree]

Well the text wraps around that image in such a way (for me) that I get one word on it's own, whihc looks kinda unproffesional. Maybe if the whole of the first bit was by the image and the whole of the second bit were bellow it.

The address would work on one line with the line breaks in the address seperated by commas, then the contact details on one line below that, maybe with some cute little pictures to show what each number is for.

[wamboid]

They are supposed to come up with some different text for me to put on that front page, but I'll probably end up doing it myself. What resolution were you using? I didn't like how it looked in mine, but it wasn't only 1 word. I'd really like to get rid of the map, but it's all I have to work with right now. Like I said, it's charity work, but I would like to do the best job possible.

Also, does anyone like the colors, or is it just me who doesn't. I figure my name will probably get associated with the site, so I'd really like for it to look as good as possible, even if it is only a spare time project.

[Green-Beast]

I can't say I care for the appearance but the coding is MUCH better. I peeped the source of site one and I see what you mean. TD FONT, TD FONT, TD FONT, TD FONT, TD FONT.... lol.

[wamboid]

I think it would even look bad to someone who still prefers to use tables for layout. Glad you think the code looks better, that is my first goal. When finished, I hope to show them some things to make it look nicer like better colors and graphics. Good code should make the rest come easy.

[Green-Beast]

True that. The best and easiet way to build something is to start with the foundation. Paint should come last. Trying to do it in the opposite order would be funny to the bystanders and extremely difficult for the builder. "These damn walls flap in the wind," he might exclaim.

[the tree]

I reckon you could make something more of the header. The default bold looks kinda unproffesional.
The footer could be a different colour, as well as what I said about being put to two or three lines.
The sidebar could be seperated from the content somehow, a different colour or a border methinks.
That little logo seems to be floating around randomly, if it's centered then why isn't the menu?

[wamboid]

I couldn't take it anymore! I changed the bg color on the test site. It was making me sick every time I looked at it. The new color isn't necessarily my final choice, and they will probably make me switch back when the site moves to it's actual location, but at least I won't have to see it in the meantime. Unfortunately, the bad graphics will probably have to wait much longer, except I did go ahead and make their logo transparent.