Hotel Website

[invision]

Hello,

I worked on a few ideas for my local Hotels website over the weekend. I'm not too great with graphics sadly so the header is a little lacking.

1 ) http://www.michaelmcg.co.uk/Trigony/site1.html
2 ) http://www.michaelmcg.co.uk/Trigony/site2.html
3 ) http://www.michaelmcg.co.uk/Trigony/site3.html

I'd really appreciate constructive comments on the website design and layout etc.

Thanks again!

[invertedpanda]

First: You need to specify a doctype at the very beginning of the page. This will tell the browser how to interpret the code - sorry, I don't have any good links on describing doctypes, but I'm sure someone else will post something.

Second: Don't use tables for layouts - they are designed for displaying tabular data, such as spreadsheets. Read this: http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/

Third: I like #2 the best, but on all of them I would ditch the photograph of the hotel - it isn't consistant. I'd do some filler artwork with a consistant style with the drawn hotel logo to fill that area, perhaps.

[takmais]

i prefer the first one by a wide margin. not even gonna comment on the code.. but as far as design goes, the background pattern on the others is way to distracting and doesnt add to any feeling of tranquility. the pale plain background of the first one however does. makes me feel very calm like i'd expect to feel if i stayed in that hotel. couple things i'd change. the navigation in the first one.. make that space not as thick as it is.. and take the "contact us" link out from under the others.. it has no business being there.. put it after gallery and center align the navigation elements. space them out so that they take up as much of the width of your site as you can get and still have padding at the beginning and end. the verticle dotted rule is too think. actually it looks like it is on top of a solid rule.. dont do both.. pick one or the other. i think since your using solid rules everywhere else you should use a solid rule there as well to maintain consistency. finaly.. this is just a suggestion. i like the image of the hotel at the top.. but it might look nice if you combined an idea from one of your other mockups where you stuck the illustration to the left or right of the image and made the header area thinner. anyway.. just my two cents.
jtg

[wheelerch]

Personally I prefer the first design, but its not my site - I'd suggest you show the client the three designs and ask which they like the best :)

Also, try and make the designs a bit more varied, e.g. different widths, positions, fonts etc. Maybe even a fluid layout. Then show them to the client and see which they prefer.

- Chris

[invision]

Yes, they're all very samey.

I did have another idea , but I scrapped it early on.

It seems he just wants me to modify the original he has so might not ended up using this in the end, :( Might work on one more design and leave it :)

Thanks so much for all the comments.

[Waylander]

I would suggest putting that big header image across the whole top and maybe writing the name over it in one of the corners in a flowing old style font. In my opinion 2 headers isnt really optimal, one or the other.

I like the big welcome sentence on the second page, but not the side menu. ive tried to use percentage values for things in the past but never really been happy with them id suggest specifiying pixel values.

Also i would advise testing your sites in a strict browser like Mozilla, i used to get annoyed when people said this all the time because of the percentage of users who use them... but if u develop with the strict browser then it will be fine automatically in non-strict browsers (IE), but alas it wont be the other way around.

Good Luck.

[LJK]

Hi -
Just put that nice logo to the left and reduce the photo - perhaps even w/ replaced colors to be b/w but with a yellow-sepia tint - the two combined and smaller would be a strong header image, I think.

I dislike links that are images [though guilty of it on occasion] and tend to want a hover color or effect. Have you considered such a thing?

Yeah, if you're tired of looking at it,
try to mock-up one more before the client chooses ;-)

Good luck,
El

[dera]

site two with out the repeating backround, the header get rid of the repeating backround, since your using fixed layout, i would put the header image as a backround.