I haven't posted much on here but I've spent plenty of time reading some of the threads and have learnt a lot :-)
Anyway, I've created a draft website for a friend of mine that he's going to use to promote his business. It's here : http://www.danielklann.com/ftse/
I'd just like to know what people think of it (the layout/design, not the content). I've ensured that the pages validate correctly against the W3C's validator. I like websites that are clean and quick to load but not too bland. I think this site may be a bit on the bland side. What do YOU guys do to liven things up, without adding unnecessary crap to the blend? I don't want to design any Flash animations or anything - I just want to give him a site that he'll like and that his customers will find functional, yet attractive. Any comments are gratefully received. I'm not a web developer by trade and my payment for doing this is a crate of beer - that is presuming he likes it.
Regards,
Dan
Last edited by Daniel Klann; 03-06-2004 at 09:14 AM.
I think that the page looks great. But for my opinion is that it is too empty.
I can't tell you what you should add to the site, because it looks pretty OK but I don't like so much of white space. But it is also true that this is the page which will be loaded much more quickly
So if you are without ideas try to look at CSS zengarden and you will probobly get some. This is only my opinion and you don't have to chane anything if you don't want but I will if I were you.
PS Pretty good work!
"There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be coquered by the spirit!" Napoleon Bonaparte
Originally posted by buntine Furthermore, for a crate of beer, i think hes got himself a pretty good deal.
Depends on the beer. Maybe ask for another crate
I'd fly to Australia to share some brewskies!
To Daniel Klann: the logo would look much better as a GIF image. JPEGs don't reproduce graphics very well when they have large swaths of one color and text.
I've attached a GIF image of just something I played around with to spice it up a bit. Nothing major. But you'll get the idea. Do you have Photoshop available to you, or Paint Shop Pro? You could also download The Gimp from www.gimp.org - It's a freeware graphics and photo editor. It has about the same functionality as Photoshop, it's just not as user friendly.
CSS Zen Garden looks like a cool site with some very nice looking designs. I will play later today.
I didn't know that about GIFs and you're right - it does look much better. The image I used was taken from his existing site, changed to an orangey colour with PSP. I like the look of what you did Greg and I think using that type of design would help the whitespace problem (i.e. having too much of it).
I'm going to meet with my mate tonight and see what he reckons as an idea for an image down the side or something. When I've made some changes I'll post back.
You can also find some good ideas for design on ALA
"There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be coquered by the spirit!" Napoleon Bonaparte
Also, you should have a layout scheme. I mean, you don't use tables( ), frames( ), or CSS( ), meaning you don't have a proper layout. It may be fine now, but you may run into problems later on if you are looking to make changes in the design of your site. You can check out W3 Schools for some help on this. Just a thought,
-Dan
I like the design; nice and to the point. All I'd offer would be some minor tips. The menu doesn't deserve an H3. I'd redo that making it a list and giving the items a little CSS hovering eye candy. It makes it a little more obvious it's a navigation point. If you think of your layout in terms of a div for the heading, div for the menu and div for the content then you'll be able to change the whole site's look by changing the external style sheet ala Zen Garden.
I'm on a Mac, and your site looks fine in IE, but in Netscape it does funky things. See attached screensnap. The header and the text move around as I make the page larger and smaller. At no time does it appear correctly onscreen.
I should have posted that I deleted what I had their originally - sorry. What you see now is me experimenting with layout as per Daniel Thomas' post. That's something that I'm having a hard time figuring out and the incompatabilities between browsers makes it even harder! I guess that some of you pros spend a lot of your time trying to get things working on different browsers and setups?
Anyway, I will continue to play and come back when I get stuck. Thanks for everyone's help so far.
I should have posted that I deleted what I had their originally - sorry. What you see now is me experimenting with layout as per Daniel Thomas' post. That's something that I'm having a hard time figuring out and the incompatabilities between browsers makes it even harder! I guess that some of you pros spend a lot of your time trying to get things working on different browsers and setups?
Anyway, I will continue to play and come back when I get stuck. Thanks for everyone's help so far.
Regards,
Dan
What do you get when you have something defined as 100% width and positioned 2% to the right of where it normally would be? A section that takes up 102% of the screen and thus a horizontal scroll bar. If I get a horizontal scrollbar with 1400X1050 resolution, I'm 99.999% certain there's a design error. 0.001% being you have an actual horizontal design.
You will also want to see what happens when you resize the browser to smaller resolutions. Why it looks ok on my resolution, but then isn't correct in smaller resolutions is beyond at this moment. I have a half baked version of the layout you are doing. I can go and upload it, so you can take a look at it.
- that is presuming he likes it.
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But shouldnt you say "A slab o' tinnies, mate"?
), frames( 
. It may be fine now, but you may run into problems later on if you are looking to make changes in the design of your site. You can check out 
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