You're missing a favicon! :)

The site is pleasant and easy to use. Congrats!

none of the graphics are loading for me on your site, either in IE or in FF.

Love it :)

Only three things I have noticed.
The right margin of 'Your Name:' and 'Your E-mail:' boxes is very small in comparison with left margin. That's only in Firefox and Seamonkey. With Safari and Opera everything is alright. In Safari you can even change the size of 'Another Question:' box. Very nice. Didn't try IE.
The second thing is that the corners of the 'VIEW OUR Latest Works' picture are pixelated.
And the third thing is only me. I would make a link from that logo in left up corner.

Very beautiful web site!

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Are we supposed to critique this or be nice since the client is watching???

Did someone say, "Be candid"? That's almost as dangerous as telling some people, "Be yourself."

Well, here goes; but please take this from a person who is currently learning code and Dreamweaver herself.

"Get a Quote". That's not sitting right with me. I generally use the active command "get" when I'm being super demanding. (Get lost. Get a life. etc.) I'd reword that, perhaps blend the two areas of text, retaining the script "Quote" to read: Contact us for a free "Quote" on your next project.

The mountain range is washed-out looking and minute. I'd run your local mountain range stronger along the base and remove or replace the graphic altogether in your banner.

Colours: teal is well evident, but where are the black and silver? Could you work in the complimentary décor selects into rollovers or even simple design blocks? I'd also lose the solid teal bar in the background--it's proving distracting and you don't want to pull the visitor's eye away from what is really important.

By the way, Mara (or Stephanie?), the site's writing is excellent, and I like how the portfolio section works.

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
— Frank Zappa

Mama, I have been dissatisfied with that mountain photo from the beginning, and for the same reason. It's the first thing I'll change when I have both hands working again. I think I agree with you about the Quote thing. Good thought. I would like to know what Steph thinks about your comments.

The writing us mine. Thanks for that compliment ;-) Stephanie is responsible for the Portfolio operation (and, well, the whole thing, actually). All I did was drag my heels on sending her stuff to use. And the writing. But she helped me pare it down -- which I think it nees even more of, do you?

Thanks!

Mara

Sorry about the delay. I'll address everything individually. First off, thanks to everyone that left comments, I really appreciate the feedback. :)

@Ivan: Good point, in fact, something I need to remember whenever creating a site. As you can see, not even my own site has one. It's something that definitely slips my mind but that can be a very good addition.

@gwells: Indeed, it probably was that I was re-uploading some graphics at the moment you went there. It's comforting to know it is working fine now.

@Nato:

#nav {<br />
	float: right;<br />
	height: 80px;<br />
	width: 580px;<br />
	font-family: georgia;<br />
	margin-top: 120px;<br />
	padding-left: 0px;}

Hmm. . .I thought I remembered using Georgia for the navigation. Maybe I misunderstood your comment? Thanks for your kind words, I'm glad you like it.

@jozefk: Thank you. :) I'm going to fix that "View our latest works" image, now that you pointed it out, it's hard for me to look away, haha. As far as margins go, it doesn't appear that way when I view it in Firefox, but perhaps I have an older version? I don't even have Seamonkey, but I'll look into it. Cross-browser compatibility is the biggest headache in web design, in my opinion. No matter what it seems like something looks wrong in one of them. Definitely something I need to work on.

@3dogmama: That's an interesting point, although I've never thought of "Get a quote" as demanding in any way, but maybe that's just me. In fact, on many portfolio sites I've seen lately, I see "Get in touch" in their header for contact forms.

As far as the banner, the washing out was intentional, and was even more washed out in the beginning. I didn't want the mountain range to be the center of focus, I wanted her name to be. If it was in my mind for it to look like a photograph, I would have just positioned an actual photograph there. My intention was for it to be detailing. If I had known the entire concept was so disliked I would have done something different.

To discuss colours, I initially used more of a warm "silver" with the teal, but neither of us seemed to like the direction it was going, especially after looking at a magazine Mara sent me with a general feeling that she liked. The magazine was "lighter" in colour scheme and relied on green (or another fairly bold colour, depending on the article.) If you look closer, I used silver in some borders, like the border around the teal bar (which, in my opinion adds foundation more than distraction. It also intentionally aligns with the "view our latest works" promo.) Black did not seem to fit at all in this case, but some of the text is dark enough to complete missing contrast. I suppose my main point is that I thought it would be better to take one colour from her decor and make it fit her personality and desired feel, rather than trying to recreate her office online.

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My Portfolio

Mara/Stephanie:

The Navigation is showing up as Times (I believe) on my machine also.

I actually like the watercolor header image, I think it fits nicely with Mara's style, but what is that white blob in the bottom right of the image? It looks like cloning tool remnants, but I don't think it is.

One thing I noticed is that you have a 1 or 2 pixel white border around your content area, but up near the header image, it is partially transparent with some of the image showing through. Whether or not you meant to do this, I can't say, but I think it would look a lot cleaner as a solid line.

Also, your transition from the header to the body of the page is a little awkward. The colors and textures aren't transitioning well. You can see an abrupt line where the header image ends.

The "View our latest works" image is used on three pages. I think it would be more interesting to change that image on the different pages, as well as being an opportunity to show more work.

The biggest thing to me is the way the background image is fixed. I would much prefer it if it scrolled up when you scroll the page up, and I think it would give you an opportunity to create more interest in the footer.

I don't want to sound all bad, though. I think the design will fit your well, an should help you connect with your customers much better. Overall, great job guys.

Sorry if I'm repeating something someone else says.

First of all, it's a really pretty website. I like the layout, just some minor design tweaks:

Too many fonts.

Quote section shifts slightly when going from "Home" to the other pages.
Q on Quote is hard to distinguish.
Also, why does it say, "Another Question"? What was the first question?

Map: I would have used google maps so they can get directions or maybe when they click on it, it will take them to google maps.

The white below the banner is really out of place and awkward.

Portfolio- Closing each one then opening another is kind of annoying. I'd rather be able to open them and then click "next" or something to get to the next one.
These have a rectangle rule while everything else had a rounded edge.

View our Latest Works seems kind of out of place. Why does it have a gray rule around it? I really don't like that this is on so many pages. I don't like scrolling down to get to the information.

Kerning issues in some of the headers (e.g. Pricing)

...a number of what sound like technical problems. She's on MS Windows XP Pro and IE 6.0 with Standard setting. For the record, here's what she reported:

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I see a big gap between the banner at the top and the portfolio graphic that heads your welcome message. In between the gap I see the Quote and Contact fields along the right hand side, squashed right up under the banner, overlapping the turquoise/green border, and extending over the entire screen. Only a small sliver of the graphic "View our latest works" is visible, and you need to scroll to see the welcome message.

Maybe that's the way it's meant to be. It just seems like such an odd place for the quote button and all those boxes incl. "Another Question" field to be, taking up the best spot on the front page.

Oh, hey, I get it! I've just realized that the entire Quote column is probably meant to sit directly to the right of the welcome message. Ah! But on my screen, the two have become detached, and the quote column, as I said, sits on its own with an empty space to the left, while the welcome box has a corresponding empty space on the right. It's the same on every page.

I wonder, maybe my screen settings need adjusting?

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Mara

Don't know about your version of Firefox. Mine is 2.0.0.15.
SeaMonkey is ex-Mozilla :) Only the name is different now.
I tried to open the site in IE also and it's looks fine.

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I really like the new site. Only problem is in Safari (at least the version I'm using) your lightbox script isn't working correctly . I'm guessing Pokie was probably using Safari when she commented about opening and closing images in the portfolio section. The images are opening in a new page. Stephanie, I think you could probably just overwrite the scripts with the ones from your own site and that should resolve the issue.