New website design

Submitted by Springwood on Tue, 2007-11-27 15:05.

Critique

Good day, everyone. I haven't been on here in a while. I have been very busy with school and work.
I have finally gotten my website online and would appreciate any feedback on the site as well as my work. Safari, Firefox and Opera display it correctly but I don't have access to IE so I'm not sure how it appears to the general public. The site was created with Flash and Dreamweaver.
Also any suggestions for generating traffic would be greatly appreciated. I have added multiple keywords to my pages and created a sitemap that has been submitted to Google.
Thanks for any input
-Burt

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URL

Submitted by Springwood on Tue, 2007-11-27 15:23.

I thought that I had posted the URL.
Here it is:
http://www.springwooddesigns.com

Congrats. I have to

Submitted by zagadka on Tue, 2007-11-27 15:47.

Congrats.

I have to recommend spending serious time reading some typography books and practicing - start with your logo, especially the letter W since the problem is most visible in it.

Good luck.

Thanks

Submitted by Springwood on Tue, 2007-11-27 22:24.

Thanks for your suggestions. As soon as I read what you wrote about my typography I knew what you were talking about. I did this design a couple of years ago and haven't changed it since. I have been spending so much time learning about technology that I have let the basics go by the wayside. I must be back to the books now. Thanks for the kick in the butt:•)

Good start

Submitted by Creative_NRG on Tue, 2007-11-27 15:57.

Your portraits and illustation work are outstanding and by far the strongest aspect of your portfolio. I also enjoy your photography but would recommend highlighting your best images. (ie. you don't need three sunset trees)

The 'design' section also needs some pruning. It doesn't do any good to show so many newspaper ads that pretty much all look the same. (Think quality apposed to quantity) There isn't really much to these and they look so much like layouts you'd find in Ad Builder. Focus on one or two along with the logos, which shine. (I love the bird logo in 2nd row)

As for the site, the navigation functions well but the logo and header need work. I'd also recommend adding a 'contact' page.

Thanks

Submitted by Springwood on Tue, 2007-11-27 22:32.

I appreciate your encouragement and constructive criticism. There is no sense in luring someone to my site only to let them down with a series of (relatively) weak links. The heron logo is for a newspaper facelift. It needed to be strong in newsprint. Isn't it funny how sometimes the best designs take on a life of their own and seem to just emerge?

Less is More.

Submitted by stephanie on Tue, 2007-11-27 17:10.

Grats on your new site, it's always nice to see all of your efforts finally come together online.

Your portfolio is rather large, and I've noticed from my experience that sometimes less is more. You've got some amazing pieces of work, and some that are just okay - my suggestion would be narrow it down to your best works. That way it's more memorable, and you can have a portfolio you're really proud of. The amount of links you have in your portraits section is close.

As far as the actual design, it's quite. . .gray. The only other colours I see are two different blues - a very saturated blue (#0000EE) and more of an grayish, muted blue in the navigation. There isn't anything wrong with gray in my opinion, and it can help draw attention to the actual works in the portfolio. However; there are a couple of problems I see with this in this particular site. One would be that this saturated blue is quite harsh, and in the html world, it's default for links. I strongly advise using a different colour as it comes across as if you were too lazy to code a different colour, even if you weren't. The problem I see with your site being almost all gray is that you have a fairly large chunk of portfolio that is black and white - causing the site to look . . . well, dull.

The home page is probably where there needs to be the most work - the html is less than formatted, and it seems odd to have such a big font for the name when after all, your logo is in the corner already. The picture below the email address seems to just be floating there, without a border or formatting. This is what potential clients will first see, and when they will decide whether or not to further look into your work. I attached an image in case what I was meaning wasn't clear.

Hope that helps. Keep it up and keep us posted. :)

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Perfectly Lost Designs

Less is more

Submitted by Springwood on Tue, 2007-11-27 22:54.

If I've heard that once, I've heard it a thousand times. I'm not complaining, I sincerely appreciate your feedback. This entire project has been a learning experience for me. It was basically my first attempt with both Flash and Dreamweaver so I just threw everything in the stew (not a good idea.)

I checked out your site. Nice work. How much do you use Dreamweaver compared to hand-scripting? I have been dipping my feet into the HTML & CSS deep end. Could you recommend any books or websites on these subjects? Up until about three years ago pretty much everything I did was on paper or canvas but I have gotten bitten by the digital mosquito. I'm infected and it itches, burns! (sorry) I guess what I am seeing is that things look differently in light than they look reflected from a surface. Thanks for holding the ugly mirror up in my face.

All you need is at

Submitted by natobasso on Tue, 2007-11-27 22:59.

All you need is at W3Schools.com. :)

I'd recommend ditching the flash in your header. It doesn't make much sense there.

Oh, you should also get Firefox and download the Web Developer Tools. You can test your site and find out how large it is in K (Yours is 110K which isn't bad, but it could be smaller) and even validate the HTML and CSS and test for window sizes and more.

I'd recommend not making your sites any wider than 800px to accomodate smaller displays.

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Powerpoint is not a design application

Dig in.

Submitted by stephanie on Tue, 2007-11-27 23:27.

Nato beat me to the punch, yet again. ;) Heh, that's so cool. I was going to suggest the same two things, w3schools.com and the web developer addon. I actually learned everything from examining code and experimenting with my own. Test, fail, test fail, test, SUCCEED! It's my favourite way to learn - to just dig in. Not saying everyone learns that way, but it works best for me.

Thanks for the compliment. As far as the amount I use Dreamweaver - I use it less and less as time goes on. I really should use it more, but I found my comforts in good ol' hard coding. Dreamweaver wasn't as advanced when I first started building websites, but now it actually has some really cool features and tools. I find it limiting in CSS-based websites such as mine, however.

Good luck. I started out similarly, in purely traditional mediums - but I found the digital niche fit me even more. :)

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Perfectly Lost Designs

Learn as you go

Submitted by Springwood on Tue, 2007-11-27 23:47.

I definitely learn best by doing. I spent a few years at school and learned that I learn what I want to learn (huh?) Anyhow, the way technology is advancing, we have to stay on top of it continuously. The thing I like about Dreamweaver is split screen mode, being able to see the code as it is generated. Even at my level I find it easier to edit the code lots of times. A design instructor asked me once why I wanted to learn programming. I think it allows me to be free of the cookie-cutter mentality. The more you know...
I guess I have plenty of reading & playing to do now. Thx all!

I agree completely with

Submitted by natobasso on Wed, 2007-11-28 00:01.

I agree completely with this. Test, and test again. :) I find I don't use Dreamweaver at all anymore now. It's great to start out with, but adds lots of code you don't need and tries to 'help' you when in fact it's distancing you from doing everything yourself.

I did use Dreamweaver to do the rollovers on a site I just completed -- I just didn't have the heart to hand code javascript. Still learning that one.

Remember to test in IE 6 and 7 as well as Firefox. You'll find with CSS especially IE 6 has a hard time, but it makes you create iron clad code. Don't even worry about browsers below IE 6...they don't render CSS very well. :)

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Powerpoint is not a design application

Awesome resources

Submitted by Springwood on Tue, 2007-11-27 23:23.

Thanks for the link. I installed the web developer tools from Firefox also. There is so much information out there. I appreciate you steering me in the right direction. I am just recently getting back into the computer scene. When I left I was peeking and poking on my Commodore64 with cassette drive and NO internet haha. A lot has changed but definitely for the better. Now I can do things I only dreamed of before.

IE for mac?

Submitted by Springwood on Wed, 2007-11-28 00:29.

I have been trying to find a version of IE for my mac as that's all I have access to at home. Does anyone know of one?

natabasso, I saw evidence of what you mean through a friend's computer with an earlier version of Explorer.

Dreamweaver is a good learning tool for me now but I agree with you in: Teach me to fish, don't give me a fish:)
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Try to get on a friend's pc

Submitted by natobasso on Wed, 2007-11-28 04:15.

Try to get on a friend's pc if you can. If you have any friends who have them, ha ha. :) I actually have one and loaded an app that allows IE all the way back to 3.0. It's scary seeing your average website not read in IE 3.

I searched and searched and IE is no longer downloadable for mac but send me an email for more info.

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Powerpoint is not a design application