I considered you guys' advice and made some changes. Is the header too busy now? Logo too big?
Thanks for the advice and links to the developer reference. I still have much to learn but I'm heading in the right direction (sorta.)
Any other suggestions are welcome.
URL to the site:
http://www.springwooddesigns.com
Springwood
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You've made a huge improvement on the selection of work to show in the portfolio. Much stronger and the navigation is nicely done.
Lead with the strongest piece within the 'design' area. That in my opinion is the heron logo. Do the same within 'photography'. The green left is much more striking and has a great composition.
Extend the light gray border on the bottom to match the left, top and right. The biggest area still needing improvement in my opinion is to downplay the header. It's WAY too overdone and distracting. I'd consider ditching the color in the logo and removing the huge 'Providing' altogether. As recommended before change the link color on the home page from the default blue.
Keep up the good work.
Totally agree with you on all your comments, NRG, including the one below about the logo being too much about painting. I'd go even further by suggesting that the portrait to lead with might be the one of the woman in the upper right thumbnail.
Mara
Can you tell us a bit more about the meaning behind your company name. It has a ton of potential for a very creative logo and right now I don't feel the mark is as strong as it could be. It pigeon holes you as strictly a painter.
Because you do graphic design and photography you may want to consider a mark that is less limiting.
Thanks for your compliment and words of encouragement. Springwood is simply a combination of my middle name, Springer and my last name, Wood. I was named after both of my grandfathers and honor them through the name. You are right in that is a strong visual word. I guess I have just overthunk it too much. Thanks for whacking me in the head!
I know I should spend more time developing my identity representation especially if I am marketing myself as a designer. Maybe I should shift my focus away from the site for a moment and develop a really strong icon first. Thumbnails, thumbnails, thumbnails.
Stephanie's self-proclaimed rant on what a logo really is (awesome post) brought me back to what I already know but don't always practice. Simplicity is key and a logo is a representative not a business statement :) I think we can all benefit from reevaluating ourselves from time to time.
I appreciate what all of you are doing for this community. It takes a lot to remain humble and share your wisdom.
Plugging away now.
Springwood
It's getting better. Can you remove the boxes around the buttons and content areas? And the rainbow behind the logo is very noncommittal. I'd say pick one color for that.
And I'd highly recommend not having your site be any wider than 800px. It's too wide right now for my 15" laptop monitor (a pretty common size out there right now).
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust
Wow, I'm in complete shock you're still running 800 x 600 on a Mac. With palettes taking up so much space in applications that must feel like living in a closet. I jumped off that garbage truck 15 years ago and have never looked back. How in the world do you get anything done? :P
Oh, and check out the reports... 800 x 600 isn't even close to 'common' and continues to plummet. Back in April 2007 it fell to a new low of 8.18%. The year before usage was around 12.5% and in 2005 it was around 18.5%.
http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox51_screen_resolutions_internet.html
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Amsterdam - April 18, 2007 - OneStat.com ( www.onestat.com ), the number one provider of real-time intelligence web analytics, today reported that the screen resolution 800 x 600 pixels has signficantly decreased since June 2006. More and more internet users choose for screen resolution 1024 x 768 or higher.
The finding has important implications for web site designers because most web sites are designed for a screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.
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I didn't say 800x600, I said 800px wide. Any wider and you not only stretch your content text too wide to be legible (barring the use of 2 or three column layouts).
Regardless of your 'data', most folks out there still use 15" or 17" monitors and 800px fits great in both. Look at CreativeBits! Its' 741px wide. Besides, regardless of monitor size, it's uncomfortable to read left to right much farther than 800px. Goes back to print design, but those rules still apply, I think.
Even on monitors with 1024x768 screen size/resolution 800px wide is pretty optimal.
Another interesting piece of data: I went to your site and guess what? It's 800px wide. Hmmm. :)
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust
I don't think Nat was talking about screen resolution, but the pixel width of Web sites, and the 15" monitor on his laptop. I have the 15" on my G4 Titanium also. I'd say this size is indeed more or less standard, judging from what I see at coffee shops. I have the big Cinema Display in place at my studio, where I do 95% of my work. I doubt Nat's doing all his work on his laptop.
Mara
Actually I do ALL my freelance work on my Powerbook 15" and Dell 15" laptops.
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust
Really? Wow.
Remind me to buy stock in your optometrist's practice ;-)
Mara
No worries, it's the same size text, just less real estate.
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust
hey, sorry- havn't really been part of this discussion before, but i will just add my little bit as well as that is the idea of a forum....
It's all coming together well but is there a chance that the logo and the title bar are both too large and too dominant? It's all about the artwork itself at the end of the day but i'm feeling distracted by those two elements.
could they be reduced in size so that the paintings themselves (which are good) have all of the viewers attention?- what do others think?
designbyjez
It's looking much better, great job. :)
If your banner was a word, it would have emphasis on the wrong syllable. It's saying: "my company is called springwood. we PROVIDE! PROVIDE! PROVIDE! visual solutions. " Stress your company name - you want potential clients to remember that, not the word 'providing.'
The rainbow gradient looks very 80's-ish, and not in a classic sort of way. I would take the name and place it right on the banner so it looks like it's part of the website, not placed there as an afterthought or into a template.
Keep it up, this is definitely going somewhere good! :)
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Perfectly Lost Designs
Nice paintsplatter on the header. You def got your hands dirty, seraphim. :)
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust
I am posting a logo variations page under critiques. How can I add an image to a reply?
Great feedback from all of you, thanks. The layout is a style sheet so it should be relatively easy to change dimensions and remove the borders. Nato, I appreciate your explanation of the 800 "rule." There are many times when the browser window doesn't take up all of my screen.
The more I looked at the rainbow, the more I thought "what was I thinking?" Stephanie, I like the idea of a text header maybe with a simple graphic logo. I was stuck with the idea of including the name in the logo. The Hugemongous "Providing" really does suck! No excuses:)
Springwood