Any Design Tips Before I Go Further?

carlmango11

I threw together a home page for a site I've been asked to make. They're not expecting much (their old site was crap) but I still want to create something nice.

Just wondering if anyone has any pointers before I continue. I don't want to end up working in the wrong direction and waste time later on.

I haven't even looked at SEO yet so don't worry about that. The "logo" sucks but they have about 4 billion sheets of headed paper with it so aren't going to change it anytime soon so I'm sort of stuck with that blue Arial "branding" so to speak.

I was hoping to add maybe some small images to the three boxes ("Who We Are" "What we do" "Our Team"). Also don't worry the actual text in those will change it's more of a placeholder for now. EDIT: will make the 3 boxes uniform height so that borders match.

I'm a bit concerned about "Call" with the drop shadow and the orange telephone number with the stroke. I wanted to complement the orange "Request A Callback" button but I'm wondering if it's a bit tacky now.

Also the "Select A Field" select box is black while the others are gray. Anyone have the css to fix this?

Thanks

Also: Lol at the sappy text in the changing image box. They'll love it.

LINK: http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~carln/olm/

allaboutclicks

Hi Carlmango,

I think orange with navy blue is a nice combination. I think the site looks fine but I'd play around with the font sizes just to make it look neater. I know you probably want to emphasize the address in the footer but it looks a little strange that the paragraphs are a smaller fontsize.

With some browsers (many old IE ones) when you link an img you have to set border to 0 so that it won't have a blue border ( a img {border:0;} ) and if you want to make sure that the dotted line doesn't appear around it just include a {outline: 0;} in the stylesheet.

browsershots.org is very useful for seeing how the site looks in other browsers.

Squeeonline

Agree with you that the "request a callback" button is a little glossy/web2.0. Orange works for it though.

I'd recommend using a http://Themeforest.com wordpress theme that comes with built in style features like buttons and forms that all match up nicely.

I find the blue background also a little glossy and strong coloured. I'd test what it looks like with the colour slightly faded/washed out.

Aside from that, I could easily find what I'm looking for on the site, and it's clearly laid out.

Once you've done a little more, come back for round 2.

johnfoyvision

Squeeonline wrote: »

Agree with you that the "request a callback" button is a little glossy/web2.0. Orange works for it though.

I'd recommend using a http://Themeforest.com wordpress theme that comes with built in style features like buttons and forms that all match up nicely.

I find the blue background also a little glossy and strong coloured. I'd test what it looks like with the colour slightly faded/washed out.

Aside from that, I could easily find what I'm looking for on the site, and it's clearly laid out.

Once you've done a little more, come back for round 2.

Thanks for your post with information about wordpress themes. I will read this forum in my every next time search. thanks again.

carlmango11

Thanks guys for the feedback sorry I took so long to reply. Will take it all on board for when I go further.

That themeforest website looks really good although I think at this stage I might as well stick with the "theme" I have now, from here on it'll just be a case of including a file php files and correcting some browser issues.

The browser one will be very handy too because I regularly neglect commonly-used infamous browsers.

I look forward to round 2

Squeeonline

You're unlucky about Themeforest. All their prices went up significantly yesterday

A theme I bought for $35 before is now $50. Large increase, unjustified, and in the long term I think it'll hurt sales. Just my opinion though.

Cianos

The layer effects on that "Request a call back" button is making me sad. Send me the PSD of the button if you want and I'll fix it for you.

JD RoX

Cianos wrote: »

The layer effects on that "Request a call back" button is making me sad.

The whole site is making me sad.
But the biggest question is - Why there's no contact form?
There's nothing about the site that makes me realize it's solicitors website.

carlmango11

JD RoX wrote: »

The whole site is making me sad.
But the biggest question is - Why there's no contact form?
There's nothing about the site that makes me realize it's solicitors website.

As I said above this is only a single page with placeholder content. I was looking more for any glaring problems or tips people had before I go and invest more time into it.

The layer effects on that "Request a call back" button is making me sad. Send me the PSD of the button if you want and I'll fix it for you.

I actually plan on changing that button; tone it down and reduce the size but I'm not sure what the layer effects are. Do you mean like the drop shadow and stroke? I can send you the PSD later this evening if you're happy to help - otherwise I can google around. Thanks. :pac:

Cianos

carlmango11 wrote: »

As I said above this is only a single page with placeholder content. I was looking more for any glaring problems or tips people had before I go and invest more time into it.



I actually plan on changing that button; tone it down and reduce the size but I'm not sure what the layer effects are. Do you mean like the drop shadow and stroke? I can send you the PSD later this evening if you're happy to help - otherwise I can google around. Thanks. :pac:

Forgot to check back to this thread. Feel free to PM me with your email address if you still want a hand with the PSD.

carlmango11

Cianos wrote: »

Forgot to check back to this thread. Feel free to PM me with your email address if you still want a hand with the PSD.

Have actually taken them out while I do some more work but if I put them back in I'd happily take your help. Thanks :pac: