My First Website

dr strangelove

Guys, I (stupidly) agreed to do a website for a friend of a friend and after much learning of Dreamweaver, hair-pulling, monitor slapping and beer drinking I've produced THIS. I was wondering if you lot could have a quick look and tell me what you think?

I'm really proud of it, being my first one and all, but how does it compare to 'real-world' websites?

Also, she wants to pay me for it, but i have no idea the real market price for something like this, any ideas?

Thanks

zod

First one ? I think its great


/* grimaces at memory of own first site

K!LL!@N

Not a bad effort at all really.
In fact it's pretty good for a first effort.

There are a few problems with the site though.
But they can all be fixed fairly easily.

I'll go through them starting with the home page.
There are too many images.
The whole page is made up of images.
You don't need to use images like this.
The menu buttons can easily be text and you can use a stylesheet to the same look as what you have with the images.
Also, the text on the page is in an image.
Again you would be better off using a stylesheet you can get the same look and feel and it won't be a nightmare to change the text in the future, if you need to.
The background image can be set in the stylesheet too.

Ok, the gallery page.
Again same problems as before with the home page menu.
All the images are links on this page.
The blue surround for the links looks horrible.
This is easily fixed by having a stylesheet and the page will look so much better with a different colour or none at all.

Clicking on a image in the gallery.
Ok, you know the menu needs fixing by now, i won't harp on about it.
The image on the left is fine.
The text shouldn't be in an image on the right.
There's just no need to do this.
Text should be text, not an image.
The link colour for the Previous and Next buttons, doesn't look right.
It can be changed in a stylesheet.

Biography page.
Text needs to be text, not an image.

Exhibitions page.
Again, text shouldn't be in an image.

Contact page.
You've finally used some text. :eek:
Link colours for email should be changed.

Links page.
Link colours need changing.

A couple of other things i've noticed while going through it.
You start the site with nice clean grey border around the page.
Then you switch to no border for the gallery page.
Then you switch to a drop shadow border for the rest of the pages.
You need to choose one and stick to it.
Personally i'd go with the style from the first page.
It's nice and clean and can easily be replicated without the need for images.

Also, the size of the pages is jumping around a little.
Choose your dimensions and stick to them where you can.
Length can vary, but the width should stay the same throughout.


You've obviously put in a bit of time in doing this.
If you take a bit more time to learn how to use a stylesheet, then you'll have something you can really be proud of.
The changes you need to make aren't too complicated at all.
And shouldn't take you too long.
But i wouldn't give this to someone as it is.
It's not 100% yet.
As for payment, well i don't know really.
Maybe try and blag one of this guys paintings, some of them are really nice.
More realisticly, it's a completely static site.
They're going to be calling you if they ever want it updated as currently they won't be able to do it themselves.
I'm not sure how much you should charge really.
I'm sure others will give you an idea.
I'd guess between €200-€300 dependant on you making the changes suggested.

Like i said earlier you've shown you've put time into this.
So i'm sure others won't mind helping you with the stylesheet stuff.

Killian

D

I think that it is really good. Although I'm no webmaster.

kjt

Very nice site dr, I like the homepage the way its wide.
A few little problems though, the text doesnt seem to
too ledgable on some lines in the biography and exhibitions.

The contact & links page seem to have a problem for me I
am running at 2048 x 1536 tho, I changed my resolution
back down to 1600 x 1200 but I was stil gettin the same
problem in Firefox and Internet explorer.

Here's a screen shot of the links and contact page in both
Ie and Firefox:
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3

Pricing.... Try think about it per page and work out how
many hours you put in.


Extremely good site for a 1st

Well done

mneylon

The others have covered most things.
Contact page - why are you including the web address? I wouldn't be able to view it unless I was looking at the website already.

Text - I can't read most of it as it is images and looks tiny on my screen

dr strangelove

Thanks for the input lads!
I'm going to have to leave it up for now, (one of my friends accidentally told Liz that it was live, and she loves it, so...meh) but I'll certainly be having a mess with it next weekend.

Contact page - why are you including the web address? I wouldn't be able to view it unless I was looking at the website already

I know, but that's what she wants.....

Text - I can't read most of it as it is images and looks tiny on my screen

- yeah, when using higher resolutions it looks pretty crap, so i'll darken the text, and clean it up a bit.

and yeah, Killian, i'll take you points on board and try making the changes you suggest. With regards to the image/text thing, I originally merged the text into the images because i wasn't able to keep it lined up if the screen resolution changed, but i'll have a shot at style sheets and see what happens (even though they scare me!)

Maybe try and blag one of this guys paintings, some of them are really nice.

yeah, that's what i originally asked for - i'm a bit uncomfortable taking money from friends - but the cheapest one (16" x 16") was about €3000, and even I seriously doubt the site is worth that.

Well, it's nice to know i'm going in the right direction, thanks for all your help, (particularly Killian - i think i owe you a beer!) and i'll probably have a re-vamped site up next weeked or so,

strangelove

K!LL!@N

dr strangelove wrote:

Thanks for the input lads!
I'm going to have to leave it up for now, (one of my friends accidentally told Liz that it was live, and she loves it, so...meh) but I'll certainly be having a mess with it next weekend.


I know, but that's what she wants.....

- yeah, when using higher resolutions it looks pretty crap, so i'll darken the text, and clean it up a bit.

and yeah, Killian, i'll take you points on board and try making the changes you suggest. With regards to the image/text thing, I originally merged the text into the images because i wasn't able to keep it lined up if the screen resolution changed, but i'll have a shot at style sheets and see what happens (even though they scare me!)

yeah, that's what i originally asked for - i'm a bit uncomfortable taking money from friends - but the cheapest one (16" x 16") was about €3000, and even I seriously doubt the site is worth that.

Well, it's nice to know i'm going in the right direction, thanks for all your help, (particularly Killian - i think i owe you a beer!) and i'll probably have a re-vamped site up next weeked or so,

strangelove

No worries.
You've put in the work and the mistakes you've made are easily fixed.
You can't be expected to get it all right first time.
CSS is definitely the way to go with regard to keeping the site looking uniform throughout.
There's more you could do to make it easier for yourself.
But perhaps that's best left for another time.

Killian

yeraulone

Fair play to you, your first time effort is very good. I hang my head in shame when i think of the first site I put together!

I reckon the text on the exhibitions page may be a little bit to light.

Good job.

rsynnott

kjt wrote:

Very nice site dr, I like the homepage the way its wide.
A few little problems though, the text doesnt seem to
too ledgable on some lines in the biography and exhibitions.

The contact & links page seem to have a problem for me I
am running at 2048 x 1536 tho, I changed my resolution
back down to 1600 x 1200 but I was stil gettin the same
problem in Firefox and Internet explorer.

Here's a screen shot of the links and contact page in both
Ie and Firefox:
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3

Pricing.... Try think about it per page and work out how
many hours you put in.


Extremely good site for a 1st

Well done

Eek, someone has an obscenely big monitor!

kjt

21", and WOW if u dont mind me saying so. You got one hell of a cv.

rsynnott

kjt wrote:

21", and WOW if u dont mind me saying so. You got one hell of a cv.

Not sure how I should take that :rolleyes: . It could use an update at this stage. And the formatting's gone a bit schizophrenic; it's been through at least 3 different word-processors. May take the plunge and do a new one.

bacon?

excellent for a fist site.

just had a quick look, main issue is the text. lightning the watermark and darkening the text will sort it, but to be honest, i'd ditch the watermark alltogether. you're site will look cleaner with it.

peace out dawg

cgarvey

Just have to add my congrats as well.. a very good job for a first site.. much better than a lot of the reviews posted here (which aren't first timers)!! Fair play!

Would also suggest that next steps be reduce the load time by using text in place of images where you can.

.cg

tom-thebox

I think its a very nice site.

DonkeyStyle \o/

dr strangelove wrote:

Guys, I (stupidly) agreed to do a website for a friend of a friend

LMFAO, I can so relate to that. :eek: :rolleyes:
Trying to decide on some kind of design for my own "stupid agreement" site as I type.
Note to self: Learn to say NO.

Anyhoo, it's quite good... pending some alterations of course.
The first thing I noticed was the menu... the text is hard to read because of the compression artifacts... which is odd, since being Gifs they should be crisp enough, were they originally saved as jpegs? or maybe there have been a few bad colour depth changes along the way.
I'd probably re-do them from scratch if it's not that much effort for you.
And as mentioned earlier, having the pages body text as an image isn't nessesary and a bit tough to read.