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rumblepup
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ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 4:17:19
PLEAS READ FIRST!
If you remember the last time I posted
(for those who have forgotten)
http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/m_142984/tm.htm
I was half done with a design, and I asked for opinions.
Did I gets opinions, AND HOW!
Yep. Little ol' me started a whole debate on the use of flash, design talent, marketing and who drives what kind of car on Thursdays.
Well here we go for round two.
I' m finally finished with the site. But during the process, and reading my thread at the first go around, I had a lot to think about, and where I wanted to position myself. So I did what any self-respecting pretty picture guy would do.
I did a complete redesign!
You might not recognize it anymore, but I hope you guys remember some of the elements.
Your critiques are welcome. I swear I won' t get defensive again.
I hope to see my friends Gil, abbeyvet, Mike54, Cyprus, gail, Juxtar, tterrific, gorilla. Charles W Davis, Donkey, and UMnath come in and tear it up, but I would love it if some more FORUM members would take a look too.
Have at it -
www.enefem.com
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Donkey
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 7:21:24
Much better now you' re not forcing the flash.
IMO a well designed, easy to navigate site. I hope you have a lot of success with it.
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rumblepup
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 8:09:31
Thanks Mike,
you made some excellent observations, ones that I couldn' t see at 4 am with a pot of coffee and my teddy bear. (umm, yeah anyway)
If you go back, you' ll notice that I used your suggesstions, they made complete sense to me. 
You can see the flash intro and the rolling ball at the STUDIO page.
Thanks Donkey!
But flash is still forced, kind' a, on the content pages, but hey, I think they draw people in and are engaging.
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_gail
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 10:00:59
quote:
I won' t get defensive again.
Ya promise?  Ok, then here is my two cents...
The site is lovely. I' m glad you now provide a choice about viewing a flash presentation!
About the first page:
- it could use a spot of color, subtle perhaps, maybe the boldfaced words such as identity, graphic design, etc. I' d also see how it looks with a soft return between categories. If you decide to go with a color on this page, I' d carry it over to other pages in your site which have none.
- not sure you should use justified text on this page. Some of the gaps between words are large.
Links:
You have five main links: mission – services – portfolio – studio - contact. I wish when I clicked on one I knew where I was when I arrived at the page; it is obvious for some pages, not for others. If I' m at the mission page, perhaps the word mission could be bolded, for example. When I go to the services page, the services link would be bolded; etc.
Photo images:
Several of them, imho, need to be sharpened such as the gal in the spotlight (it could also use an increase in contrast as the main subject looks washed out). The foreground of the photo on the studio page looks blurry. Sometimes applying a blur to a photo can be effective; other times a blurry image plain looks poor quality.
Flash:
You are an absolute master at creating flash! However, I find some of them too much from the perspective that they play too long and/or continually loop. The visual experience when this happens is not bad in and of itself, but when this happens on several pages in a site it gets to be too much.
I have a statement by someone named George Meredith at my own site that reflects my personal design philosophy and is the basis for what I said in the paragraph above: " Perfect simplicity is unconsciously audacious." Along with the statement I provide the dictionary definition of the word audacious:
au•da•cious: intrepidly daring, adventurous; marked by originality and verve
Your flash is very powerful; I' d like to see it a tad more understated. I don' t believe these words contradict or are mutually exclusive.
gail
< Message edited by _gail -- 7/21/2003 10:06:19 AM >
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rumblepup
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 11:54:37
Thanks for the input gail
I noticed that about the links. I was attempting to keep the subtlety of the text links, but I guess I' m confusing the audience.
I tried doing hyperlink rollover effects, but they break up (on the fly) my layout.
Colors on the index. Do you have some suggestions? (hex codes) I was after a slate, grey, ethereal blue kind of thing, trying to stay elegant.
I know, I know, the repeating flash. I' m facing a couple of problems there.
If I only have them repeat once, then I have to increase the load time, thus increasing my frames, thus increasing the size of the flash animations. Making the page slower. As they are, they start after a couple of seconds, and repeat not to often. the largest one is about 18k. I tried your way once, and they largest one increase to 32k. Too big for a image heavy page. Seems weird though, right? One repeat of animation makes the file larger, many repeats come up to a smaller file. Go figure. Sorry I got to differ from you on this one, but I feel the flash is engaging.  Hey, we can' t be everyone' s cup of tea, ' cause then we' d be coffee.
Yeah, audacious is me. Some people once attributed to me a couple of quotes, and I' ve cherished them ever since.
- an ex-girlfriend once said " Robert is too much, but you can never get enough."
- and my art professor once said " Robert is God' s favorite son, but the devil is always doing him favors. Their both calling dibs on his soul."
Oh, and by the way, if you really want to see over the top, bandwith hogging flash, check out
www.2advanced.com
and
www.brokentsaints.com
Thanks gail, I' ll work on your suggestions.
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rumblepup
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 14:21:28
Thank Gil!
I must admit that yours and gails opinion was really important to me. But everybody' s opinion here at the forum is important too, it' s just that both of you took so much time at the last string, that I was hoping you' d be back.
I' m still trying to figure out the link situation, especially within my design pallet, but the answer will come, either from my pointy little head or from the forum. Please, if you have any ideas, please post em.
The confusion as to the navigation is a little disturbing, but you figured it out, (even though you' ve had experience with my sites before) but I think it will work until I figure out an alternative. A different color or a rollover color change should do it, I think.
Muchas gracias!
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UMnath
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From: Troy, MI
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 15:17:59
Hey Rumblepup...so glad to see the new site,
A Few things....The site looks great, I like it a lot.
-I agree with what was said about the navigation...It is a little bit confusing to understand. Also, when you click on the services page, you are presented with another navigation menu that looks a lot like the main menu, but on the portfolio page you are presented with a menu that is all caps but is the same thing as the previous menu. I would consider unifying those two menus, and making them distinctly different from the main menu...so as to not confuse a user.
-The text " If your going to do anything at least do it well." on the design page needs to be cleaned up...looks like you transferred the file format and it became all pixelated...also " your" should be replaced with " you' re."
-Same issue as above on services-->alternative media page. You also need a period after " see"
-Where do those quotes come from?? Name of author would be a nice touch
-Anyway to make the portfolio --> print design clickable? 9i.e. let the user view them
-On the studio page links, downloads, and news are all underlined...but not site credits...Its picky, I know, but it was also confusing I thought they were links at first.
-Had to laugh at the alternative flash intro (see what we can do!) Yay outfronters!
-I quickly checked the site for spelling and grammar errors..couldn' t find any
All in all a good site, you are a true professional. Good luck with all your future endeavors.
-Neil
< Message edited by UMnath -- 7/21/2003 3:23:43 PM >
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rumblepup
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 17:34:56
Gorilla,
Your an ANIMAL. Those links are great tools! And to think I spent a couple of hundred on stuff that doesn' t even give me hex!
Man, I was hoping you wouldn' t say CSS, but you did. I usually don' t use it, because I' m so used to creating a template from the ground up will all of the colors figured out already. It' s not that I haven' t used them, it' s just that I' m more use to working visually than programatically. (partnered with an IT company, remember?)
UMnath.
Tanks. Or as we say in Miami - Sank ju. Damn! I spelleded it wrong! And here I thought I was edjumacated. I like your idea about the clickable images on the print page, I' ve done it before, and I' ll think up a way to incorporate them.
As far as unifying the menu, it kind of too late on that one. I couldn' t use the images from the portfolio page, because they would break apart my layout on the regular page. (I' m using sliced images for the border, and sliced images don' t like to be messed with)
I could go back and kill the images on the portfolio, but I wanted to keep the text on that page to a minimum. I was looking for symbolism, but I guess I' m not achieving that. If you got any ideas, please insert into thread (sounds dirty)
Thanks for all of your help, please keep them coming.
anybody else?
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_gail
Posts: 2876
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 19:20:03
quote:
anybody else?
yup, yours truly.
quote:
Colors on the index. Do you have some suggestions?
I think I' d pick up a color you already use in the site, perhaps from the page you go to when you click on " main site." I really like the page, but it lacks umph. I think a bit of color, any color, will help.
quote:
If I only have them repeat once, then I have to increase the load time
Now this is really interesting. I didn' t know that.
quote:
Some people once attributed to me a couple of quotes,
Robert, I don' t care if it' s girlfriend or God, you have a huge amount of artistic and audacious talent. lol!
quote:
it' s just that both of you took so much time at the last string,
Absolutely nothing compared to the time some Outfronters have given me!
quote:
I' m still trying to figure out the link situation
You could consider simply placing a title on each page, whether text or gif image. You don' t necessarily have to tweak the links but I do think something needs to be done so visitors know where they are.
gail
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rumblepup
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/21/2003 23:04:14
Sorry wattle.
Flash is a part of the site. I have not created a cyborgasmic flash monster like some " new media" designers out there, but I definetly enjoy the engaging quality the site has been given by the flash.
Didn' t you see the link in the middle of the index page saying Site reguires FlashMX ? If you didn' t see it, I guess I have to make it larger.
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rumblepup
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/22/2003 1:27:58
all right guys, I made some changes.
But I' m really kind of frustrated with myself. You see, while I was designing this site, I want to keep it slick and consistent.
Problem is, when I wanted to make some of the changes you guys requested, I realized something.
I ran out of space!
But hey, I did the best I could.
I added page titles.
I' m working on rollover color changes.
www.enefem.com
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nickc
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/24/2003 10:23:09
Tested in Mozilla 800x600 56k modem. Main page loads nice and fats although the writing is a bit close to the vertical line. Link and menu' s could do with some rollovers. The main page infers that I need Flash installed and yet clicking on the 56k link presents me with a page without Flash on it (unless I' m missing something). Good design though. Good luck with it.
Nick
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rumblepup
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RE: ALL DONE, and I STILL want opinions - 7/24/2003 11:20:16
nickc,
Well, yeah, you need flash to view the presentation pages.
services
identity
webdesgn
print
alternative
I didn' t use flash throughout the entire site, but I did' nt want to smack the user with it withought him/ her knowing it.
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Printable Version 
I was able to skip this on your into page (thanks!) but did not seem to have the option on the Services page(s) and that does detract a bit on the sites appeal for me. You can probably ignore this comment as it' s likely I' m the only person in the world who does not have this 
This is not a statement about the pros and cons of Flash itself, just a comment about the sites function on the computer I am using. 
