Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (Full Version)

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lilblackgirl -> Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/21/2004 18:16:21)

New client site i just finished. Font choices are his.

http://www.xaostwentyone.com/ssp/index.html

why is it at home, when I click ok to post something, the window won't refresh and go away? odd.

anyway, lemme have it.

Lil



jaybee -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/21/2004 18:23:21)

Comes in with all guns blazing......

OK maam, you asked for it........

Here it comes..........

...............................

...............................

I like it. Text is a little small and can't be resized using View>Text but I can get round that when I find my glasses, but otherwise good.

Reminds me of another site though. Ummmmm, sure I saw it on here somewhere.



Minix -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/21/2004 20:17:00)

Scroll bar on bottom at 800x600 = major annoyance.

Small text, barely legible = major annoynace.

The photos, especially wedding pix, were of sub standard quality.

I thought pro photographrs were supposed to be somewhat expert in visualization.

I would not hire this photographer based on the web site.



ellipisces -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/21/2004 20:44:00)

The reason for the font size that is not able to be resized is because of the use of Points (ie 8pt.). You should use ems. Also note that you can specify decimal percentages when using ems. If they want the microscopic text then it would probably be something like .2em. By resizing we are talking about the little font size button on the toolbar, which is extremely handy for us old farts!



Charles W Davis -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/21/2004 21:49:44)

Lil,

I can understand that most "clients" for the photographer are young, but usually those that are paying the bill have something less than 20-20 vision. When I can't read what is on a site. I assume that the webmaster didn't want me to read any thing. I promptly exit.

I understand the use of the silver color for the backgournd, but there has to be better choices, either darker or a much ligher background with black font. There are few sites that are harder to read!

Your client is attuned to glossy print brochure designs that do not translate to the web. 96 pixels to the inch vs. 2,400 dots per inch.



lilblackgirl -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/21/2004 23:31:43)

so font size and color is the major gripe?
aside from the horizontal scroll bar (which i should have caught).

I understand everyones point, and don't get me wrong, because i asked and i appreciate everyone's opinion, but how does a designer stick to a creative idea or concept and still work within those confines to make everyone happy? And i'm not picking on anyone or pointing fingers, i'm just asking this as a general question. How do i keep the integrity of my work intact and keep everyone happy including myself. part of my job as a designer is to be proud of the work i do, but it feels like i'm sacrificing because my concept doesn't fit with the guy viewing at an 6x4 resolution with his fonts turned up to extra large. see my confusion?


sorry, i don't mean to rant,
Lil



Minix -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/21/2004 23:59:35)

hi lil,

I'm a bit confused by your comment in what you want out of that web site. Your first obligation is to the client. Your job is to design something that sells his product or service. You don't have to keep everybody happy, you just have to make the client happy. You keep your integriy itact by the amount of new business that comes your way, because you do fine work.

Your concept in this case doesn't work. Where you lose integrity is by recognizing that and changing the scheme to accomplish the objective - SELL YOUR CLIENT.



ellipisces -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 3:15:47)

maybe herein lies your confusion
quote:

i'm sacrificing because my concept doesn't fit with the guy viewing at an 6x4 resolution with his fonts turned up to extra large. see my confusion
You do need to satisfy this user. There are countless users out there who don't know the first thing about resolution and screen size. Are you going to leave them all out? In my experience, many of the really rich clients bought a computer and have never changed the resolution from day one. It is still set on 640x480 and those users may be your best customers. Your goal is to satisfy as many users as possible, and your site design should do that.



LoriL1212 -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 3:57:54)

quote:

...how does a designer stick to a creative idea or concept and still work within those confines to make everyone happy?....... How do i keep the integrity of my work intact and keep everyone happy including myself. part of my job as a designer is to be proud of the work i do, but it feels like i'm sacrificing because my concept doesn't fit with the guy viewing at an 6x4 resolution with his fonts turned up to extra large.


It was stated above that first and foremost that you should make the client happy - this agree with -- HOWEVER, it is your job as a hired developer to HELP him KNOW what is best for him. YOU need to "school" him.

By this, you need to (for example) take a screenshot of the page at BOTH resolutions, and show him how it looks to some. If that is not proof enough then he is obviously NOT after what is best for him, and has not granted you full creative control. This is something upon which I insist with ALL clientele. I KNOW what I am doing - it is proven in the work I have produced. Therefore, if THEY want the creative lead and for me to only do what THEY want rather then what is best for the SITE, the client AND the visitors, then I tell them to find someone else.

Now that I have said that, the site - I have no need to say anything of the text - it has been touched on enough, but will say that "I" found the navigation, but I would say it would be difficult for a visitor too since it is placed where it is, and the same size and color as the text.

I am not fond of the photos on the Weddings page - the not in focus images make me think that he jiggled the camera - LOL. I would choose three different ones from the sample collection (however going there I saw lots of off focus shots as well) .

The pics on the Bridal page are pixelated on the faces of the ladies. I think that a site that displays photography is an exception to the optimization rule - people KNOW that they are there to look at the Photographers work, so I would say a little longer download time is ok here - optimize higher.

Lastly, all the headers and the logo every page of the site are also pixelated around the edges - again, I would optimize at a different compression rate.

I like the site overall - as well as I went to your site, and like several of the presences/proofs that you have done.

Keep up the good work [:D]



d a v e -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 4:09:22)

text would look better if it was another notch up, if it was on a darker background then it might be ok, well for my young eyes but better to make it larger then people can make it smaller if they need.
header and titles should be gifs, antialiased against the background colour, then they will be sharp + small file size

ditto the link and photo advice



Peppergal -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 8:19:15)

Okay, these are my suggestions....

Lose the image on the home page. It does not look like a blushing bride on her way to the altar; it looks like a spectre hovering in the doorway. We need a much nicer picture there to grab people's attention RIGHT AWAY. You need a picture that evokes an emotion like <how gorgeous!> or <how sweet!> and you want them to say "I want him to do this for ME."



lilblackgirl -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 10:12:50)

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and I'll run with them. I've spoken to the client about this and they are fine with me making these changes. The issue about the pictures - here's the problem. The pics on the disk given to me are at 2000x2400, so obviously, i needed to reduce them. In doing so, it sacrifices the quality of the pics. Gorilla suggested an image reducer that I'm using, but if someone else has some suggestions, please let me know. The photographer really is quite good, but the site is suffering from the fact that i had to reduce the pics so much. I'm going to have to go with another navigation structure and layout to properly fit everything correctly. I was under the impression that the lowest resolution I'd ever need to worry about was 8x6. it just seems impossible to code for 6x4 and have the site still work well for higher resolutions. The client did give me alot of free reign with this layout, so most of this is my fault. I normally think ahead, but kind of got caught up in this look. Obviously, i'm making all changes and updates free of charge. He wants to keep the silver bg with the white font as it is fitting to a wedding site, so i'll just need to go darker on the bg and larger on the font. Is there a way to add a small drop shadow to normal font without going to a graphic and sacrificing the look of the site? Again thanks to all for your suggestions and let me know if there's anything else.

Lil



LoriL1212 -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 10:16:57)

What program are you using to reduce them?

Use CSS for your drop shadow...

http://www.saila.com/usage/shadow/
http://www.psacake.com/web/bz.asp

(this is not something I would do, but that is how it can be done [;)])

**edited to add CSS urls



Peppergal -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 10:17:38)

Frankly, my opinion - just assume 800x600.



lilblackgirl -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 10:52:00)

The program i was using was pixresizer (http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm).
If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I use PSP for graphics and played with reduction, but the pics ended up coming out horribly. I know that using PS would probably be better, but i don't have the $600 and the time to learn the program (at least for this client).
And if the suggestion is to stay away from drop shadows, i will. I'll just make sure the bg is dark enough. I wanted to stay away from black or something to dark and try to stick with something silver or grey to fit with the company name.



LoriL1212 -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 10:59:45)

I think if the font is larger, then the color may possibly be ok - you would have to change it on a page so we could see, and let you know.

How many images are there in all for the site?



lilblackgirl -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 11:10:13)

there've got to be at least 60 images, if not more. most of them are photos. if you go to the different sections on the site and click the link to see the photos, this is what the bulk of the site is made up of.



LoriL1212 -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 11:23:24)

I am trying to think of a way that I can help you out since I am a PhotoShop user.
That is a mass of high res pics to send in email, and I am sure you don't have them on your server.

However, if you wanted to put a few up at a time, I would gladly resize them all for you.



Giomanach -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 11:27:57)

Put them in several or one Winzip Archive, then email them. Is that too easy or am I thinking too hard?[:D]



LoriL1212 -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 11:40:12)

Yes, I smell your brain cooking... LOL

60+ at 2000x2400............. that could take a day! And I am not hurting on my connection [;)]



lilblackgirl -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 11:45:12)

Instead of having you do the work for me Lori, can you make any suggestions of other progs that could do a goo job? I just spoke to my brother-in-law and he has a copy of PS, version 4 that he's going to give me. I know it's outdated, but i would think with some patches, i could probably get the job done? And thinking about it, with that amount of pics at that resolution, you're right, it'd take all day to either get them to the server or send them to you. i couldn't impose on you like that anyway. thanks.



LoriL1212 -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 11:52:05)

It would have been no imposition - I offered [;)]

I have an image viewer here that I use just to look at the images/photos on my pc... It is not "bad" for resizing and resampling.... you could try it at least... can't hurt:

http://www.photodex.com/downloads/download_pro.html - it is not very hard to use. Let me know if you need any help getting it going.

Also, if nothing else, I can do all the images that are on the HTML pages (as the ones in the gallery do not seem "quite" as bad.... just ask - it would be no problem.

edited to add: OTHERS YOU COULD LOOK AT

http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/imageprocessing/gr/jpegcrops.htm

(actually this page is loaded with stuff, but I have used none - I only use PhotoShop for sizing: http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/batchresizecrop/)



lilblackgirl -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 12:06:08)

are you talking about just sharpening up the pics in the galleries?
if you wouldn't mind doing a few just so i could see how it improves them and maybe when i get my hands on that copy, i could do the rest. also, when i get home today, i'll zip up a few and mail them to you.

thanks so much! i really appreciate your offer and help!



LoriL1212 -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 12:13:44)

.. actually I found the Gallery photos to not be as pixelated as the ones that were actually ON the pages. I would make the gallery photos much bigger then you have them displayed... like I said, they KNOW they are looking at high quality photography, and if interested would rather see a large, beautiful shot that takes a few extra secs to DL, then small, super fast ones, yanno.

So to answer you, I meant the ones on the front page... however, you can send anything you like, and I will resize to a few different levels so you can see what the difference is: lori@zenfulcreations.com



d a v e -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 12:33:29)

if you use bicubic as the method of resampling in psp and then unsharp mask you should be able to achieve comparable results to PS, assuming you have those present in PSP. otherwise look for a magazine cover disk with PS on it and use that for 30 days or whatever (check you can save in it) or the fireworks demo from macromedia.com, otherwise you should find that PS 4 does the job fine, after some intitial experimentation.
otherwise take Lori up on her excellent offer!



LoriL1212 -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 12:34:26)

... I played with one of the front page images... the Portfolio page:

http://www.zenfulcreations.com/clients/ofw/lil/remake.jpg

The top version is your original saved from the site; the bottom is the three images I saved.



lilblackgirl -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 12:35:03)

Ok, i just emailed you 4 pics.
I knew the smaller pics on the main section pages would be worse off.
I agree with you on the gallery pics, but how do i make them larger without making it difficult for those with smaller resolutions, especially in a popup window? Do i do away with the window? And half the pics run up/down and the other half run left/right, so i'm confined to how large i can make them.



lilblackgirl -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 12:37:17)

my god, there really is a big difference.

crimany! [:@] I've got a lot of work to do.



LoriL1212 -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 12:43:15)

quote:

ORIGINAL: lilblackgirl

how do i make them larger without making it difficult for those with smaller resolutions


I bet Gail could help with this, but "I" would make them 640x480 - you need to design for 800x600 res, and that is the perfect size for them viewing....

I was not very fond of the pop up but it is simple just to change the Popup WIN size; I think I would either A) use thumbnails B) add textlinks for them or C) create a gallery page of ALL photos thumnailed at the same size and then link them from a named anchor within each page....

** edited because I did not go to sleep until 5:30 AM and got up at 6:30 with my kids - so spelling is obviously not my strong point today, LOL~



d a v e -> RE: Lemme strap on the bullet-proof armor (3/22/2004 15:40:49)

Lori - btw, are using the new CS photoshop or an earlier version?



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