My new site, can I get professional feedback (Full Version)

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cemooreart -> My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/14/2006 20:44:43)

Hello, I have been here a few times, my last post was a site I did for a friend and I didn't get the full detail of what she wanted, it bombed!!!

So I went back to working on my own site which was long over due according to friends. I wanted something simple with focus on the work and information, so can I get some feedback from other designers and web guru's it would be greatly appreciated.

www.cemooreart.com

Carl



anderskorte -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/15/2006 8:37:27)

The homepage encouraged me to look further, so I browsed through the website just because of sheer interest. That's a good thing.

The colors aren't very vibrant, they're actually a little moody or depressed. The dark yellow can be considered a ”dirty” color. The blocky layout is bold and looks stable. It's nice, but the colors make it flat and uninteresting.

By the way, why not use the same font from “Carl E. Moore” that you use in “Art 06”. The other one looks like Frutiger and the other is probably Century Gothic. I think you should reconsider the title font, why not put something even more interesting there?

The website isn't technically superior. It was coded in an old fashion with tables and doesn't take advantage of CSS. But it works and is usable.



womble -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/15/2006 9:26:56)

I like it! My only one concern is that maybe that dark background colour is a little too dark for the site - perhaps a lighter colour would make the site stand out more. I think the blocky feel works really well, and those great images you've got need something simple like that to show them off to their best advantage, and I think that look works.

On the technical front, though there are a few problems, the site displays well, and consistently in all the browsers, but although you have a doctype (good), the pages don't validate as you've got a lot of proprietary coding in there (I have to get a mention of doctypes in as Tailslide's off on her hols and and delegated the doctype watching duties before she left [;)]). On the "motion" page, though the enimations worked eventually, on each one I got an error message that said for example, "Snowman Holiday Audio.mp4" is encoded using a MPEG-4 profile that QuickTime currently does not support". That's something you might want to look into.

A major concern is that none of your images have "alt" attributes which means that if the images fail to load for any reason (or if a user has images switched off), you just get a blank space. It also makes it inaccessible to screen-readers, which may sound a little odd, but screen reader users do go to all sorts of places on the web where you wouldn't think they would.

What I wasn't sure of was why pieces of text such as the copyright information etc. and the navigation were done as images. For the naviagtion, with such simple styling and a rollover, you can easily get the same effect using CSS, without using images and also dispense with all that javascript that FP's using - the "Eric Meyer's Simple Seperators" menu from Listamatic would work with just a change of the top and bottom border on it's CSS to "1px dashed white" and adding a hover rule for your yellow hover.

Looks good though Carl - I think the look works and the site's easy to use.



anderskorte -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/15/2006 12:16:01)

The alt texts on images are a big concern, I forgot to mention it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: womble

What I wasn't sure of was why pieces of text such as the copyright information etc. and the navigation were done as images. For the naviagtion, with such simple styling and a rollover, you can easily get the same effect using CSS, without using images...

Remember we're talking to an artist here. [;)] That would also mean dumping that nice custom font and replacing it with something common like Tahoma or Arial.



jaybee -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/15/2006 12:40:46)

Well I really like it. The colours are drab but they seem to work well with your art, making it stand out but not clash.

Technically the site is laid out well (even if it does use tables) and whilst it's unlikely to validate or win prizes for accessibility, it's usable and that's what we want.

Womble is correct about alt text on the images, not because of screen readers but for people with images turned off.

All in all, well done.

Say hi to Elvis for me. [;)]



cemooreart -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/15/2006 13:01:06)

Thanks for the advice everyone, and I will work on maybe adjusting the color scheme, I did want colors that were not as stand outish if thats a word, to play the bold colors I use in my artwork. I'm still learning a bit on web development in general, by trade I'm a Graphic Artist and Painter and have been for sometime trying to get a little more technical in the web business.

I just wanted something simple this time over my last site, something I could update fast and give people interested in my work something to look at. I working on the CSS layouts now, I see it really make things work well, I guess its just finding time to experiment with the technical aspects of it.

The alt. on the images is a problem, I guess I didn't think there were that many people who viewed sites with graphics turned off most of the clients who to my site come for the graphics. But I will go back and alt. text for the graphics.

You will amazed at how much I have learned here and from www.lynda.com. I will say hello to Elvis, by I forgot he's dead, smile.

Oh yes anderskorte, you are talking to an artist, 100+ paint brushes, 300 + tubes of paint, 100 + canvases and my computer in the middle. Artsit rock, smile. thanks again you guys are cool.

Last thing, is it me being stupid or can anyone understand anything on the W3 site?, just asking.

Carl



cemooreart -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/15/2006 13:02:41)

Thanks Jaybee, artist are sensitive, I needed that.

Carl



Seventh -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/16/2006 5:22:52)

quote:

Last thing, is it me being stupid or can anyone understand anything on the W3 site?, just asking.


It's a little daunting when you first get into it (and may still be for some ), but once you get used to the language/jargon it's kinda like what Cypher said in "The Matrix", after a while you only see Blondes, Redheads and Brunettes. [;)]



d a v e -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/16/2006 13:08:14)

incidentally your name sounds like "see more art" (getit?!) :)



clickit -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/16/2006 15:28:26)

just did a quick view.......

i like the simple lines and "classy" feel...not a bunch of things bouncing around on the screen, just focusing on the product....I like the muted "drab" colors....it blends together nicely.



Swirl -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (10/16/2006 19:39:45)

My only suggestion is that you add a "return to top" link on the longer pages.

I love your artwork and photos!

Swirl



cemooreart -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (11/5/2006 21:58:08)

I never thanked everyone properly for the helpful advice and comments on my site. I just wanted to say thank you very much, I have made some changes to brighten up the site and I'm working on some more upgrades to make the site better.

Next month I will be adding a formal mewsletter.

The link above doesn't reflect the changes so I have added another. Thank for eveything.

http://www.cemooreart.com/index.htm



jaybee -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (11/6/2006 6:51:12)

I still like it. The colour scheme is very unusual. Good one.



markov -> RE: My new site, can I get professional feedback (11/6/2006 9:16:40)

The color management is exciting ! But the only problem is with dark back ground color. Just think of having other font for the text.



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