Relaunch; whaddya think??? (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Web Design] >> Site Critiques



Message

clum1 -> Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/23/2006 12:18:28)

We've just refreshed our site www.intenseco.com and I'm keen for your thoughts. The design isn't mine, though I'm pretty happy with it - I mostly formatted the content areas. If you're unsure as to what Intense actually does, you can view our corporate video here. Again, comments welcome!

Calum



jaybee -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/23/2006 12:28:33)

I like the look of it but I find the white text on black a bit hard on the eyes. Might be better as cream or maybe a very pale shade of orange, soft peach or something.

The text in the dropdown menu needs to be a darker grey.



jaybee -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/23/2006 12:30:07)

I also think it's a bit odd to have your list of board members with just a photo of the chairman. Are the rest camera shy?

Ahh OK see what you've done.

I would have the main page either:

as a list of members with a link to each personal page
or
A thumbnail of each of them that links to the personal page.

At the moment it's a bit odd and feels inconsistent



Tailslide -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/23/2006 13:41:30)

I've got my browser set at one text size up from normal in FF and the front page breaks (the image splits up) but since you were doing the content areas I'm guessing that wasn't your fault!

The content areas are much better - the only thing I'd say is that the line-height is too low - if you up it to 140% it looks just about right (IMO!) - including in the left-hand nav.

For some reason the FF page shift really annoys me on this site - no idea why, maybe 'cos the main text area is quite narrow - so I'd add: 

html { min-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 1px; }


to get rid of it completely!

I agree with Jaybee about the dropdowns needing to be darker and black/white thing - try #555 instead of black - it's close enough but just easier on the eyes.




anderskorte -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/23/2006 14:07:55)

A very nice website, I'm impressed.

I agree with the contrast issue, the white text shouldn't be pure #FFF but something less eye-tiring. At the same time, add more contrast to the navigation popup menus, the grey text is too light.

The horizontally aligned sections at the bottom of the homepage look like Google ads and get ignored. You should make them look more not like Google ads, like something along the lines of this:
[image]local://upfiles/14789/5F3C1763DCD94007961B9BAB7B261FF6.gif[/image]
(just a quick suggestion — it adds too much stress to the bottom though)

And then is the homepage title. It's a nice font, but the “next generation lasers” text is horribly kerned, you probably forgot to select the “metrics” option in Photoshop and left it unkerned. If the company had a professional marketing department, they would make some noise about that. Trust me. It also stands a few pixels above the normal baseline and looks off-aligned.

I like the design of the subpages a lot. They differ from the homepage just as they should, but I'd still expect a bit more whitespace between the main content and the left-hand menu.



womble -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/23/2006 17:51:04)

The title looks fine to me.



clum1 -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/24/2006 4:25:37)

Thanks for some excellent ideas folks; I'll take these to the people who make decisions and see what their thoughts are.



anderskorte -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/24/2006 7:39:09)

quote:

ORIGINAL: womble

The title looks fine to me.

I was expecting someone would say this. [:)]

Typographically, the kerning is bad. Us normal designers don't have to worry about it though, because the kerning tables have been coded into the font file. It would take an eternity to manually kern all our text—the font designers have already spent months on that for us.

A cheap second-hand suit is also fine, but I wouldn't wear it on a presidential dinner. If you're a professional designer, never settle for less than what is professional on that field—even if it would increase the cost of your design. That's the philosophy I personally have always followed, to the minutest detail.

But that's just me.



Donkey -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/24/2006 13:47:26)

quote:

A cheap second-hand suit is also fine, but I wouldn't wear it on a presidential dinner.
Not even as a sort of dirty protest?



clum1 -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/27/2006 10:39:05)

Hi again; I've taken a look at the suggestions and implemented most of them - take a look at www.intenseco.com.

Anderskorte, I've aligned the text baselines on the front page - you were right it was well off - but I am not sure about the kerning. To me, it certainly looks like (for example) the e's and n in generation are a lot wider than the t and i but my graphics package (Paintshop Pro 9) has the text set to "Autokern". Is this what you mean? If so, any ideas how I fix it in PSP? Is it simply best to manually nudge the letters together?

Calum



jaybee -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/27/2006 10:55:45)

Much better. I see Ian Robertson is still grinning at me all by himself though. [:D]



clum1 -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/27/2006 10:56:53)

I'm working on him - I think an index page, as suggested, will be the solution...



jaybee -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/27/2006 11:14:53)

Good, I was starting to feel sorry for him. [&:]



clum1 -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/28/2006 6:08:37)

Sorted; I'm not sure why we had such a crazy way of listing them in the first (last?) place. That's a much more sensible list with links in place. What's more, I figured out how to take the first 200 characters out of the biog, find the next space then split it and add a hyperlinked [...more].

I feel clever today.

Calum



Tailslide -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/28/2006 6:11:01)

quote:

ORIGINAL: clum1

I feel clever today.

Calum


Do you do a little dance in your chair when you figure out stuff like this or is that just me? [:-]



clum1 -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/28/2006 6:17:20)

Nothing so silly. I punch the air with both fists like a real man... [:D]



womble -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/28/2006 13:50:19)

Small hint Callum - Tail's a girlie. [;)]



clum1 -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/28/2006 16:06:59)

Hmmm; I knew that; my italics must have been misplaced...



anderskorte -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/28/2006 17:19:47)

quote:

ORIGINAL: clum1

To me, it certainly looks like (for example) the e's and n in generation are a lot wider than the t and i but my graphics package (Paintshop Pro 9) has the text set to "Autokern".

Looks like you're trying to do the program's own automatic kerning or something, that is, based on mathematics and not visuals. That's because Arial shouldn't do that, it's a very well kerned font.

And why can't you use the same font that is in the word “Intense” (Akzidenz-Grotesk)?



clum1 -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/28/2006 17:26:23)

I didn't know what font it was! Our logo was designed a looong time ago and no-one knows who by so fonts etc are a mystery. The intense part of th image is a copy of a copy of a copy, whilst I just slung in the extra text in arial. PSP is definitely set to autokern (the factory default) so I don't know what else I can do.

Calum



anderskorte -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/28/2006 17:51:23)


quote:

ORIGINAL: clum1

I didn't know what font it was!

I'm not 100% sure it's Akzidenz-Grotesk, but it sure looks like it. The only difference is that the i dot is round, but in Akzidenz all dots are squares.

But I don't know if you'll benefit from that info, since Akzidenz isn't available under €200.



Tailslide -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/29/2006 2:45:34)

quote:

ORIGINAL: womble

Small hint Callum - Tail's a girlie. [;)]


Calum and I have "talked" off-board so I was pretty sure he was aware of this! [:D]



jaybee -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/29/2006 7:24:00)

quote:

Do you do a little dance in your chair when you figure out stuff like this or is that just me? :)
I do this [sm=yupi3ti.gif]



jaybee -> RE: Relaunch; whaddya think??? (11/29/2006 7:26:04)

quote:

Sorted; I'm not sure why we had such a crazy way of listing them in the first (last?) place. That's a much more sensible list with links in place. What's more, I figured out how to take the first 200 characters out of the biog, find the next space then split it and add a hyperlinked [...more].
That is loads better! [:D]



Page: [1]

Valid CSS!




Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI
0.078125