How do I add more "flare" to this homepage?

More flare or more flair:) And a URL would certainly help:)

andy-- thanks, I always forget the url!

All depends of what he means by 'flair'.

He looks like a very outgoing personality, so some of the flair might come from a more vibrant/exciting colour scheme without going crazy - halfadot.com/color may help you there.

Although it isn't a flair thing, I would get rid of the bolding on the recommendation letters.

There's not much visual impact. Perhaps you could use an image on every page up near the top left. Choose them from the professional gallery pix and make a random one appear on every page??

The very large graphic page titles slow things down which may make him think there's less falir than he wants.

I'm not a big fan on those slide-out DHTML menus - simple text links or tiny images would work as well (and likely work in all browsers).

Definately, a more vibrant and unique color scheme would be great. I always like to have my color schemes match whatever pictures i'm gonna use, for the picture that you have up right now it might be interesting to pull the pink and one or two shades of brown, then and use those. He may not want pink though, it would be wise to check out the link Andy suggested.

The title image is very large and very boring, the size of it just makes it even MORE boring. If it were me, i'd try manipulating the picture of him some, to make it more web-happy them combine the title with that, maybe use a more interesting font.

The nav bar is annoying, but i don't think just text links would be very flair-ie along a left nav bar like that, since there are so few. Images would be good, of course or you could move the links to a different position on the page and/or get rid of the side bar.

The problem with the current page is that there is too much white space, a very,. very common color scheme and layout. My best advice is try to be creative.

Ok....this is what I would do.
First of all...get rid of the slide menu. It is boring. Bring those links out where they can be seen. Place them in a left border. Text links would be fine and would load fast. Or you could use javascript with a tool tip for each link. (just an idea)

Put a 1 pixel, black border around his picture and move it to the right with the text starting, "Welcome to the web site of....." on the left of the picture.

Maybe you could put "Mr. Dorce has performed in many concerts, churches,...etc" in smaller text under the picture. Add a bit more text to the body.... not much though. You may have to conduct an interview for this. Or jsut go through the site and pick up important pieces of info the the home page.

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****Simply move your mouse over the "side menu" tap to the left****
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Definately loose the slide menu. You shouldn't have to explain to users how to navigate a web site. Especially one this small.

For the photo page...the huge buttons need to go. You could probably put all the photos on one page as long as he doesn't have many professional photos. I couldn't access that page to see them. Make the borders on all of the pictures the same. Put a caption for the pics.

Take the BOLD text off of the recommendation letters and biography page.

Colors of the site need to be livened up. Loose the gray line background and make it all white. One more thing that I believe has already been brought up is the title of each page. They are way to big.

Good luck!
disastermaster

It looks as though you might not have completed the task which is why I respond.

Have you much experience with his personality? In other words are you certain of the colors? He may just want a catalog of himself, or sort of a fan site for him. This would mean you could take peices of his personality and mold it into a layout. Does he like practical jokes? Mold that in, random quotes, etc. Hit him with a bunch of questions about his personality, what his likes are etc.

K

And one last thing, when I entered da site, there is a javascript error notification. You might want to fix that too
Personally, I think the site is too dull, you need to re-touch it. Use duotone with black + white, make the main picture as crisp as possible and change the font of the titles into arial or verdana. That's all I can think of.

Flair, flair, flair, thats all everyone wants these days.

I think that if someone is looking for opera singers then the top photo should be one having
a) one of the dress costumes; and
b) particularly one showing him gesticulating or with his mouth open belting out a tune.

The first picture on the site just shows Gibson in a very bland pose. He's smiling and he's clean-cut... but you can say that about 90 percent of the population.

The video clip I tried was very choppy. I'm using a DSL link, and that is unacceptable. Maybe I just visited your site when there was too much other internet traffic... If you get a similar comment from other high-bandwidth users, then there could be a hosting problem from your site.

The bits of the video I did see showed Mr. Dorce at a distance, maybe if the person filming him could have closed in for a zoom shot, that would help.