My web business page..help me make it great (Part 2)

URL: http://www.charlottewebcreations.com

My Opinion (Using Netscape):
The image on the front page is quite nice. Can you change the font to something else like Verdana or Arial? Don't stick to the default font. The logo needs more work. You're just using some font type, there is nothing unqiue. You need to make it special for people to remember you. Perhaps you could use some borders around your text logo?

Only a small error I noticed on you pages

Under portfolio

all the screen resilutions are rong.

They should be 1024x768 not 1028x768

Way to be on top of things, Josh.

To begin:

When I opened up the site, and (in the smaller-than-maximized-window) I saw the logo on the left side of the screen, I liked that, but when I maximized and it went to the middle, it lost a great deal of luster. Centered, it has way too much space on either side of it, which means that it kind of looks like a floating platform in the sea.

Moving right along, I do believe the page headers are lacking much. They don't really interact with the page, which means again that you have a number of visual separated elements inside of it.

On the processing page is some terrible Anti-Aliasing jobs! Woof! That kind of screamed YUCK! at me. (Here the graphics designer from within? ) I'd remove them, or re-make them to look better. Same thing goes for the Contact page.

Broken image linked to by the Processing page..

All in all, it really kind of clashes. You seem to be expressing two kinds of design: ordered, and abstract. Alone, perfect! However, combined they lose their professionalism real quick. If I were a potential customer, I would look at your web site once, and never remember it. This, you do not want.

Hope to have been some help.

WOw...so you like nothing about the site then eh? Yeah I am losing the clipart from the process page. Should I adjust my logo (top letttering logo) font? Or should I adjust the headers for the pages?

Hey can someone give me some ideas for the top of my page here? I changed up some of the other things, I think it looks better. Any other comments, good or bad are appreciated.

Take a look at http://www.halfadot.com/temp/charlot1.gif and you'll see that you need some re-design to allow for smaller screen sizes (yes, people do have them:). Screen shot is approx 640 by 480 ... some of the top links and logo disappear and the middle scrolls two ways.

As already noted, the logo at the top of the page needs to be re-done.

Nice though it is ... the 60k image on the front page will make more people leave than stay. It's just too large/too long a download. Same as many of your visitors will have small screens, many of them will use slow modems.

Ok well I got the size down on that image to like 27 that should be better...about 9 secs with a 28.8 or so...as for the screen size, I can't help anyone that has a screen smaller than 800x600 My site works for that, if they are in the dark ages that far back then they wouldn't want my services anyway I am sure. But thanks for the tip. BTW how can I fix that? All frames are set to percentages and 0 top margins, but other than that if I change everything else to fit then it ruins the site for someone with a 17" display. Your thoughts?

[Note: I don't recommend anyone to do this.]

I'm getting scrollbars on 800x600. And on a 21", it's kind of.. well.. gross. 'Course, everything on 800x600 looks gross to me.

I'd say drop the top logo, and add in an anti-aliased version, left align it.

Also, everybody's a customer! Dark Ages, or no.. money's money.

As it happens, I have a 1024px monitor ... but like a lot of people actually have more than one window open at any time ... so it isn't just those from the 'dark ages' who would have a problem. And, I'm not sure anyone is so successful they can tell people with lower res monitors that they don't want/need their business:).

Try using fixed heights for the frameset rows at the top of the page. That will ensure that the logo at least is always visible at any screen size. And if the principal nav links are in another frame - make that a fixed pixel height as well. You can have tables that expand in width while keeping some column widths fixed. That could be a partial solution.

Hey, more criticism!

I would get rid of the frames - the scrollbars just look tacky on my screen, and that would probably solve your resolution problem too.

As for that graphic being too large - don't use a graphic for all that! I see no reason to use a graphic when you could use text instead. You won't be able to wrap it around the image as well, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the sake of download speeds.

I agree with Mike about the logo - it looks too abstract compared to the rest of your design. Try a more traditional style font for that.

One more thing - the copyright statement is still in default font - change it to match the body.

Yeah, I will give that a try, I am thinking of switching it all to tables instead of frames anyways....I will keep you posted! Thanks!