A new design for TCS

Hey, TCS is the name of my local broadcaster! Television Corporation of Singapore!

But anyway, here's the review. Your logo is plain. The cat can stay but please do something about the words "The Cat Site". Maybe you can add some black borders around the words, or just bring them closer to each other?

The colour scheme is a problem IMHO. The peach and grey just aren't working well together. Maybe the addition of a contrasting colour would help, although I can't think of many that would go with peach and orange.

The logo is okay, but I don't think the cat should be sitting behind the text. Maybe a bigger cat (probably just the head) peeking out from above the letters? (so the head is above the letters and the paws rest on them somehow). That's an idea anyway...

Interesting reccomendation about cat food. I've heard a lot of conflicting ideas about what you should do - one article said to always feed your cat the same kind or she'll get finicky. Another said to change varieties every once in awhile to avoid that. Now yours said to combine the two... hmmm.... My kitty hasn't been eating much lately so I'm kind of concerned about that..

It needs some work...

1) The overall feeling I got is that the design is flat. There are no dimensions. I think either the logo or some part of the design could benefit from something 3D or raised or something.

2) The logo is on the right path, but it looks like you stopped before it was finished. The cat looks fun, but at the same time looks like it was just thrown in there. Megan gave some good ideas for a logo. Be creative!

3) The design is a little too wide on my 800x600 resolution. I believe you need to make the design exactly 760px in width; that should prevent scrolling.

4) The left bar is empty. It doesn't look like its necessary at all, but I have an idea. Why not try eliminating the left bar, moving the text to the very left, and then making a bar on the right for the ads and stuff. Get what I'm saying?

It all right.

- As said it looks flat. That's the main problem. Try to make it 3D with the logo. That will make it much better.

- I think you need to change the colors. They don't look to good on a kitty cat site.

- One other thing it looks good on the 1027*768.

Good luck!

Wow,

Thanks everyone.

I guess I'll have lots to do this weekend after all

I kept everything "flat" to avoid "heavy" graphics that would need long loading times. By the way, I got my inspiration from looking at lots of commercial babies sites (since people relate to their cats as if they were babies...). I'll be happy to hear ideas about which colors are cat colors. In my Israeli cat site the colors are quite vivid and some people told me they prefer a quieter look for a cat site. In my previous design for TCS the colors are different. You can have a look and tell me what you think -
http://www.shoonra.com
http://www.thecatsite.com/nutrition/principles.html

Megan - if your kitty loses her apetite for more than 48 hours, please contact your vet. If she's older than 6 years old or shows apathy and slugishness, it can indicate the start of all sorts of medical problems.

Justin, can you please elaborate on turning the left bar into a right bar (is this what you mean?)

Basically the layout is composed of three coloumns in a table:

The left one is the peachy bar, where links to other articles on the same subject go (as this is to be a very informative site, I hope eventually to have a dozen or so articles on each subject).

The middle one is where the article itself goes.

The right one is where I put stuff for sale from affiliation programs.

I was planning to put ads on both the left bar (under the links) and the right coloumn (in articles where I don't have products to sell).

Well, Thanks again everyone. I agree with most of what you said. I'm happy I posted here last night before I started working on the other pages.

I'll keep on working - I'll post on this thread when I have a new design. Please send more reviews as these were exteremely helpful. I'm actually going back to sleep for a few hours (it's Saturday morning here and I went to bed really late last night)

Thanks,

Anat

Okay, I slaved away all weekend and had several designs made.

What do you think of these two:

http://www.thecatsite.com/design4/design.html

http://www.thecatsite.com/design3/principles.html

The first one is just a template without any content, but I'd appreciate your opinions before I go into content editing.

Please remember that this will be a content & community site, so I want it to look serious and inviting at the same time.

Thanks!

Anat.

Parker, how did you manage to get your screenres on 1027 x 768?