REVIEW REQUEST : AIA, Douglas Fruit

nicora's picture

He has: 267 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

This actually a request to review two concepts. The first is a non-profit (The Central Washington Chapter for the American Institiute of Architects). There are some things that were defined by the client that were set in stone, and there was nothing I could do about it, I'll explain later. Ant way here is the address : http://63.166.206.222/AIA/

The second is for a company called Douglas Fruit, here is a link to there existing site : http://www.douglasfruit.com

Here is a link to my first concept :

http://63.166.206.222/douglasfruit/v1.1/

disaster-master's picture

She has: 2,154 posts

Joined: May 2001

http://63.166.206.222/AIA/ ---I think this one looks really good. Seems like it could use some type of border or something on the right side of the red main part though. It looks a little odd where the red and that background image meet.

http://63.166.206.222/douglasfruit/ ----This is coming along real nice. You do good work there nicora. I like your concept a lot better then the original one. It looks more updated. The only thing I am not crazy about here is the gray on the Apples page that is above and below the apples pic in the left hand column. It looks unfinished.

You have two very nice sites going here. Keep us posted with your progress.

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

http://63.166.206.222/AIA/ - I get a horizontal scrollbar at 800*600. Nicebut I agree that it looks somewhat odd where the red at the top goes all the way to the right edge of the background bit, so I would say that you either need to box in on the right of the bg part or stop the red top at the left of the bg bit. I also think that the links on the left could do with a little bit more space between text and lines & maybe carry the thinker red line to the bottom of the page, to me it looks odd going thinker to thin like it does.

http://63.166.206.222/douglasfruit/ - Very nice layout but again I think that the right edge needs finishing off. I'm not crazy about the red colour with the orange but I guess that's their colours! I would make the verticle grey part the same width as the apple picture.

Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....

sab2000sab's picture

She has: 32 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

Great job!!! It looks very nice!!! I loke the colors! I think it works well!

I think it would look better if it filled the screen... It is made for 800x600 so it just ends on the side. I like pages that fill the screen.

I don't really care for that grey stuff on the inside page though... it looks like it has vertical text on it that makes it look like it has a texture... I don't know... It just looks funny to me.

I think the top part on the front page is too big... it works on my screen, but I'd not like to look at it on something smaller...

Sandra Smiling Laughing out loud Wink Sticking out tongue Cool

Until His return,
Sandra Barnes
Ardnes Design

nicora's picture

He has: 267 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

Wanted a bump to get a review from disaster-master...

Thanks in advance...

[edited below]

I meant the changes for Douglas Fruit

nicora's picture

He has: 267 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

OK, I appreciate your comments thus far. The client has settled on a layout, and I have started to convert it to HTML. There is the "Homepage", and the inside layouts. Please let me know what I could do to improve the overall look, or let me know what aspects you like. Also tell me what you think about the different splash images on the home page(there are 5 that randomly rotate).

http://63.166.206.222/douglasfruit/v1.1

I have test this on
IE 5+
NS 4.73 (no menu styles)
NS 6.2
MOZZILA 5.0
OPERA 5.12 (no menu styles)

If you find any bugs (especially MAC), please let me know.

Thanks in advance!!

disaster-master's picture

She has: 2,154 posts

Joined: May 2001

I am getting a page cannot be displayed error for http://63.166.206.222/douglasfruit/v1.1

Will check back later.Smiling

nicora's picture

He has: 267 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

Sorry disaster-master,

Our Dev server was down all last night... It's up and running now Smiling

disaster-master's picture

She has: 2,154 posts

Joined: May 2001

Hmmm....well, on a positive note great images and nice idea for the rotating images but......

I can't speak for those with high speed connections but I am on a dial up and it takes the images too long to load. I think it looked better when you had the images covering all of the top part too. Having the gray background exposed just makes it seem a bit unfinished.

nicora's picture

He has: 267 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

Client went absolutly bananas over the site, there thrilled to no end, *whew*

Thanks guys for the critiques.

Disaster-master - Theese pages are loading within 8 seconds for me on a 28.8kbs dial-up. 8 secs is the limit as far as I'm concerned, all the research I have done on the subject says that also. But potatoe potahtoe.

Back to the other site, well, I hated it - it wasn't me at all. The client didn't seem to care for it either. (There architects, and actually KNOW design), I'll have to really do some work on this one.

http://63.166.206.222/AIA/look_3.jpg

Let me know what you think of this revision...

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