REVIEW REQUEST: Luvable Countrywares

I personally don't like the overall design with the background picture at the bottom but I can see why you chose to do somthing like that. Aside from having a horizontal scrollbar at 800*600 it just doesn't work at highter resolutions as the background doesn't fill the screen and just looks cut off. Also for me the gradient is very blocky.

I think the side nav space is too wide and it jumps around from page to page.

"the gradient is very blocky"

That's a surprise to me as its ultra smooth on my screen. Is it this way for others?

Also yes the side nav does jump but I don't know how to fix it. The cell heights are fixed for the menu items and the contact detalis at the bottom, I left one blank cell in between them with no fixed height which I thought would expand or contract and keep the other cells from changing. Did not work, the cells have a fixed height but grow and shrink anyway.

Ohh and I forgot to add, I will advise the client to add more content to the front page and there is more planned anyway so in the higher resolutions there will only be white space to the left, no white space below which won't look cut off.

It is the space to the right that looks very odd

Ahh! The difference between 32-bit and 16-bit color.

Still I think it looks ok in 16-bit color, not that bad really. Nothing I can do about it anyway, there is only one gradiant tool in photoshop!

Oh I see I said space to the left above, meant to say right.

Anyway I guess I am used to seeing sites cut off like that, just does not bother me. But we will see what everyone else thinks.

What I'm trying to say is that I think that it looks odd where the background gradient/bottom picture suddenly stops at around 800pixels then there is just white space for the rest of the screen to the right. It might look better if it was centered with some kind of border around the whole thing.

I did have it centered for a while but I thought it looked odd. I have thought of adding a repeating background but where it meets the pic at the bottom I think it would look weird.

A border is probably a good idea, however I have zero ideas as to what kind of border.

I would just enclose it all, centered, in a 1 pixel line border???

Updated:

http://www.nasanu.com/luvable/indexc.html
http://www.nasanu.com/luvable/

I have added a background to the page on both, the first link the main table is centered, the other is not.

Feedback please

I would personally go with the centered one but just have a plain bacground to the outside part. I think that the background you have now is too overpowering.

I think this is a problem that you're going to have with a big prominent gradient like that. For some people with lower colour settings it will look blocky. May not be the best idea to use a graident for a background. I do like the concept of having the photo blend up the page like that though.

Speaking of backgrounds, I really don't like what you've done with the grey one on the outsides of the main content table. I don't think the grey is the right choice here. Another colour would be better. Maybe blue, maybe not.

I would also like to see more done with the header section of the layout. The logo seems sort of lonely up there by itself, especially on the pages with more photos. Overall I think that logo could use some improvement. It looks kind of hokey.

As far as content goes, there really needs to be more information about who this company does (an "about us" section), who's in charge, who to contact etc. Some of this information has been slipped in to other sections but it should be set out on it's own so it's clear to people. If people are looking for business opportunities they're going to want more information than a one-page promotional bit.

Updated again:
http://www.nasanu.com/luvable/

Megan you posted pretty close to when I updated, I am not sure which gray you saw. I am using a lighter gray now and I quite like it, but if you guys still think otherwise...

I agree with most of whats been said actually. The logo was done really quickly, actually the logo at first was just some clip art but I insisted that I be allowed to come up with something better. Only had a couple of days before I had to be done and thinking of a logo for something that far outside my range of interests melted my brain.

BTW when you guys are making a site, are you usually responsible for the content of the site (assuming you guys and gals all work as web designers)? For this site I asked for content to be placed on each page, thats why its a little thin. Should I be doing the content myself as a web designer? I am used to freelancing in asp development where I get handed all I need with set goals and told to do it. This is far removed, but a little more fun

I would still go with a plain background as it's still distracting to the main content.

I also agree with Megan that you should have a separate page for 'about us' with more detailed company info and I still say to reduce the width of the navigation side. Also on the subject of the navigation, where you are using images for the links you should really have a set of text links somewhere to help with SEO and also to help with anyone who surfs with images turned off or text readers.

Getting clients to come up with content can sometimes a right headache! It's not too bad generally if they already have a brochure but if not I usually tend to put the ball in their court and if they really can't come up with the goods then I'll give in and help them out!

I really like this page. I like the color scheme and pictures. Unlike some of the others, I tend to like a page background better than a plain screen.

The top looks like something is missing - like it needs a darker border or something.

Dacsoft