REVIEW REQUEST: The Woodwork Shop, Inc.

Not bad but I don't particularly like that background at the top. I suppose it fits the theme of "wood working" though. But hey, if the client likes it then go fo it.

So you be lookin' for feedback?

*pet peeve alert!*
I HATE email links in the site navigation. Hate 'em!

I like the colour combo you've got going in the logo, be nice to see it implemented more throughout. The second line of text could be sharpened a little - kind of blurry.

I'm not so sure about the texture up top. Is it wood? I can't really be sure.

Flesh it out for us, I'm eager to see more!

Hmmm, I don't think that the top works as the background doesn't really look too much like wood and the pictures get a bit lost. The rest is ok though!

Like I said, I was curious. I thought kind of the same things as mentioned before. The background at the top is maple since the image can be fairly small and the repeat is harder to see unlike some of the woods that have long grains to them.

Taff, don't like the email links. It wasn't clear in your answer, LOL. I sometimes use them in the navs. In this case, I used them just to make it easier for someone to see for now. The second line of text is a little blurry. I had a little tough time with that since the customer had designed their logo and wanted to use it. They really didn't have the image stored as an image anywhere that they could find. Since I used the same fonts that they did and wanted to keep things in the same proportion, I had to make the text a little smaller. I will see what I can do to make it less blurry since the logo is one thing that I will probably keep.

Julia, DM, that is funny that you would say that about the background. My wife said the same exact thing about the pictures getting lost and it being a little busy.

Also curious about the use of the crown moulding . I am thinking about keeping it.

The crown mouling has more of a metal look IMO. i suppose those are nails but they looks more like rivets.

Quote: Originally posted by mairving
Taff, don't like the email links. It wasn't clear in your answer, LOL.

Heh, sorry. I've whined about this so much in the past, I didn't want to repeat myself too much

What I dislike is a direct mailto link as part of the site structure/navigation. I hate surfing through the site navigation page by page only to have my mail client fire up on me when I hit "contact." I prefer either a contact page with addressing and email options or to have the "contact" button separate from the site navigation, clearly marked as an email option somehow.

I guess that is the point of my peeve: It's "site navigation" - A mailto link is effectively external to the site.

Am I the only one this bothers? Should I rename it my "petty pet peeve"?

EDIT: oh, was that sarcasm? heh, methinks it was. Sorry for running on then

Taff, it was either sarcasm or my dry sense of humor. We can start calling it TPPP if you like for Taff's Petty Pet Peeve. I will have a contact page, using a form on this site. Mailto: links are not extremely reliable like a form and you don't get the information that you need sometimes.

DM, those aren't nails, it is part of the actual wood moulding myself. Part of my reason for posting was that my customer liked the site as it is. I thought that it was pretty sad with a few exceptions. I was curious what others thought.

Mairving,

I was in the wood business. The birdseye maple is great, any wood freak is going to like that. It's like good heroin to a junkie. The molding is a good idea but is not as clear due to the size I think. Can't see grain in the moulding wood. Grain is everything to a wood freak. I would have tried to carve the logo into the wood or something but I don't know that might look corny or overdone.

More grain!!! Walnut, Mahogany, Cross curl!!! Go to an acoustic guitar store.

You have to think of your target audience.

Quote: I guess that is the point of my peeve: It's "site navigation" - A mailto link is effectively external to the site.
Am I the only one this bothers? Should I rename it my "petty pet peeve"?

Taff I see your point and you are justified in feeling that way. I guess that it is just done so much that I really don't think about it much. I suppose for "accessibility purposes??" people should be warned when there is an external link. Am I correct on this?

Sorry mairving to get offtopic here. We will continue with the regularly scheduled program shortly.

Quote: Originally posted by disaster-master

Taff I see your point and you are justified in feeling that way. I guess that it is just done so much that I really don't think about it much. I suppose for "accessibility purposes??" people should be warned when there is an external link. Am I correct on this?

Heck, I have no authority or relevant research to back this one up with. It is a pure gut response on my part. This bugged me long before I actually started designing myself.

Mairving: I think the moulding works, in theory at least. I still don't think the maple bg works though. Perhaps it is even that the two elements clash?

EDIT: w00t! that was post #400!

Quote: Originally posted by cordedpoodle
Mairving,

I was in the wood business. The birdseye maple is great, any wood freak is going to like that. It's like good heroin to a junkie. The molding is a good idea but is not as clear due to the size I think. Can't see grain in the moulding wood. Grain is everything to a wood freak. I would have tried to carve the logo into the wood or something but I don't know that might look corny or overdone.

More grain!!! Walnut, Mahogany, Cross curl!!! Go to an acoustic guitar store.

You have to think of your target audience.

What wood business were you in? I used to train lumberyards on the use of computer systems. Most of them just sold sticks not much of the fancy stuff. I will look over the guitar store, thanks.

I have found plenty of wood grain. The main problem in using it is that the it doesn't look very good as a background image because of the repeating patterns. There is not usually much grain in moulding since it is usually pine or other soft wood. I found some nicer more elegant moulding but I would have had to color it.

Taff, we really out to have a thread going about personal website pet peeves.

Quote: Originally posted by mairving
Taff, we really out to have a thread going about personal website pet peeves.

LOL, I agree! I was just re-reading my post in this thread and thinking "sheesh, what a whiner I am!"

The thing that bugs me about contact links in a navbar is that there isn't a consistent standard. I'm always unsure as to whether I'll get an HTML page or a window from my e-mail client. I usually expect an HTML page and am often surprised when the e-mail window pops up. Especially on business sites where contact info should include more than just an e-mail address.

I'm not in a site reviewing mood right now so I'll just leave this one 'till later

Megan, don't worry about the site review on this one. I think that I have enough info to go on. I will post back when I get a chance to work on this site.

I guess it's o.k. if thats what your customer wants but I don't like the header.

how bout a wooden border with routered insert, maybe not

the yellow on the side is a bit pastel/modern for the rest of it, maybe a lil more orange?

and it works great in NS4.7

Design change. I am still not quite sure about the logo. I wanted to get a little bit of woodgrain in there but subtly. It needs something else there, not sure what yet. Maybe more of an elliptical shape. None of the links are working.

For those like me who are too lazy to go back to page 1 for the link, here it is:
http://www.thewoodworkshopinc.com/

I like the dark green. However, if you're going to use the would trim (and I'm not sure I like that particular choice) I'd suggest using it to separate colours - sort of a wainscotting effect.

I'm not crazy about the logo either - needs more or less of the woodgrain effect. I'm not sure which way I would go.

I still don't like the header as the grey box overpowers the little itty bit of wood each side of it. I would personally try to have a wooden bit with the company name carved/etched into it.

Quote: Originally posted by The Webmistress
I still don't like the header as the grey box overpowers the little itty bit of wood each side of it. I would personally try to have a wooden bit with the company name carved/etched into it.

Well that gray logo is the logo that they already have. They want to continue using it. So no choice there. So I am trying to work around those limitations and bring out the logo a little with some wood grain.

I really like the green too. The box that you have around the logo and the bar below that have a different look about them though. Not sure. Maybe give the bar more texture?? The bottom of the bar looks jagged or something. It's getting there...keep playing.

Quote: Originally posted by disaster-master
I really like the green too. The box that you have around the logo and the bar below that have a different look about them though. Not sure. Maybe give the bar more texture?? The bottom of the bar looks jagged or something. It's getting there...keep playing.

Yeah, the bar was a piece of moulding that I chopped up and used in the table background. It looks like this: .
The jagged edge is caused by the repeating pattern. I will try to clone the jagged edge clean.

Fixed the jagged edge. Thanks, DM and also thank you for the clone stamp tool.

Quote: Originally posted by mairving
Fixed the jagged edge. Thanks, DM and also thank you for the clone stamp tool.

You are welcome but I surely don't remember giving you a clone stamp tool. Am I doing things that I don't remember again? LOL

oh, forgot to add...that does look better but what do you think adding some bevel would do for it?

Quote: Originally posted by disaster-master
You are welcome but I surely don't remember giving you a clone stamp tool. Am I doing things that I don't remember again? LOL

oh, forgot to add...that does look better but what do you think adding some bevel would do for it?

Probably should have been a comma in that thank you sentence.

It would be tough to add some bevel to it with it being a repeating pattern. I could add the bevel and then slice the side bevel off I suppose. I also used the burn tool to darken the wood grain on the logo.

I'll play a bit more before I turn it over to the customer for review.

OK, where is the green? I see black.
It looks good but think it may look to showcasey instead of sellable (product/service wise), has that antique feel to it but the sponsors etc could be all high tech. unless thats what its all about then just ignore the previous bit

ever thought about doing a transtition from old to new ?

just a brief note on contact links: check the status bar display onmouseover to distinguish a "mailto" from an html doc

I like clean cut and simple feel of the menu and the content area. So many sites these days are littered with junk and users have to dig through all kinds of needless information to find what they are looking for.

I am not a huge fan of the images at the yop and bottom. They seem to overshadow the useful features.

Just My Thoughts
Sean Maday
http://www.solobox.com

Thanks for the replies. I am getting a bunch of conflicting opinions on this site, probably not a good thing. Someone told me today that they didn't like the green. I guess I need to do some evaluation. I am not quite sure why this one has been so difficult. I think that it is because I am trying my best to show that this site is about woodworking but be subtle about it.

Being subtle isn't always easy or best!