Thumbs up or down....

Design: Unique and clean

Graphics: Could be sharper but will pass.

Navigation: Menu links a little too close together but OK.
Would be nice to add mouse tracks (Home >> About Me).

Color scheme: Nice

Overall: A thumbs up. Ready to go.

Gavin

I'm sorry to say

The first thing that strikes me is that the colour scheme is just not good. The mauve background clashes really badly with the orange. I'm also noticing that the graphics seemed to be a little lossy (those should be .gif's not .jpeg's!), the navbar font is hard to read especially since the lines are crammed so closely together, and I don't like how the curved orange parts just cut off in the middle of the page like that.

Overall I'm finding the site to be rather unprofessional. A lot of this should be re-written, especially the descriptions in your portfolio and the "about me" section. If you're using this to attract new clients you want to make all your old clients look good - don't complain about them. Also try to make yourself sound better - don't degrade your accopmlishments. Lose the Evolvement site you say was stolen from you. On the contact us page, definitley put your full name on there and your country as well.

Isn't it amazing how different people see different things

So it's still half love, half hate it.
Maybe it's a "Marmite" kinda site.

I personally love the colour scheme, and Megan, your the first to comment on it. The background is the only jpeg (I think), because as a gif, it looked worse, and the file size was bigger.
I admit the graphics are still a bit shoddy, but around here we are still on 28.8 or 56k.

Since it is half'n'half, I will start again , I might put this one up in the meantime, but thanks for looking everyone.

Have you seen it in Netscape 4.7 ?

for the blank cells, use a small 50x50 image of the background color, netscape doesnt like color-graphic-color or graphic-color, the last one always has to be a graphic.

try make the images .gifs, they are only a couple of colors, once made go somewhere like http://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html and make them smaller (file size), compress them, works well and is free.

At first I thought the site wasnt in english, lol, sorry but at first glance the links on the left are hard to make out.

is the UKWDA (United Kingdom Web Designers Association) ? kinda like the HTML writers guide thing ?

It looks a whole lot better at 800x600 than at a larger resolution. At a larger resolution, the page is too centered, both horizontal and vertical. As far as the colors, I think that the orange goes better with a darker blue somewhere like #003366. It kind of washes out with the lighter blue that you are using. The graphics could certainly be improved on as they appear to have 'some hair' around them. Not bad but I think that it could be better.

LOL @ Mairving

Quote: they appear to have 'some hair' around them

You do have a lot of hair around the image on the left. You should be able to fix that. I am not crazy about that purple color either. It clashes with the blue in my opinion. That font for the nav is very hard to read. The text that rolls over under the nav looks like halloween or creepy text and the color of it clashes also. I am seeing a blank space at the top and bottom. Couldn't you make the page move to the top and then taper off the orange swoosh (for lack of better words) at the bottom?

I visited the PembsDirect site and your logo is disappearing when you scroll. Didn't know if you knew that.

The Pembs direct screen shot is only showing up part way. I noticed in your code you have width="198" height="122" for this image but I saved it to my computer and it is actually width="198" height="118".
This may be the problem with the pembs logo.

And the add 3 screen shot is width="300" height="179" but you have width="198" height="122" in your code for this one also. Don't use the height width tags to resize your images. I learned this the hard way.

Meg is right about Evolvement site. This is not good PR. It would probably be better to remove it or reword your statement even if it isn't true. I would remove it.

When I post my site you can go slam me. I used purple too.
Good Luck!

Yeah, you obviously have not tested in NS4.x because it's an absolute mess.

That font in the nav bar is not real legible. The color scheme doesn't do anything for me. Looks like you're going for retro/kitsch but that doesn't appeal to everyone and, IMO, doesn't convey professionalism about a site.

Overall, my gut reaction is to give it thumbs down. It does not entice or intrigue me or make me want to consider using your services. Plus it looks like dog-doo in NS and if I were a potential client viewing in NS, I'd hightail it outta there pronto.

It just doesn't look polished. The colours aren't too bad but not a combination I would have chosen and you need to choose a more professional looking, easy to read font for your links.

Graphics need to be much sharper and more professional looking. Graphics don't need to be huge to be good.

Definitely reword your blurbs on the portfolio and I found it annoying to have to either use the back button or click on portfolio again each time to get to the next client in the list. Talking of the list, why have you spaced it out like that???

Re-think the layout and then don't split the pages up so much. For example, I click on the 'My skills' link, then I have to click again to see the courses you have done, then go back, then click on other to get your actual skills. These could be combined in a much better way on one page.

Thanks everyone for looking.

The results finished something like

7 Thumbs up
13 Thumbs down

So, I will start again. I have a week off next week, so hopefully I will be able to come up with some decent designs then.

I have a few questions about some of your comments though.

Webmistress

"Definitely reword your blurbs on the portfolio"

Are my "descriptions" not good ? I thought they were fine.

disaster-master

"I visited the PembsDirect site and your logo is disappearing when you scroll. Didn't know if you knew that."

No I didn't, and im not quite sure what you mean. On PembsDirect.co.uk, when you scroll, the logo actually vanishes ?

And the pics, yeh I have been meaning to change the sizes , thanks for reminding me.

Busy

"is the UKWDA (United Kingdom Web Designers Association)"

Yes.

>>Thanks everyone for looking.

The results finished something like

7 Thumbs up
13 Thumbs down<<

Dude. You are the artist design it how you want it. Once you are happy with it that's all that matters. Of course if you are going to do this for a living and the cleint wants it designed a certain way then you must comply.

- Gavin

True, True,

But when it comes to designing my own sites, I just can't do it.

Is it just me ?

Quote: Originally posted by gavin681
You are the artist design it how you want it. Once you are happy with it that's all that matters.

To me it is a little bit of both. Design it the way you want but always get advice on the design. Other eyes catch things that your own glaze over. Some advice you get is just plain bad. Other advice may be from someone whose style is quite different from yours.

Quote: No I didn't, and im not quite sure what you mean. On PembsDirect.co.uk, when you scroll, the logo actually vanishes ?

When I loaded the pembs direct just then, the logo only showed up half way and when i scrolled down the page and then came back to the top it was completely gone. i saved the logo to my hard drive and it is width="260" height="72". You have it as width="260" height="71" in your code. I don't know if it is that one pixel difference in the height that is making it do that or not. maybe someone else can check and see if it is doing it on their computer.
the URL for PembsDirect site is
http://pembsdirect.hostingbetter.com/index.php if someone else wants to take a peek and see if is just my computer or if it is the height width tags. I sure don't want to send McPhilly on a wild goose chase.

Seems fine to me.... (mozilla 0.9.4)