Trying new design. Please give me feedback

They have: 50 posts

Joined: Oct 2001

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Hmmm... they're not that much different. I tend to prefer the blue colour myself (but lose that shadow on the right side). I also like the logo better in the position it's in on this page.

I would try making those left side links just a little bigger, and replace that amputated leg picture with a full picture of the founder (you?). So the reader can see that he/she is being spoken to by a real person not just part of one Wink

They have: 50 posts

Joined: Oct 2001

I'm working on a totally new menu in Adobe Photoshop. But this will take some time. I want to keep it simple but still "professional".

The blue sides are kind off more consistent regarding the logo. Thats why I'm trying this colour.

br
Tor-Andre Skogland
founder of TAS Foundation
http://www.tasfoundation.org

Busy's picture

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Megans right again, blue is better and full picture would be good (Is she ever wrong?)

you could add a drop shadow border on the left side as well (even top and bottom) in tables layout (or frames if you must)

Frames is another thing I'd query, do you really need them?
I wouldnt use todays date on your pages, having an updated date is ok, but we all know (even me) what time and day it is, plus its static so is useless (doesnt update itself)

you have a smily face :- ) but appears on two lines, like:

:-
)

either use a graphic face or none at all, at first i thought the ) was a end bracket.

"simple but professional", I think you'll find simple is professional as well, the thing you want is 'clean'

They have: 50 posts

Joined: Oct 2001

I've changed the picture and done some minor adjustments. Don't look at the menu, it will be quite different when finished.

http://www.tasfoundation.org/test/index.html

br
Tor-Andre Skogland
founder of TAS Foundation
http://www.tasfoundation.org

disaster-master's picture

She has: 2,154 posts

Joined: May 2001

I like the blue one best. The colors work better and I think that the picture of you is better too. The picture of you (i guess that is you) gives the site a person to "connect with" first instead of the leg. You could put that picture on another page.

Can't wait to see what you do with the menu.Wink

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

Definietly better for being blue and nice picture, always good to see a face behind something like this. The only thing I would add now is to make the main text veranda (or arial) as at the moment it looks rough being left as default.

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

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Joined: Oct 2001

The remaking off all the pages to Verdana,Arial,Helvetica font in that order are being done. But takes time.

I'm uncertain if I should use the same as headline or have the headlines Arial,Verdana,Helvetica. In that order?? comments???

Will finish this remaking of fonts first and then remake the pages with the blue colours. Friends that I have e-mailed about this agrees with you folks. The blue is better.

Then the work has to be done about the menu. The problem is that we have many links on the menu. But I've been thinking out some elements how I want it to turn out when it's finished. But I will probably need another month on this work. Have just gotten a litte baby girl on sunday. And We have two kids 3 and 1 1/2 years old from before so it's kind of hectic here.

br
Tor-Andre Skogland
founder of TAS Foundation
http://www.tasfoundation.org

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Well congratulations on your new baby! What's her name? Seems like everyone's having more kids around here lately Wink

Why don't you just use an external stylesheet for your fonts? Then you can write one file, place a link to it in all the others (a search and replace could do this for you) and you wouldn't have to go through and change everything.

One more thing - do not use two different fonts from the same category on the same page. I will be writing an article about this shortly - don't use two different sans serifs, like arial and verdana in the same design.

They have: 50 posts

Joined: Oct 2001

Her name is Melissa Ellinor.

I tried what you suggested with css to make only one file with fonts. I was not satisfied with that. Maybe I did something wrong. Might try again.

So you mean that the header and the text should be the same font? Hmmm

I've learnt that the headers always should be grotesk and the text something like times new roman. But that was if you were writing for printing not for web.

Why do I use these three fonts verdana,arial,helvetica? Because the pages then will be shown in all browsers. These three fonts make the pages turn up in every browser if I'm supposed to beleave the html validators out there.

br
Tor-Andre Skogland
founder of TAS Foundation
http://www.tasfoundation.org

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

The fonts you chose doesn't really affect whether or not the pages will show up - it just defines how they will look AFAIK. What happens is that when you define a list like "verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif" the browser will first look on the users machine for verdana - if it's there, the text will show up in verdana, if it's not the browser will look for helvetica and so on. Adding that sans-serif on the end just tells the browser that if verdana, helvetica and arial are not on the user's machine, just use whatever the default sans-serif is. You can use whatever fonts you want in there really - you just have to be aware of how likely it is that those fonts are installed on the users' machine. It's pretty safe to assume that all of your users will have one of verdana, helvetica or arial.

What does vary beteween browsers, and more dramatically between operating systems is the size of the text. The only way AFAIK that you can get a consistent rendering of text sizes across operating systems is to use a stylesheet and define your sizes using pixels. Using the relative sizing built into HTML you'll see a lot of variations - things will look smaller on mac or linux, for example, than they would in windows. You'll also have complications if users have used their browser to increase or decrease the font size from the default.

In print you normally would use a different font for headers as opposed to body text. Usually they'll use a sans-serif for headers and a serif for text. The problem is that on a screen serif text looks bad and is hard to read, so it's better to stick to sans-serif for body text. Now you've got headers and body text both in a sans-serif. What I was saying is that in any kind design it's a bad idea to use two differnt fonts *from the same family* - it's okay to use a serif and a sans-serif together, not okay to use two *different* sans-serif fonts in the same design. When I write that aritcle I'll put up some examples so you can see what I'm talking bout.

There's a lot more I could say about this but I think I'll leave that to my article if and when I get around to writing it.

taff's picture

They have: 956 posts

Joined: Jun 2001

uh oh - in the minority again.

I prefer the "peachy" colours over the blue. With a consistent sans-serif font, new graphics and navigation, this would look quite nice.

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They have: 50 posts

Joined: Oct 2001

Do you think the white background should be used under the text if the peachy colour stay? Or would you prefer like now that the whole page is peachy?

br
Tor-Andre Skogland
founder of TAS Foundation
http://www.tasfoundation.org

taff's picture

They have: 956 posts

Joined: Jun 2001

Tor:

Yes, probably white would be a better background colour. I don't have a problem with your current colour background. I just find that white invariably works better.

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