Your Thoughts Please

Welcome to TWF! I'm glad you like the colour scheme Incidentally, when I first did the design I had different mock-ups in blue, red, and purple (which I thought looked really cool but Chad didn't like so well ). We decided that red was more interesting, and I think it provides a nice, friendly atmosphere to the site.

Your site, while it does seem very functional as you say, could use a little spicing up as far as graphics and visuals go. The logo, for example, is really very boring. At least try a more interesting looking font for that. Those bright red boxes are a problem as well... that colour doesn't work well with the darker red IMO, and the drop shadow isn't working with the flat look of the text. Overall I think the colour scheme could use a little refinement - that pale yellow with blue links isn't wowing me either.

Oh, and we'd appreciate it if you could help us out and review some other sites.

Thanks for the suggestions and while I read them and looked I agree. Thanks for being an extra set of eyes.

Spidey

hey Spidey - yer site looks good! - some of the alignments and background colors aren't quite working in Netscape (4 or 6) - do you have these browsers on yer machine? - if not, I can give you some details or screenshots

I think I could help you improve the text when you, as you say, "add in the content" :coolblock

Yes, I thought the text was a little on the wordy side (get to the point!) but I guess you'll deal with that later.

Quote: some of the alignments and background colors aren't quite working in Netscape (4 or 6) - do you have these browsers on yer machine?

No I do not have any Netscape browsers on my PC yet. My old one recently died and my new one is running Windows XP Pro and I am not sure if Netscape (the older versions at least) will run correctly.
If anyone is Running XP and has Netscape 4 and 6 running correctly please let me know and I will install them.

mmi if you can give me some more details and screenshots I would be very appreciative.

Quote: Yes, I thought the text was a little on the wordy side (get to the point!) but I guess you'll deal with that later.

Yeah I know they are wordy, I will be getting more direct once I get the design complete and working in most browsers.

mmi I just installed Netscape 6.21 and yep the colors and layout are not working correctly. Jeez I tested this in anybrowser.com and it was working in all of their tests. I guess NN is its own creation and has different rules, thanks Netscape. LOL

Thanks for pointing this out to me, looks I have some work to do.

Spidey

I agree that it could do with a bit of spicing up and that the reds don't go together well.

Like the ohters, I like the site, because I Like simple websites. Maybe a little more spicing up like small graphics mixed with your content like business people, just a thought.

Thanks everyone for your help, I understand what needs to be done to make the site better. If anyone else still has comments please let me know because it all helps.

Well off to Photoshop I go. hehe

Spidey

With 4 browsers, I have 4 slighty different views

oldest to newest:
NS4.7 - the page has a black background width wide grey borders and line break (hr's), the text one the side columns are on the borders (middle section is ok), becaiuse the background is black, the copyright text is unreadable. the search box pushs the width out as well, on 800x600 the other browsers end under the z on the top banner, NS4.7 ends at the p of promotion,

IE5 - I think it was made for this browser, everything lines up fine

NS6 - white background, wide dark grey borders and hr's like NS4.7, side text against the edge

Opera6 - same as IE except the grey lines dont show up, as if you were using noshade in the hr tag,

I primarily use IE6, have checked with NN6.21 and things line up fairly well. I don't have NN4.7 installed so thanks for the heads up. I am currently in a total redesign and once done I hope to get everything in most browsers looking the same.

Thanks for the help

Spidey

Hey I think the layout of your site and everything is good, seems pretty easy to navigate. I'm not really even worried about more graphics or anything becasue it seems the majority of your viewers will be web-designers or wanna-bees
so they will be expecting to read, not play.

However, because you site will posibbly be on that your users will spend most of the time reading you may want to enlarge that main body text a little and widen the main text area.

I might also suggest setting the background color of that area to something less white, I think I went crosseyed after reading a couple of paragraphs! Even the slightest color adjustment can cause a big difference.

Good work overall.

Quote: With 4 browsers, I have 4 slighty different views

BUSY I have played around with the current design a little. could you please check it again in those browsers ad see if there is any changes?

I know there is a code to use to keep the form search box from expanding but at the moment I am at a loss. You at 0px 0px or something like that but I will have to do a little refresher to remember.

krash_io, I have added an off white to the middle section and expamded it slighty so please have a look and tell me if that helps?

My eyes are not the greatest so seeing colors, well is pretty hard, so can you all look and tell me if the RED links goes whith the yellowish navigation bar?

If they don't work can you give me a suggestion or two? I am using CSS so changing the colors takes about a second.

I have just done these basic changed until I get the ite redesigned because I am getting some traffic and would like those visitors to keep coming back.

I appreciate all of your help,

Spidey

Yeah I think that looks better. I don't know if anyone else has a problem reading large ammounts of text on a white background but it sure bothers me. Of course I'm on a computer at least 10 hours a day. Maybe thats my problem!

Either, I like it. I think its a litte eaiser to read.

Krash_io

recipebomb.com

NS4.7 - still a black background, and form width to wide
check your cells/tags that have a black background, are these al closed, have you used a black bgcolor in any main tr cells? I had a quick look at your code and found two empty td cells with black bgcolor, use   in them and add a class="smlgap" tag (name to suit) and in your style tag/sheet make that class a 8px font size, other wise the   will make the cell to wide
see this thread http://www.webmaster-forums.com/showthread.php?threadid=16821 for resizing your form width.

NS6 - same as IE except a slight gap under the brown top section, (probably looks better than IE now)

Opera - same as IE but the colored hr's are colored, are clear lines - look ok, you'd get away with it

even thou they have a few slight differences, no one is going to be looking at your site in 2 or 3 different browsers, but even if they did it would probably be different days/ systems and wouldnt notice the slight differences.

not sure about your link colors, the red is a bit bright, maybe a darker red? or maybe a dark grey since you have a light grey in the center, oops just noticed you have underlined text, try not to make the active or visited links to dark or people could get confused

Quote: I was reading some of the text and found that when you look at text that spaced out sometimes you get the effect of lines in between (like that illusion of blue dots inside a grid of black squares). Maybe it's just my monitor but you should check it out.

Chuck I apologize for the delay in responding I have a nasty flu that has laid me up in bed for a while. I am still sick but your post had me take a closer look at things and I have made some changes. Have a look and tell me if things are better?

Busy, yeah I know what you are talking about with that black box. I am currently doing a complete redesign so I think I can get by with leaving well enough alone until it's completed. Luckily right now most visitors are using IE so I am ok for the moment.

Thanks for your comments and now its back to bed.

Spidey