[tim710]

Before I convert this to wordpress, can I have some critique on the design?

Thanks.

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State College Web Design | State College SEO | Brambling Design

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[w1sh]

A similar problem I'm having with my portfolio design is the spacing between your nav links and your nav icons. Make it consistent, yet stay to a grid.

Speaking of grids, your nav AND header are both off. Try switching that bird and your header around.

Black bird against black bg. :\

Beige seems too dark. Lighten it up or try a light blue.

[Maerk]

Is Your Logo Big Enough

Other than that, mostly the same points as w1sh, the whole nav/title/logo area feels rather confused. And i'm not a huge fan of the icons on your navigation either, home being a house sure, portfolio being folder *yawn*, services being... a wireframe of a globe? erm ok and contact being a speech bubble. they smoothly fade and what not but the lines breaking up the buttons are so faint, it looks a bit awkward as the text is left aligned and the icon is right aligned.

Spell technologies right, nothing says you use cutting edge technologies like not having a browser with a spell checker installed.

Infact your blurb is actually rather offensive, unless you're competing directly with template sites (cheapppppp), your implication is most other designers out there are producing template based websites. Which simply isn't the case.

[teapoted]

We love Wordpress. We use cutting edge technoledgies

Ohr weeeary?



","

As for the actual design... The header is a complete mess. The space between the title and the ugly bird illustration is off, the space between the navigation and the unnecessary icons is off. The logo in general doesn't fit in with the rest of the design.

[DKuntz2]

I like the professinal original, because you're not making the icons, you're just using them. Very original.

I agree with Maerk, make the logo smaller.

[teapoted]

Why the hell would someone make icons when there's loads of high quality free use ones. Doesn't help anyone if you have a bunch of badly made icons.

[Maerk]

Have to say it does make me sometimes question the skills of an agency if they're using essentially clip art for their own site, most agencies I know of wouldn't use icons on their own sites at all, or would make their own.

I suppose the exception being things like the famfamfam silk icons which crop up everywhere really.

But I might be a bit jaded after seeing lots of sites posted in showcase lately which have absolutely no design skill but have slapped some glossy free icons in as demonstration of their abilities. (not actually suggesting this site is one of those, but it is rather flawed currently)

[teapoted]

Well these icons aren't especially fitting either way.

But if you're going to use icons and you're not an amazing illustrator/pixelpainter it's always better to use the free sets. On most sites I don't really see the reasoning behind having the text "and" the icon anyway, what's the point?

[Maerk]

I suppose, but I'm all in favour of nothing at all, or for very sparing use of icons. Like you say, sometimes its entirely redundant, I get the feeling sometimes because they find them for free, people want to force them in to a design and it doesn't compliment it.

[teapoted]

I feel like you realized I forced them into my blog design =P

[Maerk]

Hehe well that doesn't look quite finished yet as it is

[tim710]

Updated

[grafikkid]

It has great potential. I agree with most of the comments above, especially the one regarding the size of your logo.

Also, pay attention to contrast. I don't think the white on lime green works very well. Either pick a different color or make your strokes/dividers thicker. The bird image gets lost in the BG as well.

[DKuntz2]

do you really need to say wordpress as a cms, everybody does it, why is it so special that you do it?

[tim710]

Originally Posted by DKuntz2

do you really need to say wordpress as a cms, everybody does it, why is it so special that you do it?

Because most people use wordpress as a blogging platform over a cms, and I don't want them to be thinking I'm just a blog theme designer. And I have yet to see a design you've come up with using wordpress as more than a blog with a few pages.

Originally Posted by teapoted

Ohr weeeary?



","

As for the actual design... The header is a complete mess. The space between the title and the ugly bird illustration is off, the space between the navigation and the unnecessary icons is off. The logo in general doesn't fit in with the rest of the design.

Hmm, I suppose that is fairly hypocritical. I'll see to changing it. It is kind of strange though, as it does what I need. Making a whole new icon seems to be unnecessary, but I'll try. I've redone the header, resized the bird illustration, and gotten rid of the top icons. What do you think?

[Higher Ground]

looks solid. I reckon the navigation would be good if the squares indented like buttons but its all cool

[DKuntz2]

But you ARE a blog designer. It doesn't matter what you use wordpress for, you're still doing the same thing when designing it. Just because you haven't seen something doesn't mean it exists.

Technically a blog is a form of a cms, so it doesn't matter what you call yourself.

[teapoted]

Someones got sand in their kunt. He can call it what he wants, a lot of people know how to use wordpress.

[DKuntz2]

yeah, but he's talking like it's super special. It's not.

[Maerk]

Originally Posted by DKuntz2

yeah, but he's talking like it's super special. It's not.

Of the two bits of text on his site, you object to him rambling about Wordpress but I'm the only one thinking he's actually insulting the entire industry with the implication all of their competitors are using templates and barely using any creative thought?

But I'm assuming the text is all going to change he's still not fixed the spelling of technologies.