New layout (not design)

I love it. Simple yet attractive/too the point. Sorry if I sound arrogant/wrong :)

A few things I'd change:

  • Do you just design websites for individuals/small companies? No-one else? What if someone came along who didn't fit that criteria? I had a nationwide train-boring company come ask me for help, and they probably wouldnt have come to me if I'd put that. Maybe just say "My name is Kevin and I design websites"?
  • Your links are to the page featured, but maybe you should include a smooth slide javascript file, to make people notice the rest of the content, and also make everything feel a little less rough?
  • On the lists where you state stuff like "how you do it" or whatever (just a suggestion, I know you haven't got round to it), how's about introducing a hover background color. Inparticular five second test - look how extra nice they've made their page look, just by introducing a bright background hover colour.
  • I don't know, maybe it wouldn't fit, but I'm trying to imagine a nice subtle piece of art at the top of the page, as I think the spacing is a bit too big. Even just a few nice squiggles with an uplifting bg colour again (as an interesting base) would do the trick I think, although the site does look great with the current simplicity. :)
Maybe that helps, maybe that doesn't, just some opinions as no-one else has seemed to comment!



Peace out Top hat man. :batman:
 
Good point on the quote. Should probably change that, all though "I design websites" sounds kind of tacky and unoriginal. And I already was planning to add a sliding effect, but I didn't feel like looking for a script at the time.

I'll work on a design throughout the week.
 
I like the simplicity of this.

My only real beef is the column width you've used for the text. You're averaging 20 - 30 words per line, which is double what you should have for comfortable reading. The large leading certainly helps, but I would look at splitting the main text into two columns – work to a two column grid, like you've done for the links. Your users' eyes will thank you for it.

Also, and this is more of a personal preference, does anyone really care that you use Photoshop? The whole How I do it bit seems arbitrary and superfluous to me. You can mention you're standards compliant in your intro if you feel that's necessary.
 
I agree with the auto scroll feature, its easy to get lost if a page is jumping around.

Where it's split into two columns (recent post / popular post) try and have them aligned, because one is lower than the other. so it looks a little messy, could just be a browser issue though. Maybe have a gap at the bottom as well, its a pet peeve of mine when text scrapes along the bottom of a page. Its looking really good though! add some colour too, i would chuck loads in, just a little splash to brighten it up.
 
I noticed how the lists don't line up, but I'm not sure why. I've decided to make a separate category for "Blog". And I also have a vague idea as to what I should do with the design.
 
Okay I updated the design. It still has some major flaws.

  • The header image needs to get a fixed position
  • Not sure about the yellow...
  • Still need to integrate a scrolling effect
  • And I'm going to make my About heading change (Refresh button) to some funny stuff (because it's the first heading of the site.
 
I really dont like the yellow and purple. And something about that fixed side nav...it feels kinda weird. The text was laid out nice in the first design, with the dashed dividers.
 
Lol my dashed lines are still there but they're still the same color as before :p
I'll fix that -.-

And I think/hope that the nav will look less weird when only the content will be moving (and disappearing behind the header).
 
The header Image is nice. But I really don't like the yellow/purple colour combination either. And I have to agree with jHouse on the fixed nav. Perhaps it'll work better when you make the header fixed as well.

I also think the body area is too wide for the header. I would suggest making the header image wider or having a Horisontal nav instead to decrease the width of the body. Additionally I feel that there's too much space between the header and the body. So again you could try horisontal nav or just move the content up a bit?

Hope that helps!
 
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