Website Design & Business Card Critique

Adam

Senior Member
Hey all

This is my first real post here, i've been waiting to introduce myself until I have everything re-designed and ready, but ideally I want fellow professional opinions on my work so took the plunge and decided to put it up now.

My current website is Kudosis - print marketing logo branding services - based in Chichester West Sussex which has been running since June last year, for some reason I still get about 2000hits a month even though I haven't updated it much at all.
The site was put together because a friend of mine who is a web designer offered to make it for me for free so I had an online portfolio. I came up with the logotype and name randomly as I used to go by my own name but swayed away from it as I wanted one name that I could use when I finally take the plunge and go freelance full time.
As i'm not looking more seriously into working for myself as a freelancer i've been getting more into sorting out a logotype I love and the website to accompany it.

I've been playing with logotypes lately and when looking through fonts I remembered how much I loved the one I now use (Museo) in my new logo. It's a made up name so I don't use any sort of image with my logo.

Below is my new design for the site i've knocked up today, I personally love it and can see myself sticking with this for a long time, and i'll obviously update it more due to liking it more, so basically i'd like peoples opinions on it please.

It can be found here: http://www.kudosis.co.uk/Kudosis_Website.png
The white space will feature a new project every week or 2, if it has multiple slides i'll use a jQuery easy slider for it to flick through the slides.

My main problem is I have no idea about web coding, so would need to look at getting it made or learn CSS/XHTML whilst going along to make it myself.

Anyway i've rambled on enough! Honest critiques please, i'm used to it day in day out in the studio I work at.

Regards,
Adam
 
TBH I really don't like the blues or the grey in either, they seem to dominating.

On the first link as well, it's quite hard to read your navigation as there's grey on grey on blue on grey, which doesn't really help me get anywhere.

I do like your site layout though, I just think the colours are a bit too dominating for me, they should be toned down just a lil in my view.

HTH
 
Hey Tim

Thanks for the reply, i'm not sure if you read the whole thread properly or not but the first link is my current site, which I don't like already as I know its not very attractive. It's the main second link I was looking for help with, so do you mean you don't like the grey copy in the blue box?
I want something quite bold as thats the look i'm aiming for, not really looking at pastel/dull colours for the time being. I think the colour palette of blue/orange/white and greys work quite well, but maybe should look at changing the grey type on the blue to a black or white?

Cheers,
Adam
 
apologies, skim reading failed me once more!

okay, the new site. What i meant by the blue was that it's quite a heavy blue compared to the light orange, but I do like the layout. TBH I think the only thing about the blue that makes me say this, is the testimonial font colour, but that could be easily altered as I think if you made it as the lighter blue in the gradient of the box, the testimonial font, it'd be less demanding, and easier to digest.

sorry if that made no sense. been staring at my mac all day and my mind's going numb!
 
Skim reading always lets me down, its a bad habit!

I know what you mean about the testimonial bit though, i think i'm going to drop the font size considerably and have two testimonials showing at a time, it shouldn't be as intrusive then!
 
I personally much prefer the first design. I would probably just wack your nice new logo up on that design.

The other one lacks the interest of the first I think!
 
I knew someone would say that sooner or later! :D a lot of people say they like the current one, but the thing is I don't, so I guess for me to enjoy updating and running it I have to use a design I like otherwise it won't be up to date etc.

I don't think the new logotype would fit in the current style website, as it's a bit to modern for that old design. The style i was going for in this one was a friendly, spacious design for when people look at it.

I've also made the decision to show my work in big images and no thumbnails people have to click to see my work. I read an interesting article about portfolios and someone reviewed about 100 of them, some of the points brought up were interesting.
 
I totally agree, Ive never thought thumbnails are suitable for a GRAPHICS showcase. hi ad by the way :p
 
Hey bren, before you go away I need to get the contact for the coder you use, get him to quote me for the website build!

I've removed the testimonial section and put a contact details section on it s I want my details on the front page as someone views it as well as a page they can click to.
I've also changed the colour of the grey text on the feature box to a lighter grey so its easier to read on the eyes.

What's peoples thoughts on this new one?
http://www.kudosis.co.uk/Kudosis_Website.png
 
I like it but it's not something I would like to be browsing for more than 5 minutes. So my advice is to set up a different layout for other pages, by moving and transforming your blue box for example. Another thing I noticed is that the text from the featured project seemed badly aligned with the news paragraph below, but when I put a ruler next to it it was perfectly aligned. But I was annoyed by the fact that they seemed off. Anyone else have that?

Welcome to :coffee:
 
Hey onartis, thanks for the new input

I think it look uneven because of the blue box which goes wider than the text, its an optical thing.

I do plan on having the other pages nice and simple, my portfolio page will have the different headings at the top (print/banding/web/other) etc, which will have a scroll down/go to effect when clicked to go to the chosen section. They will be neatly shown with no fancy effects, I don't want anything to be distracted from the design of the pieces.

Pretty much the same on the other pages too, if a blue box is needed to highlight a certain area then it will be different size/location to the front page so that the person browsing doesn't get bored.

Why would you not browse it for more than 5 minutes? Or do you mean just the index page?

Cheers
Adam
 
OK I had another look at your new site - and at first - I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what you do.

Apart from the services section - you need to make it much more obvious what you do.

Also! Welcome to
coffee.gif
:D
 
Haha funny you should say that jHouse, I noticed I hadn't added anything like that earlier, I have added it onto the latest design but its with my friend who is coding it at the moment. So that is currently sorted, I have Creative Design Solutions stacked on top of each other at the end of the kudosis logotype, hard to explain but i'm sure you'll see soon enough when its beta is uploaded!
 
Unfortunately not mate, I live down the road in Bognor Regis, but I work in Chichester and spend most of my time here!

Where do you work or are you freelance? Or do you work up in London?

Update on the site: My friend knocked together the front page for me last night, it's currently uploaded here http://www.kudosis.co.uk/ - Creative design solutions - the navigation isn't finished yet, i don't like how it views on PC as the Arial looks crap compared to helvetica, so i'm thinking of using images from my PSD instead so i can set the tracking how I want etc. Then add some better rollover and active effects to it.
 
Hey mate,
That website of yours is starting to look alright!
A few comments, if may I.
I think the blue header is too prominent and will distract people from what they should be looking: your work! You should rather use the area for a larger images ...perhaps (if you don't want to change the colour) reducing the size to something a little smaller would help.
IMO you should try to get rid of the blue, going for a more neutral colour.
The rest of the UI looks fine. the ratio between titles and paragraphs is nice but maybe your navigation is a little lost...
One thing that I noticed is that if you want to skip taking photos of your printed work, maybe you should photoshop them a bit more...

I hope this would help : )
Keep the good work!
 
Hey Mike

Thanks for your input, much appreciated!

I know what you mean about the navigation, it's still not 100% for me, i'm going to try and tackle it a bit later and see if I can get something a bit better. I'm still unsure of what to do about the blue, i quite like it, but then I obviously have a biased opinion. I wanted to go for a bold approach, but maybe the blue is a bit to bright, i'm not really sure. I might build the site a bit more and see how I live with it for a week before deciding.

Ha ha to tell the truth mate, I haven't photo'd any of my current work on kudosis.co.uk, its all been photoshopped to look like it has been photo'd now i'm not sure what that says about my photoshop skills whether its a compliment or not ha ha!

Thanks again!
Adam

*edit* one last thing, obviously when I actually use slides of my work I can gauge how it looks better. My plan is to have 3 slides per piece, 1 close up of it to make a big impact for frame 1, then frame 2 have it more visible and then frame 3 have it mocked up in how it has been used etc.
 
No problem mate... happ to collaborate.

About the blue, I'm pretty sure that you should figure out better what you think is best once the work is in there. Best thing is to give it a go, and make a choice then.

About the images, I think you got me worng. What I was trying to say (sorry about the poor English) was that the ones on your previos site looked too much as an illustrator file, and maybe procesing them a little more with photoshop (adding some lighting, texture, grain, and perhaps depth of field) you may achive a more atractive result.

Cheers,
Mike
 
Ahhh I get what you mean now Mike, yeah thats definitely my plan for now, thats what I wish I done ages ago when my first site was set up. I'll be using different styles/effects to give it a better feel, I can imagine how boring it could be looking at images on a white background constantly.

With regards to the blue, tonight i'll try and update it slightly with the club poster that it mentions, to see how it works. I may also upload the design for my business card as well, to see peoples opinions on it!

Cheers,
Adam
 
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