Critique for my updated website

[GilmoreVisuals]

Hi guys,

I recently finished updating my website (new design and content) and was wondering if you could critique or comment on what you think about it (honestly)

Link to the site: Freelance Graphic Designer | Home | Gilmore Visuals
Thanks in advance.

[Corrosive]

The site looks OK but, tables? Really?? Also phrases like 'Freelance Graphic Designer' really should be in header (h1 - h6) tags. Your page semantics need a lot of work I'm afraid.

[Dave L]

It all looks a bit 'big' for my taste. Also dislike the logo font in the navigation menu.

[pcbranding]

I think you need to keep your typefaces in the same family and choose 2 or 3 different sizes to work across everything. I"m not a web person, but visually there's too much going on.

I also agree that everything is generally a little on the large side. Take it all down by 12-15%

I think the logo/and pattern and navigation is just ok - it's everything underneath that needs some consideration.
Get rid of the bars under SERVICES AVAILABLE and RECENT UPLOADS.

Get your testimonials up onto the navigation section. They're a bit lost at the end of ABOUT.

PORTFOLIO has a 'T' in it.

:)

[Corrosive]

Sorry, just noticed as well you have gaps in your URLs. You need to break words up with hyphens or underscores or you get;

http://gilmorevisuals.co.uk/logo%20designs.html

with 20% in the middle of it!

[GilmoreVisuals]

@Corrosive, Yeah, I have never studied web design etc so I ended up making it all in DW just to make it look as good as I could... the problem with this is not being able to align everything together perfectly and other small problems like that.

I just started graphic design last year at 16yrs old, so web design is still no where close to good - I followed a few tutorials off youtube and thats all the teaching I have received.

@PCBranding, I don't think it's too busy, in comparison with 95% of sites that have lots of text/images flashing around... even this site has more things going around.

@DaveL, I would agree with you - I think I should also make the font the same as all the rest of my text area.


Thanks for these tips so far guys, do appreciate them all.

[Corrosive]

@Corrosive, Yeah, I have never studied web design etc so I ended up making it all in DW just to make it look as good as I could... the problem with this is not being able to align everything together perfectly and other small problems like that.

I just started graphic design last year at 16yrs old, so web design is still no where close to good - I followed a few tutorials off youtube and thats all the teaching I have received.

Problem with YT tutorials is there are a lot of bad practices on there. If you want to learn web then try W3Schools Online Web Tutorials for the basics and then Web development tutorials, from beginner to advanced | Nettuts+ for some layout tutorials. Try the 'From Scratch' tutorial set on nettuts.

Also DW has some built-in CSS layouts you can use as a starting point as well. You will find tables very hard to get right because they are the wrong tool for the job.

I started with tables some years ago and wish I hadn't. I wasted a lot of learning time. If I had the opportunity to start again then I'd go straight in and learn CSS based layouts.

[GilmoreVisuals]

Yeah - I get what you mean. Its just that im focusing on graphic design rather than web design... i nearly wish I had bought an online web domain that I can easily automatically create my site, rather than having to go into all codes etc. Well, if i ever re-design my site (which would be for a 3rd time :P) then ill definitely base it on a CSS layout. Cheers.

[Boss Hog]

Wordpress is the other option, looks professional, can easily be skinned and is easy to manage...I don't know why more designers don't go down this route, the amount of times Graphic Designers come on here with a website they have knocked together as they have no coding skills and they just end up with something looking crap, why? (not saying your site is as I haven't even looked at it, talking in general)

Anyone serious to succeed in business...especially someone offering design as a service needs to have a website that is up to scratch as they stand no chance otherwise, hence wordpress is a fail proof solution really. In fact lets face it, to have a coder chop up a PSD file and code it allowing the display of a portfolio and contact information will literally only cost £200-£300, a small investment for any serious business.

As mentioned not even looked at your site and was going more on some of the members responses to your critique request, just wanted to give you some other options...

[pcbranding]

Good advice Boss Hogg.
Wordpress and it's like are fantastic as they are designed to handle content. Choose one of the thousands of themes either free of a few dollars and your site looks good from the start.

Then once it is up and running, spend time making it your own by tweaking the finer details that the original theme may not have had in order to get it just right.