B Site - Redesign

GibbonIt

GibbonIt

Member
Hi Guys.
I am happy with my current personal site, but I am working on a new one for my design studio itself, with my little team. I want the website to include some unique features, like the slide out menu (screenshot coming soon). I also loved the social pop out on the left Sean used for LA Designs, so for this initial concept, I used my own version of it. Feedback on the initial design and layout will be appreciated. I know it is clearly work in progress and is not too refined, but would like your opinions as it develops. I appreciate it may not be to everyone liking in terms of style and layout, so try and keep an open mind :)
Thanks
Ben
3hZgc.png
 
Hey Ben!
Nice concept with an original color palette. Geometrical figures always speak design to me, so the visual communication is there.
  • I would stick to the exagons rather than using a second shape such as the circle. You can distinguish the various areas by changing the exagon size or alternating an outlined version with a filled one. i would use the shape also for the social icons!
  • As an alternative, try a different shape for each area. In that case don't use exagons because it is already integrated in your logo. Use squares for social icons, diamonds for the rest, since these figures can be considered portions of an exagon. Make sense?
  • There is something that bothers me with the font used on the bottom-left. Maybe it is not very legible at this size because the strokes are thin, but on the other hand the actual website is going to be bigger. I would try a different font in any case;
  • You might consider a fourth color to add to your palette together with the two shades of green and the neutral gray. It could be a complementary color to use in the 30% of the design.
 
Gianluca Teti said:
Hey Ben!
Nice concept with an original color palette. Geometrical figures always speak design to me, so the visual communication is there.
  • I would stick to the exagons rather than using a second shape such as the circle. You can distinguish the various areas by changing the exagon size or alternating an outlined version with a filled one. i would use the shape also for the social icons!
  • As an alternative, try a different shape for each area. In that case don't use exagons because it is already integrated in your logo. Use squares for social icons, diamonds for the rest, since these figures can be considered portions of an exagon. Make sense?
  • There is something that bothers me with the font used on the bottom-left. Maybe it is not very legible at this size because the strokes are thin, but on the other hand the actual website is going to be bigger. I would try a different font in any case;
  • You might consider a fourth color to add to your palette together with the two shades of green and the neutral gray. It could be a complementary color to use in the 30% of the design.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the quick and detailed feedback. I pretty much agree with everything you've said looking at it again, so thanks. I'm not really that web design/develop orientated at the moment (need to get back with the game soon), and I do the graphic design on the team, so am used to using thin fonts for print, so sometimes get carried away :p but I understand your point, so will definitely experiment further. Thanks for the feedback. Will see about a revision after a couple more comments/other views.
NB: I get what you mean about the shapes, but don't want to overload the use of the hexagon, but may look into your second shape bulletpoint further :)
Cheers :)
 
Honestly the first thing I thought when I saw the picture without reading any text was that it was 'inspired' by Sean's LA design site.... is that a good thing I'm not so sure.

I don't like the couple of odd drop shadows, lose them and you'd have a more cohesive 'flat' design, those shadows just seem out of place with the rest of the styling. Also don't know why you've got that odd grey 'menu' button, it just doesn't correlate to anything else.

I do like the idea of using hexagons (or as I seem to see them a 3d cube) as the 'icon shape' so if it was me I'd lose the circles and just go with them as Gianluca said.

To me the hierarchy of the page seems off on the homepage, you've got that block of text bottom left that I feel should be higher up, it might be due to the mix of font sizes, with this bit being larger, that seems to give it more prominence over some of the other text and this makes me think it should be higher up the page. Also why is the darkest green at the bottom and lighter one or the lightest at the top, for me it seems upside down.

Personally I would NEVER EVER put I've done freebies onto a business page.... seriously bad move in my opinion as you will get no end of people wanting freebies or 'reduced rates'.
 
You mean "freebies" as in give aways or free downloads such as say a font or whatever.
If not I'd be inclined to agree with that fella above.
^^^^him^^^^
Nice clean design though. :D
 
I personally think it's a good start although not too keen on the green-only colours. I would say that people (ie: potential clients) would need to be instantly interested in your work, rather than a set of icons (which do look nice, I have to say!)
Maybe show some of your work that a client would need. I know it would be in your portfolio but hey, we only have a few sec to grab people's attention and if a nice clean design example is going to persuade a potential client to click on that piece and start looking through your other work then you are already starting to win them over ;)
 
Levi said:
Honestly the first thing I thought when I saw the picture without reading any text was that it was 'inspired' by Sean's LA design site.... is that a good thing I'm not so sure.

I don't like the couple of odd drop shadows, lose them and you'd have a more cohesive 'flat' design, those shadows just seem out of place with the rest of the styling. Also don't know why you've got that odd grey 'menu' button, it just doesn't correlate to anything else.

I do like the idea of using hexagons (or as I seem to see them a 3d cube) as the 'icon shape' so if it was me I'd lose the circles and just go with them as Gianluca said.

To me the hierarchy of the page seems off on the homepage, you've got that block of text bottom left that I feel should be higher up, it might be due to the mix of font sizes, with this bit being larger, that seems to give it more prominence over some of the other text and this makes me think it should be higher up the page. Also why is the darkest green at the bottom and lighter one or the lightest at the top, for me it seems upside down.

Personally I would NEVER EVER put I've done freebies onto a business page.... seriously bad move in my opinion as you will get no end of people wanting freebies or 'reduced rates'.
Click to expand...
The only thing that I utilised from Sean site was the social icons on the side, the rest was improved and added on from a design earlier in the year :)
scotty said:
You mean "freebies" as in give aways or free downloads such as say a font or whatever.
If not I'd be inclined to agree with that fella above.
^^^^him^^^^
Nice clean design though. :D
Click to expand...
Thanks for the feedback - taken on board. With regards to freebies, I do mean a few fonts I have created etc. so perhaps I need to reword that :)

GilmoreVisuals said:
I personally think it's a good start although not too keen on the green-only colours. I would say that people (ie: potential clients) would need to be instantly interested in your work, rather than a set of icons (which do look nice, I have to say!)
Maybe show some of your work that a client would need. I know it would be in your portfolio but hey, we only have a few sec to grab people's attention and if a nice clean design example is going to persuade a potential client to click on that piece and start looking through your other work then you are already starting to win them over ;)
Click to expand...
Thanks, I do want to look into some work on the front page, so on my next revision will look into this too.
 
""With regards to freebies, I do mean a few fonts I have created etc. so perhaps I need to reword that :)""
^^^I knew that^^^ :D
 
Nice layout Ben. *cough*
I have that DF logo in vector format if anyone wants it, I'll put it on the forums for download at some point.
 
Sean Lee-Amies said:
Nice layout Ben. *cough*
I have that DF logo in vector format if anyone wants it, I'll put it on the forums for download at some point.
Click to expand...
I'll happily change the layout if you want. :) I felt the only component like your redesign was the social tabs, which I absolutely loved on your concept. It'd be great if you could pop up a df logo vector too :)
Cheers
 
Looks very good, agree with everybody else the hexagons are good but I would loose the circles

I like the statistics part adds some good info and some light heartedness making you seem easier to approach

the hire me button looks really out of place I think it would look better at the top of the page on the top bar

The contact page looks good like the budget slider, would make the service selector the same width as everything else and maybe put the text above the menu as the default text in the box replacing 'select service'

I think its look very good though and look forward to seeing the next stages of the build

in regards to the freebies im adding the same feature to my portfolio but going to call the page downloads sharing some fonts and some desktop backgrounds

R
 
I'm not a huge fan of the green only colour scheme but that would probably be offset by the colour images of your other projects on the homepage.
I don't like the stats, it's been done a lot better
I like the shapes and I like the idea of the slider of the contact page.
 
wac said:
I'm not a huge fan of the green only colour scheme but that would probably be offset by the colour images of your other projects on the homepage.
I don't like the stats, it's been done a lot better
I like the shapes and I like the idea of the slider of the contact page.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the feedback. Working on a new header with the additional colour too. I have changed the freebie button, made the circles hexagonal and shown the slide out menu (not sure whether or not this is to people liking. I haven't had a chance to change the stats yet, but am working on some icons for them. The new design includes a slider to show some of my work.
Thanks
3jqLx.png
 
Little update on the statistic presentation. For now I am using some from a good old
icon set :) Thoughts on this and previous actual page design?
3jyhp.png
 
I like the nav bar and I do prefer the icons to just the figures but I think they're way too prominent there.
If you going to have them in the nav bar, maybe have one at a time with a click slider, a bit like this...
437423k.jpg

...but with the icons
 
the site to me feels a little bit like the end of Lawnmower man :)
 
Hi Ben. Ok here it goes.
Feel free to use the social media pop-out :)
I'm not entirely convinced on the use of colour here. I'm not entirely sure what it is, it just all feels a bit wishy washy, however you want to interpret that... I'm not a fan of the green/blue/white/dark grey either, it sort of feels like there is no purpose to the change of appearance other than to simply put more colours into the design.
There's also an issue with content hierarchy. Looking at the design initially, I don't know where to go first as there is no guidance, so I sort of just gloss over everything. This is, I believe, tied into the previous issue, but it all feels a little too big, I just want to zoom out!
I really don't like that illustration, apart from the head it just feels like there is no personality to it and the head, well, the head reminds me of someone on acid! You just need to make some drool coming out of the mouth and it would be complete! Also, as it's the only coloured image on the whole page, it's virtually one of the first things I look at, and it really doesn't seem serve any purpose other than to be a graphic. I believe there is a conflict of style with the illustration and the site as well. It feels like you're trying to go for the professional, smart, clean and crisp approach with, but then this childish (style-wise) illustration appears out of nowhere.
Again, the slider controls lack interest and sort of just blend into the site. At the very least, I'd like to see some sort of interesting, but subtle, background to the slider images, the flat green isn't working for me.
Why do the statistics take up such a huge amount of space? They are in fact 6 pixels taller than your Fonts, Logos, Graphics, etc icons which should surely take priority over what I consider to be non-essential information. "Some Statistics" as a title shouldn't use punctuation, in my opinion, although on further inspection it's a very small plus sign. Uhh.. is that section expandable?
Overall I think there's potentially a good concept here but it needs a lot of tweaking.
 
Hi All
Thanks for the feedback.
Sean - The illustration is a bit odd, I must admit. Its actually a placeholder for now :)
I will look at updating the look and perhaps starting a fresh look for the colour scheme.
Will be back with a revision soon.
Cheers
B
 
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