base6 Design Website re-launch

ultimately i like to colours and style.. the only thing I have against it.. and this is the only thing i can think of :)) is the blotchyness of the green at the top right... in IE it looks a bit scrachy / bitmapped for me.. but that might be just my version of IE (as all IE's are different :p)

Good work though :)

I'm sure that Berry will come along with a bigger / better critique than me :)
 
Love to see WordPress used in this way.

I'd maybe remove the bar at the top with the text "Hey friend! Welcome........".

Other than that site looks great.
 
For me its nice but is lacking that something special, I just cant place my finger on it, perhaps as the site matures and evolves a little more :) , maybe I'm old fashioned, but I find grunge effects unless done exceptionally well irritating to the point of distraction. Well that's how I'm feeling today.
 
The brown area at the bottom (Making clients happy, helping busin ..... )
When you hover over it, the background disappears. Also don't like the fact that the entire area is a link.

I'm not bothered with the little promotion bar at the top. I think it's a good thing to let your visitors know that you've been restyling. Of course it'll have to go after a while, unless you can find a good use for it.

The design is very original, good use of WP as Panix Media said. Keep it up :up:
 
chrismitchell said:
ultimately i like to colours and style.. the only thing I have against it.. and this is the only thing i can think of :)) is the blotchyness of the green at the top right... in IE it looks a bit scrachy / bitmapped for me.. but that might be just my version of IE (as all IE's are different :p)
Click to expand...

Thanks mate - I think the splatters look a little grainy at times in IE. I think it could be because I am using a the IE7 JS tool to get transparent backgrounds as it looks fine in all other browsers and the code is only called in IE6/7.

Panix Media said:
I'd maybe remove the bar at the top with the text "Hey friend! Welcome........".
Click to expand...

Well this was planned as a temporary addition. Thing is, I quite like it. My idea now is to update it from time to time and if I can ever get one of those 0800/0870 telephone number systems that go direct to voicemail I could stick a business telephone number in the space with some cheasy "Call me" text.

Sunburn said:
For me its nice but is lacking that something special, I just cant place my finger on it, perhaps as the site matures and evolves a little more :) , maybe I'm old fashioned, but I find grunge effects unless done exceptionally well irritating to the point of distraction. Well that's how I'm feeling today.
Click to expand...

I agree the site seem a little anorexic at the moment. I really want to get a few decent blog posts and flesh out the portfolio area in the next 6 months - hopefully this will beef it up a little.

As for the grunge. This was actually added as an afterthought. The original design was clean with flat lines and soft edges. I stayed up late one night and got bored and this was pretty much the outcome.

I may chart a design process as to how I ended up with the grunge/dirt/mess onto the site as I have around 30 PSDs from start to finish.

I think will see how it plays out over the next couple of months and remove some of the annoying grunge parts over time if required.

Onartis said:
The brown area at the bottom (Making clients happy, helping busin ..... )
When you hover over it, the background disappears. Also don't like the fact that the entire area is a link.
Click to expand...

I did wonder about this. The linked area intentionally changes the background (I'm using jQuery BigTarget).

The reason I didn't like it as 3 separate links is because ultimatly they all go to the same place.

Do you think it would be better if I used a background image or different colour for the :hover?

Everyone

Thanks for the feedback! I've been working on the site for so long I can't stand to look at it right now and my only local peers are all non-designers that think it looks great but can't elaborate on why.

Feel free to send more feedback and ideas. I'd love to pay back the favour next time you post something for critique :up:
 
Hi Kimb,

I really like the new Base6 design, my only one small reservation is how long it will be before you need to update the design as I have the feeling grunge effects may be a passing trend? But until then it looks good :)

I like the little touches with the scrolling portfolio preview box, some of the details work really well.

One thing I was going to suggest (you may have already tried this) was switching the blue and green around, so you have a blue background giving a sky background to your rocket launch and then green for the header backgrounds? I think this would help to make the header titles stand out a bit more?

The other suggestion I had was to reduce the footer height by moving the Wordpress logo and copyright into the bottom section? I'm not even sure you need the WP logo?

Keep up the good work! Think we all know how hard it is to get your own site re-designed, built and launched whilst keeping clients happy!! :p

HTH
Greg
 
Hey everyone :)

Thanks for the very fine feedback :p

Greg:

I agree that the whole grunge thing seems to have moved on and become more subtle. I did hope to only add a small amount of grunge but as time went on I think I may have gone a little overboard in areas.

As mentioned before however the site went though about 4 design revisions before grunge was "added". I am in the process of adding a blog post which charts the re-design and how I ended up with the final look.

Blue/Green swap - I sort of tried this. I didn't love the green for a LONG time and tried blue/grey/black but decided to keep the green - there are WAY to many blue websites around the web anyway.

I made a big deal out of the WordPress logo because I wanted to ensure they get the payback they deserve for producing such an excellent product. Also, it shows that this is my CMS of choice.

Your last point made me smile :) I had to practically give up taking on new work for a month to get the site sorted. It killed me working into the early hours on my own work and being my own worst critic I just kept tweaking and changing and re-working and was never, ever, happy with the final result.

In the end I gave up and concentrated on the content for 2 weeks while the design grew on me.

Thanks again for the feedback everyone :p
 
I don't mind it. Apart from the aweful chunky graphics for the web and branding icons.
They overshadow your basic branding, and seem basic and kiddie to me. Too big and too basic.
I would work your branding a bit better, the illustration could be integrated into the design more effectively. Why a green background with a rocket ship, is it flying through the grass?
 
Couldn't resist running it through the usual tools...

7 CSS Issues
16 HTML Errors, 2 warnings

Web Page Speed Report

  • TOTAL_OBJECTS - Warning! The total number of objects on this page is 31 ....
  • TOTAL_IMAGES - Warning! The total number of images on this page is 20.....
  • TOTAL_SIZE - Caution. The total size of this page is 160570 bytes.....
  • TOTAL_SCRIPT - Warning! The total number of external script files on this page is 8.....
  • IMAGES_SIZE - Caution. The total size of all your images is 51424 bytes.....
  • SCRIPT_SIZE - Warning! The total size of external your scripts is 99975 bytes.....
 
Berry
Thanks for the insight. The icons are from a Sticker Icon Pack and took me a long while to source. I've dirtied them up for use on the site. I know they arn't perfect but I was in a bind where I needed icons and had spent weeks trawling for decent hi-res ones I could use.

I think they serve a purpose and arn't so offinsive as to distact visitors from the point.

As for the rocket/green. Lots of people have commented on this. The green is a branding choice as I used green on my old site so wanted to keep the same colour layout. I am now wondering if to take Gregs advice and move the green/blue around.

blueocto
Thanks for the heads up. I was aware of the Fancybox CSS errors but needed a quick way to implement this before launch so left them in. The
Code: 
padding:none
was something I only added a couple of days ago, must have been 1/2 asleep at the time :p

As for the other reports - I do find these a bit shocking :cry: will look into re-working my scripts.

I actually tried to css-sprite my site to improve loading times but it was a mammoth task becuase of the way I had set up my PSD files.

Thanks again for the feedback. It really is helpful :clap:
 
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