Can I get some critique on my website design?

[Parm98]

Hi I have 3 website mockups. I am not sure if they are missing anything as I did not design them for any clients. I have noticed I have a lot of clicks but no orders so I am assuming that my website design is lacking in some places. (I did not design a logo for any of the mockups) Any critique would be appreciated. (For the third I just did the top half). Also any tips on critiquing my own work would also be appreciated as it takes me a lot of time to see the mistakes in my work and how it could have been improved. Thank you! .

 

[hankscorpio]

Boat one - first thought was why is everything under water?

 

[Parm98]

Boat one - first thought was why is everything under water?

So basically I just put a gradient over it to make it look less sharp. I can change the gradient to make it look less like it is under water maybe add a sea green on the bottom of the gradient. or it could just be the image.

 

[fisicx]

The idea that you can design a genetic layout and people will pick it for their business has long gone.

A theme or template needs to be responsive, it needs to have all the functionality built in and most importantly it should to meet the needs of the business.

There are thousands of fully functional themes and templates available for free or at low cost. There is no incentive to use yours.

Maybe rather than do a bunch of whole page designs, you may have more luck with designing elements: navigation systems, contact forms, blog post layouts, galleries and so on.

 

[Parm98]

The idea that you can design a genetic layout and people will pick it for their business has long gone.

A theme or template needs to be responsive, it needs to have all the functionality built in and most importantly it should to meet the needs of the business.

There are thousands of fully functional themes and templates available for free or at low cost. There is no incentive to use yours.

Maybe rather than do a bunch of whole page designs, you may have more luck with designing elements: navigation systems, contact forms, blog post layouts, galleries and so on.

THey aren't templates, just example pieces of my work to show people my style as I have not had a client in web design yet and wanted to show people what I can do. Thank you for your advice, should i remove those three and just create certain elements or something? Thanks again

 

[Parm98]

Boat one - first thought was why is everything under water?

Is this better?

 

[hankscorpio]

Yeh much better.

 

[fisicx]

But...

The UX is poor. What is the purpose of the website? It is brochure site for a cruise company? Or is it a destination company? Or just a general holiday booking site?

Why is so much of the screen taken up with the hero image?

What does the site look like on a phone?

 

[Levi]

What does the site look like on a phone?

Pretty sure it won't look like anything at the moment, it's not coded, it's just an image of a website from what I can see.

To the OP... can you actually code any of these designs, do you even have a basic understanding of how to code any of this without resorting to hacks and non standard approaches? There's no point showing website designs if you then have to outsource the code imo because to put it simply, any graphic designer can do an image of a website.

Honestly I can't say any of those designs really do much for me and even in the grand scheme of things they feel pretty generic and something you can likely get from a template site for free in some cases. There are also core issues on some of them and although I don't know what level of training you've had they should have been picked up on if you want to get paid for this type of work.

If you must showcase your work on a crowdsourcing site (I personally hate them, as do many others on this site, because they devalue our work and training etc) you at least need to show something that nobody else can do and imo showing an image of website is something any good designer can do.

 

[Parm98]

Pretty sure it won't look like anything at the moment, it's not coded, it's just an image of a website from what I can see.

To the OP... can you actually code any of these designs, do you even have a basic understanding of how to code any of this without resorting to hacks and non standard approaches? There's no point showing website designs if you then have to outsource the code imo because to put it simply, any graphic designer can do an image of a website.

Honestly I can't say any of those designs really do much for me and even in the grand scheme of things they feel pretty generic and something you can likely get from a template site for free in some cases. There are also core issues on some of them and although I don't know what level of training you've had they should have been picked up on if you want to get paid for this type of work.

If you must showcase your work on a crowdsourcing site (I personally hate them, as do many others on this site, because they devalue our work and training etc) you at least need to show something that nobody else can do and imo showing an image of website is something any good designer can do.

Hi thank you for your feedback, can you elaborate on some of the core issues. I do know HTML and CSS but I do not feel entirely comfortable with it as of yet. I have a hard time finding a style that fits the genre and stands out. if you take a look at carnival and cruiseline (those were what I used for inspiration) I tried to go for a clean look. Also the top is so big because it is only the header portion as I am still working on the rest.
The squarelink one is coded in HTML and CSS. I did make a few edits to the farm design. My biggest issue is sending out half-baked work in my opinion because I see my mistakes but only after I send my work out. If you have any ideas on how to improve that would be welcome. I am going to create another mockup using the advice given.

Thanks~

 

[fisicx]

What are you hoping to achieve with these designs?

People wanting a new website won’t want them, developers won’t want them nor will other designers want them for inspiration.

None of the three are website mockups. All you have done is assembled some random elements and published an image. There are thousands of ready made responsive templates I can download. What is it you are offering?

 

[Parm98]

What are you hoping to achieve with these designs?

People wanting a new website won’t want them, developers won’t want them nor will other designers want them for inspiration.

None of the three are website mockups. All you have done is assembled some random elements and published an image. There are thousands of ready made responsive templates I can download. What is it you are offering?

I wouldn't call them random elements. Also I just needed something to show on my portfolio, I am not selling these designs at all. (I have already previously clarified on this up above). If you had no previous work how would you show clients what you can do? All the elements were in fact made for each page and are not random. That cow bubble took almost half an hour to do (remove the background, paint over cow tags, color correction etc.) These are literally designs under 20 bucks, but I would like to hold them to a higher standard; I am only using it for practice to get better (which is literally what was made for), I spent like 4 hours on each one and if I try to make them look professional but from the feedback I have gotten, they are either too sterile or generic. Not sure what you mean by that none of the 3 are mockups as I have 2 in prototype version in Adobe XD and one literally coded, or are you referring to the quality? These are literally the first 3 website designs I have done. Thank you for your feedback, I do appreciate all the help on this forum

 

[fisicx]

They are random because a website design will be based on the needs of the client not a generic layout.

If you want work as a website designer you need to start building websites. Do not use adobe XD, you need to learn how to code. Your designs need to be responsive, include functionality and be available to test on a live demo.

Potential clients will want to see what you have built. They don’t care how long it took you to edit a cow, they want to play with your designs on their phones and tablets.

Start building websites and upload to some cheap hosting.

 

[Parm98]

They are random because a website design will be based on the needs of the client not a generic layout.

If you want work as a website designer you need to start building websites. Do not use adobe XD, you need to learn how to code. Your designs need to be responsive, include functionality and be available to test on a live demo.

Potential clients will want to see what you have built. They don’t care how long it took you to edit a cow, they want to play with your designs on their phones and tablets.

Start building websites and upload to some cheap hosting.

Thank you so much for your feedback, I think I understand what you mean now.

 

[eyetooth]

I do know HTML and CSS but I do not feel entirely comfortable with it as of yet.

If you are going to create Photoshop mockups and need to improve your HTML & CSS skills, then it would be great if you can actually try to code one of these mockups. It'll be an excellent learning experience for you and will help highlight some of the issues more clearly. Thinking about how all the elements will reorder and resize for mobile is super important as well & attempting to code the sites will give you a much better understanding of what is needed.
There are quite a few things you should brush up, as there is little consistency in your designs. e.g. your buttons use different styles within the same page, the icons could really do with some refining etc.