First Homepage, Review

C

chris1791

Member
This is my first attempt at creating the homepage for my web design company, please note it is not finished yet and I have just done it in the past 2 hours and some stuff will be changed, hope you get an overall feel for the site.

Also the domain is just one I had knocking about and it obviously wont be the one I use!

Without any further a do here it is
:)
 
My first impression is it is a bit bland TBH and without seeing a finished version I can't really comment on the code.

The server is in the US though, I would move it to a UK based webhost as it will help you to rank better if it was in the UK, also download times would be a lot faster which improves proformance.

Jaz
 
I love simple and minimalistic sites but I agree with Jaz, it's a bit bland. Perhaps you could introduce another graphical element? I also think you should work a lot on the typography. Minimalistic sites can look great if the typography is the main element/focus but it has to be very strong.

Your headline is the same font/size as the content. I'd make the headline bigger and bolder to grab peoples attention. Consider increasing the line height and choose another font for the body text as it's not very readable at the moment and doesn't really invite people to read it.

Tidy up the layout a bit. Align the boxes to the header as it looks a bit strange being further to the right than the header.
 
Hi Chris, I agree with Jazajay & Aarlev's comments above but also don't think you've warranted the use of flash here over html which would be picked up better by search engines more user/viewer friendly etc... if your intent on trying to look flash by moving in elements on the page it would be far more impressive to use javascript, unfortunately I don't know any plugins on this off the top of my head but with a bit of googling you could probably find something prewritten and free to use so you just have to include the js file in your head and probably add a class to the divs you want to use... I'll have a quick look and see if I can point you in the right direction
 
I would agree with most of the comments here.
for the simplistic design created, the flash element would be better served as straight html. If your going to use flash ( which i still love) then really really use it to maximum design effect.
 
Yeah I agree with both of you, nice catch by the way.

TBH why is everyone wanting to use frameworks to do it though. :confused:
Heres the Jazajay solution.

Create the whole thing in HTML, and create the flash intro in flash, obviously.

Then via JavaScript place the container div, contaning the HTML, with a style rule of display:none, with a timeout function of say 10seconds. After 10 seconds has passed remove the display rule and place the display:none rule on the flash animation, or move it 5000px to the right, what ever it just needs to be got rid of.

This would then hide the html version for the first 10 seconds of the page load. The time frame would have to be played with, but when the flash animation loads and plays (10 seconds in total), what should happen is the flash version should be replaced with the HTML version, no ones none the wiser and everyones happy.

But the most important thing is no web designer was harmed in the making of this techquie with the use of frameworks!!!!!!! Arrrrrhhhhhh dam things.

Jaz
 
An example of what I mean would be ~

HTML
<body onload="document.getElementById('container').style.display='none';setTimeout(change();,10000);">

<div id="container">
All your nice HTML goes in here
</div>
<object....... your flash movie.

JavaScript
<script type="text/javascript">
function change(){
document.getElementById('container').style.display='';
var object =document.getElementsByTagName('object')[0];
object.style.position='absolute';
object.style.marginRight='8000px';
}
</script>

Now I have just written off the cuff but it looks fine, but without testing I can not be sure. Ideally the CSS should be in a CSS file and the id, containg the rules should switch between elements for true seperation of logic, but it is not needed I suppose.

Sorry just bored of writing even more HTML forms why cant every one just have JavaScript enabled????? :)

Jaz

Key:
Red ~ HTML
Green ~ JavaScript
 
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