May 122010
As the majority of my cash these past few months has come from my little side business, it seemed wise to make sure said business had a decent home on the internet. In this process I’ve learned that it’s far easier to be objective about clients’ work than one’s own; you’d be appalled at how long it too just to decide on a freakin’ black background.
I mean really. How hard is that?
Because I’ve lost all sense of proportion in this project, I’d love to have some feedback. Have a look if you would be so kind and leave constructive criticism in the comments below.
Thank you!
The site looks clean, and has good use of white space.
The home page, however, doesn’t feel quite right. The description of services uses up the entire width of the page. I think there should be more space on the edges. Maybe reduce the size of the banner at the top (it feels huge).
The portfolio page is good. Perhaps more spacing between client pages…not really sure about that.
I tend to agree with the above. The home page seems a bit stark to me. I am certainly no expert, but I would tend to use a different font and add a sidebar of some of the more artistic photos you have used in the past for the aag blogs. Those flowers were always something to look forward to. Some shading of the background vs. the white page might help as well.
Just another opinion…Aloha, Bob
Subjectively, the black is a bit…”heavy” for me. I would prefer a very dark grey to give it a bit more style, yet feel “professional” without too much tone.
Objectively, I’d change “I’ll get back to you in most cases within 24 hours” to “I’ll get back to you promptly.” If you really want to make promises you have no way of knowing if you can keep, “I’ll get back to you promptly, in most cases next day” means you won’t lose the job before you’ve even had a chance to quote the job.
The home page feels a little “top heavy” to me. The size of the testimonials/samples compared to your content seems overwhelming.
Is it just me or is your body text all smaller than average? I was much happier after a ctrl +.
All in all I would describe these as nit-picks and go with it. Consensus is usually what takes a great project and turns it into a mediocre project. In years of video production, I learned the quality of a job directly correlated to how many “cooks”–for the worse.
Overall, I absolutely love your clean style and unlike so many pages I found, like good photography/art, my eye drawn in to the focal points.
I like the site–it looks quite professional.
The text exceeds the width of my browser page; in fact, in Mozilla without any sidebars open, I can’t see the full breadth of any of the pages; what I see is a cut-off version of what’s in the screencaps). Does that make sense? Basically, I’m having to move the scroll-bar at the bottom of the browser in order to read the full text on the Home Page and the Rates page.
I’d either drop the “royal we” in the description on the home page, or drop the first-person singular you use everywhere else. Basically, decide whether you want to be an I or a We. (I prefer the “I”, sounds better throughout.)
I also agree that you should change “I’ll get back to you in most cases within 24 hours” to “I’ll get back to you promptly”–or “I’ll get back to you within 24 hours”. Also, “A deposit of half . . . ” sounds odd to me; how about “A deposit of half the project rate . . . ” or “Half my fee is due before I start work . . . “.
Finally, I’d either reorder the mini-portfolios on the portfolio page or alter them. The design for SHRCC is good, but the part of it you’re using there–the upper left corner of the banner–is visually quite dull compared to the rest of the designs on that page. I wouldn’t lead off with that one–I’d put it in the bottom middle position, or something. Same for Robin’s Toy Nest–can you have the minimized version of her site include the right-hand portion of the banner (maybe starting with “Toy Nest”?) so that it’s visually more interesting than just a blank turquoise field with just a touch of a brown “R” showing?
Good luck!
I really hate constructive criticism–but I also love it. Thank you Sera.
What Sara said. Horizontal scroll bar shows in FireFox. I don’t think users like to have to scroll around horizontally.
Also: (and this is my personal preference) I intensely dislike the distressed stencil font. But you may love it. So ignore me.
It’s a beautiful site and it really seems to reflect your personality. It’s easy to navigate and you actually provide the information people will be looking for. It drives me crazy when a company is all coy with its pricing. And I love the mouseovers on the homepage – that’s a nice touch.
But… I think that the banner with the testimonials on the home page should be moved down below your text. When I go to the homepage, it overwhelms your own header. Also: the first testimonial that comes up is the Rape Crisis page. So I open your homepage and the first thing I see is RAPE, which is momentarily confusing and disturbing.
Otherwise I think it looks great!
I agree with most points – I hate not being able to read the tiny font when I ctr + or – to see the entire page with borders. I do not like to have to scroll around to see a page, once I’ve got the text to a readable size.
I Iike the stencil title, I like that the pages are clean and not cluttered up with fussy stuff.
As others have said, the horizontal scrollbar on my widescreen laptop tells me the portfolio page design is too large. I also feel like there’s an imbalance between the size of the portfolio thumbnails and the space devoted to the pertinent testimonials — the thumbs overwhelm text, and ought perhaps to be smaller in proportion to it maybe?
I also wonder about the sort of “industrial decay” appearance of your main header/navigation font. It’s a cool font, but if you’re building new/shiny websites for people, do you want a font that speaks of age and dirt?
However I am one of the world’s worst web designers. :( So don’t take my constructive crit too seriously.