EMW

So a student at my school contacted me, wanting to change my site design. His concept can be seen here, http://www.cat-blog.org/ns/

While the original can be found here

http://www.neighborhoodstudios.tk

What do you think about the newer design? My opinions were that the top design and font needed to be changed, as well as maybe some of the picture choices and bright blue lines.

I'm torn between my original tan, blue, and white design and the new black, gray, and white design.

When you say font, do you mean the link fonts?

I agree, if so. It's too plain, but it shouldn't be too much different.

I like the color scheme, as well as the top design. However, I do not like the "blue" above the legend and home statement. It's more turquoise. Try #4863A0 or #3574EC7. Same thing with the roll over color for the links. That's also turquoise. If he can do some sort of image roll over code for the images when you roll over the links, that would be cool.

Other than that, I like it a lot. It's clean, precise, and professional. You got lucky somebody wanted to hook you up for free.

I really dig clean sites. You can see that with the first website I ever wrote:
http://www.comm.selu.edu/~w0277982/assignment.html
You can also see an example of the changing image roll over I mentioned if you roll over the clapboard.

By fonts, I meant the font at the top. The design was too busy, and unrelated to video. My logo uses a different font. I've decided to redesign the top bar with the title header, short description under it, with some production pictures behind it.

I was thinking about having the icons on the side maybe beveled or with a sheen, but the designer likes it the way it is. And I agree with your color choice. I had to do some browsing to find out what the hex numbers meant, but I found it!

Change out the times fonts, at least for the headers. They seldom look good in a web site. Also don't underestimate this guys design skills, he obviously knows his color pallet and has chosen it wisely. The teal needs to go but you also do need some color in the site. If the teal goes you are left with a black and white site. I would suggest putting in some red or blue depending on what message you want to send to the viewer.

The bit at the top is good and well designed with all the slight phase diffractions but it needs something strictly yours. I would recommend a logo over production pictures. They have a tendency to be tacky and the quality is usually not very good. I would suggest setting up a little white box and taking some pictures of your primary crew, just to get some faces out there. Like one of those TV show banners or group pictures. Try to stay away from equipment (one the front page) at it is impersonal and many people don't care about it, unless of course it is a really good photo of a person.


That's my $0.02 anyway. Oh P.S. I really like the icons, just make a different highlight color.

Thanks for the imput. Here is the newest revision:

http://catfacts.unixpod.com/ns/

And here is the new banner I put together.


Thanks so much for the suggestions, keep 'em coming please!

That's cool. More personal, and still fits really well.

Awesome. The guy is designing this on Linux, so apparently the whole time every font was sans-serif but Windows showed it as Times New Roman. Here's the latest screenshot he provided, and I think the design is pretty much done!

Ha ha ha... Power school. We use that at my school too and it sucks!!!

Nice web design though.

Powerschool crashes every few weeks. Just this week the whole thing went down so that grades couldn't be entered. The school has put loads of money into the program though, so we have to stick with it. I think it's a 3 year plan though, so next year I believe they might be switching.

What is power school?

I think the banner should be redesigned a little. It looks a little too neighborhood and could be a little more professional. You could start off with some color correction on the photos, maybe make it match the color scheme a little better. The pictures could also be aligned a little better. The logo is a good concept but I think the gradients should be changed to give it a little more dimension and bring it into the 21st century. You might want to have a graphic artist or photo-shopper look at it and give you a few suggestions, it just looks a little too flat and could be much more interesting.

And here is the next version of the beta.

http://neistu.freehostia.com/index.php?logo=grey_logo

We are in the process of moving all the information over, so the text is still not complete - but it's a mostly functioning site.

Maybe it's just me, but on the Equipment page, the screenshots of your software are too small and make my eyes go a bit crazy. The rest of the shots with the cameras and such are okay, but with the screenshots, there is so much information in that small picture my eyes try to read it, which is impossible, and it becomes kind of painful. I showed my three roommates, and they agree, so maybe it isn't just me.

Hmm...I have to get that taken care of. Maybe having the page stretch to fit the screen will solve the problem?

By the way, are you using a super high screen resolution? Mine's at 1024 by 768, and its not terribly small.