my first commercial flashsite

[Swashbuckler]

Dear all

I would gladly welcome your feedback on the design of my site which is my first.

The projects/portfolio section is still work in progress but the design of the site is pretty well complete barring any of your comments and suggestions.

vertigostudios (http://www.vertigostudios.co.uk)

[cameron_]

I think the scroll button should start where the text starts, and I think the into is a bit slow. It looks a bit unfinished...with the empty box on the left and such. I like the logo and the image next to it, I would try to design the site around it more.

[salvador marley]

i like your name - swashbuckler - are you Errol Flynn's grandson?


looks good for a first attempt- yeah - ok :)

Keep up the good work.

[Websissy]

I mentioned that I love your site - looks really great - mind sharing the .fla

[salvador marley]

Share the fla? :) serious?

[salvador marley]

websissy - i think you sent the private mail to me by mistake. you should have sent it to swashbuckler :)

[ave]

Its not bad i like pretty much all of it for a first attempt.....except the buttons.

They should either ALL be skewed off centre randomly or all be straight, but having two perfectly horizontal and two skewed makes it look kinda odd like you couldnt decide which you prefered.
Oh and make the scroller more obvious and in line with the text.

[imark]

Good start, I didn't like the buttons though. Try and clean them up.

[Swashbuckler]

I think the scroll button should start where the text starts, and I think the into is a bit slow. It looks a bit unfinished...with the empty box on the left and such. I like the logo and the image next to it, I would try to design the site around it more.

Thanks cameron for your comments. The general feedback I've been receiving on this board and on others is that the scroll bar is a little hard to find so I will change that.

What speed is your connection? I'm running at 2mb so it was loading really quickly and I thought that I would not need a preloader...I'll change that.

The empty box on my left is a real bone of contention and for the last couple of weeks I've been trying to think of things I can do with it...if anyone has any ideas let me know.

Regards

The Swashbuckler

[Swashbuckler]

Its not bad i like pretty much all of it for a first attempt.....except the buttons.

They should either ALL be skewed off centre randomly or all be straight, but having two perfectly horizontal and two skewed makes it look kinda odd like you couldnt decide which you prefered.
Oh and make the scroller more obvious and in line with the text.

Thanks Ave and Imark...with regards to the buttons I was trying to be too clever with the design and wanted a few buttons out of kilter with the rest. I think I may straighten them as I've noticed there is a tendency for the buttons to stick occassionally onRollOver.

[mpnaz]

what's with the scewing of the buttons? they should all be, or none be. i'd go with none becuase the scewed ones look a bit jagged. The "Good Afternoon" thing is cool though. not bad for a first go, one more thing: it would be cool if those circles on the right moved a little as you rolled over them...

Edit: on the contact page you "send" link is a bit suss, change the font.

[Swashbuckler]

what's with the scewing of the buttons? they should all be, or none be. i'd go with none becuase the scewed ones look a bit jagged. The "Good Afternoon" thing is cool though. not bad for a first go, one more thing: it would be cool if those circles on the right moved a little as you rolled over them...

Edit: on the contact page you "send" link is a bit suss, change the font.

Thanks mpnaz...will definitely take your comments onboard. Good idea about the circles.

[G]

the red borders are too overwhelming and the buttons look pretty "scruffy".

good first attempt but room for improvement.

[Swashbuckler]

the red borders are too overwhelming and the buttons look pretty "scruffy".

good first attempt but room for improvement.

Thanks G,

I've made changes to the buttons and will upload them shortly.

Interesting about the red borders...you're not the first to make the same observation. What are you using a pc or mac? Eitherway I'll try and tone it down a bit and see what people think.

Once again thanks for everybody's input its really helpful to me

[BoonDock]

Eh, color choices aren't the best, but they could work...you need "more" than just lines to make the site look complete...

[Swashbuckler]

Eh, color choices aren't the best, but they could work...you need "more" than just lines to make the site look complete...

BoonDock,

Could you elaborate a bit further about what I can add to the site.

Regards

Swashbuckler

[BoonDock]

BoonDock,

Could you elaborate a bit further about what I can add to the site.

Regards

Swashbuckler

Yeah sure,

Alright well first off ya need to fix the fonts, check to make sure your navigation goes to the correct place, from each section, because from the main window contact goes to about, etc. etc. (might want to fix that) as far as the layout goes, I would try and do some more with shapes, you have those circles try and incorporate those some more, and if you end up using the navigation the way it is, try and incorporate some more of that box'ed in style that you have around the nav text. I don't know, do some variations and I can give some better constructive critiques, I don't know what you can come up with...but try! The site just looks too simple and plain to be even close to finished or looking like a finished site...especially if you are going to be promoting this as a design studio. Keep at it!

Cheers, Boon.

[Vamp9190]

Page did not load for me -- just the footer text - a white rectangle & the page
background color.


Content never loaded. I'm East Coast USA.

[Tocksiq]

its not even loading :huh:

[Swashbuckler]

Page did not load for me -- just the footer text - a white rectangle & the page
background color.


Content never loaded. I'm East Coast USA.

Hi vamp...I've been updating the site and uploading this afternoon (16:30 GMT) and likewise I can't seem to view the site.

I'll mess around with it and it should be up working again shortly.

[Swashbuckler]

Ok...I've made some revisions to the site following your requests and the site is back up.

So what I've done is straightened the buttons, changed the positioning of the scroll bar so that its in line with the text, added a bit more interactivity, and changed the mail form.

Now I'm really caught in a dilemma about the colour scheme of my site. A few people have said that the reds are too intense (are you viewing this on a mac?).

The style I was trying to go for was something like Saul Bass (http://www.saulbass.net/)
Really bright primary colours with a strong image shapes and forms.

Maybe my interpretation has been lost in translation but I quite like the colour scheme...nevertheless if anybody as any suggestions on this point and the revisions I've made please let me know.

As a relative newcomer to Flash I sincerely appreciate your opinions and suggestions.

[Vamp9190]

Still not loading....

'The page cannot be displayed'

[Swashbuckler]

Still not loading....

'The page cannot be displayed'

Its definitely up now...tell me people if you think it needs a preloader!

[Vamp9190]

OK, yeah it worked.

Loaded in like 2 sec. , so I doubt a preloader is needed.

The red boarders are different thicknesses, looks strange - also the bottom right one just hits the edge and stops, also looks weird

Maybe make the lines thinner? and add a outline boarder around the whole page

The 'Scroll Me' text is really blurry

[Jeff Wheeler]

It doesn't seem very professional to me. The red borders are a bit bright, and it's pretty easy to brake the nav by double clicking different things and such.

[Swashbuckler]

OK, yeah it worked.

Loaded in like 2 sec. , so I doubt a preloader is needed.

The red boarders are different thicknesses, looks strange - also the bottom right one just hits the edge and stops, also looks weird

Maybe make the lines thinner? and add a outline boarder around the whole page

The 'Scroll Me' text is really blurry

Thanks Vamp...I'll try and mess around with the borders as they seem to be a bone of contention for most people. Probably best to make them one tone of red instead of the current two tone.

As for the bottom red line its my intention to have it go off screen to the right so I may have to mess around in dreamweaver or alternatively widen the fla file to the size of the screen.

[Swashbuckler]

It doesn't seem very professional to me. The red borders are a bit bright, and it's pretty easy to brake the nav by double clicking different things and such.

Yeah...I'm not sure why the nav is playing up...I'll have a look into that. Admitedly it is my first attempt so I'm learning all the time but thanks for your advice.

[Jeff Wheeler]

Good job for a first attempt :)