It's been a long time KF

[Theros]

^Ibid... Anyhow in between the last time I posted something, I grew, got older, started shaving, uh.. well, started Summer vacation, and finally got myself a job... so WOHO :pleased:

Anyhow, in my job, part of it is to create mockups, and implement webpages into their Applications which "code"/create the website for you.. (GRRR... No more CSS for the summer! :run:) So, I have this mockup which I acutally like. Now I like for you all to go crazy with it. However, I have some limitations.

Their System:

1) Cannot do borders (generally around the main part of the pages)
2) No dropshadows
3) Inflexible when it comes to coding CSS or like PHP, etc...
4) Forced to have a left side that extends to 100% height... So no gradients vertically, basically forces you to use solid colors... And a NUMBER of other things I haven't discovered yet

Heh, I'd rather use CSS, but then again this system is used for coporations not for small timers like me :)

*Edit 5*

Here it is and its hosted off my website now

http://www.thedragonlives.com/academy3.jpg (GREEN BOX ON LEFT) (http://www.thedragonlives.com/academy3.jpg)

http://www.thedragonlives.com/academy3_right.jpg (http://www.thedragonlives.com/academy3_right.jpg)(GREEN BOX ON RIGHT)

^Read my last post (On the last page!!!) for update details and ignore the first page as the comments refer to earlier designs

[Jolly_Fat_Man]

Personally I find the site a little agressive in terms of colors, but I understand the choices. The site is pretty much looking like their logo.

Which even I agree looks like crap...

It looks professional if that is what your wondering. Agressive and professional!

I'm not used to sites having loads of reds, no background wallpaper for distraction. It's not an ugly site, just agressive.

[Theros]

Yeah, I felt like doing a aggressive site for once, enough with the blacks and browns and grays... :).. But yeah, I don't like the name either! Bison Technology? And with the logo, phew... :(

[Esherido]

The logo is utter crap (pardon my profanity). You did fairly good with the limitations you had. Might want to work on the fonts some, bold and big where they should be small and pixel. Featured Clients and the text next to it is the only really bad thing I can see.

[Theros]

Met with one of my boses, and I have a better updated version with a better logo although it needs to be cleaned up

[=guinness=]

body copy is HUGE, needs to be smaller or a thinner weight. i assume you know, but check the matt on the logo and set it to the same as the bg its going on when you save as a gif. bison graphic should be white to contrast with the burgundy bg instead of black and blue gradient, fades into the bg too much.

seems kind of chunky
stock image looks like its a little blurred.

unless those are company colors i would go with a different scheme

[dec27]

I think that the text is too heavy, for me, maybe with transparency or a different color, not that light white.

[Theros]

body copy is HUGE, needs to be smaller or a thinner weight. i assume you know, but check the matt on the logo and set it to the same as the bg its going on when you save as a gif. bison graphic should be white to contrast with the burgundy bg instead of black and blue gradient, fades into the bg too much.

seems kind of chunky
stock image looks like its a little blurred.

unless those are company colors i would go with a different scheme

Body copy? You mean body text? yeah, I'll need to work on that a bit, I'll clean up the logo and make it more contrasting Thanks for the info

[hybrid101]

i think the navigation buttons would look better aligned to the bottom of the header, not centered in it.
font looks too big, and layout looks a bit too red.
logo doesn't really look that good. blue on red? please.
that's all:)

[Theros]

Okay, give me a day or so! I just got back from work lol.... Can't expect me to do everything in one day! i'm already exhusted

[Pasquale]

Whoa man looks kinda clumsy for an IT pro site :S

[thesparky007]

Whoa man looks kinda clumsy for an IT pro site :Sagreed, looks like an overuse myriad

[Theros]

Whoa man looks kinda clumsy for an IT pro site :S

That it is, but if you read all the contriants that I have to live with.. I don't have much choice :(

[Theros]

Okay, I managed to update and change the colors, and text according to your alls advice, I think it looks much nicer now

[Theros]

Bump

[thesparky007]

Okay, I managed to update and change the colors, and text according to your alls advice, I think it looks much nicer nowsorry, but still not liking it

[Theros]

sorry, but still not liking it

What exactly don't you like about it?

What I like from the original is:

1) The header has a lot more white-space and the logo blends well with that
2) The banner text has minorities in it and I like the green color with the Slogan
3) All the font has been changed to Verdana as that is how it'll look on a browser anyhow
4) A lot smaller content text

The one thing I am not sure about is that the left bar is a bit too dark maybe... I think it needs a little lighter green.

[Pasquale]

Its not the colours and things, its the whole design literally hehe.
The blocks just look too chunky and sudden and there is no flow. It looks like of of those old school notepadded websites (not dissing notepad).
There isn't really a "design" rather some LARGE content spaces with clumsy text and things.

Hmm it's kinda hard to explain, it's just an aesthetic thing which just doesnt flow :)

(hehe sorry for the harsh crits but i'd like to see this get to look nicer :)

[Theros]

Yeah, I would like to get some drop shadows and some more design elements into it... but I'm working under a lot of restrictions here... I can't just go make a CSS stylesheet... hmmmm..... I'll have to see if I can somehow either change part of the system or see if I can go with more of a white-spacey look... We'll see

[Anogar]

It's not that it doesn't have enough hokey "design" tricks, it's that it just doesn't have very good design sense or clean lines. It just "feels" clunky. This is something that you will gradually improve upon, but right now it just comes from being an inexperienced designer. Something that will help you is spending a lot of time looking at high end print magazines.

To give you a few specific things to change:

1. The headline copy ('text' is referred to as 'copy' in the professional design world) is way too squished together, and it lacks differentiation between the two statements. It isn't one big sentence, "IT Professionals What Can We Do For You". That isn't it. It should be, "IT Professionals. What can we do for you?" You need to punctuate it with the FORM of the type. Make one statement bigger or smaller, space them out, do something with it. Right now it doesn't make sense right off the bat.

Additionally, the leading is just straight bad. (And before you try to say this, it is *not* LEEDing, it's referring to the metal...) This is the space between the lines. Yours needs to be increased.

2. "We Are The IT Company You Come to." Why is "to" not capitalized? Why is everything else capitalized. Why is it weirdly spaced towards the middle but not actually in the middle? Fix that.

3. The blocks are proportioned wrong. The side bar is huge.

4. I hate the font, but that's a personal thing. Maybe your client likes it. Maybe it's "their" font. Either way, I think it's bad.

5. Try indenting the paragraphs. They don't look like something you want to read at the moment.

I'd write more but my wife is yelling at me that it is the 4th of July and that I need to get off the computer. So. If you find me helpful, let me know and I'll give you more suggestions.

[Theros]

It's not that it doesn't have enough hokey "design" tricks, it's that it just doesn't have very good design sense or clean lines. It just "feels" clunky. This is something that you will gradually improve upon, but right now it just comes from being an inexperienced designer. Something that will help you is spending a lot of time looking at high end print magazines.

To give you a few specific things to change:

1. The headline copy ('text' is referred to as 'copy' in the professional design world) is way too squished together, and it lacks differentiation between the two statements. It isn't one big sentence, "IT Professionals What Can We Do For You". That isn't it. It should be, "IT Professionals. What can we do for you?" You need to punctuate it with the FORM of the type. Make one statement bigger or smaller, space them out, do something with it. Right now it doesn't make sense right off the bat.

Additionally, the leading is just straight bad. (And before you try to say this, it is *not* LEEDing, it's referring to the metal...) This is the space between the lines. Yours needs to be increased.

2. "We Are The IT Company You Come to." Why is "to" not capitalized? Why is everything else capitalized. Why is it weirdly spaced towards the middle but not actually in the middle? Fix that.

3. The blocks are proportioned wrong. The side bar is huge.

4. I hate the font, but that's a personal thing. Maybe your client likes it. Maybe it's "their" font. Either way, I think it's bad.

5. Try indenting the paragraphs. They don't look like something you want to read at the moment.

I'd write more but my wife is yelling at me that it is the 4th of July and that I need to get off the computer. So. If you find me helpful, let me know and I'll give you more suggestions.
Yeah, I agree with you there about some of the things and after looking at the GE site for a long time I feel maybe that I should try to incorporate more whitespace into it. Also, the font is verdana which is to me the standard Web font I use since everyone has it... Also, I did notice that maybe it is wrongly proportioned.

Also, referering to the slogan or whatever you call it, I just made that up, but I'll keep that in mind when i put the real text in there. Aha, just noticed that the To isn't capitatlized, bad mistake on my part. But the part on the indenting, personally I never had to worry about that but probally that's becuase I don't do sites with a lot of text. I believe I read a article about that earlier, but I'll have to dig up some info on how to do that without CSS and I hope it is doable with their system.

Thanks! Very insightful, I'll have to work on the site a bit more

[thesparky007]

i am not trying to be harsh but all it is just a bunch boxes with text and images

[Theros]

i am not trying to be harsh but all it is just a bunch boxes with text and images
Which to my knowlege of their system is all i can do... LOL :( At least in my opinion this design is better then their own homepage no? http://www.eplus.com

[Anogar]

I'd be impressed to see a flat webpage mockup that wasn't text, images, and shapes. Your post was completely useless, Sparky.

Glad I could offer some insights. I'll help out more once you post an updated version.

[Pasquale]

I'd be impressed to see a flat webpage mockup that wasn't text, images, and shapes. Your post was completely useless, Sparky.

Glad I could offer some insights. I'll help out more once you post an updated version.
LOL well not in a literal manner. I guess he was referring to the simplicity of the design. Simple is good- but only is fou know how to use it :)

[Anogar]

Sparky's critique was really useless. If he found it too simplistic, that's a valid thing to say, but, "It's just a bunch of boxes and text" doesn't give the designer anything to change.

Next time I hate something I'm going to say, "Not to be harsh, but all I see is pixels."

[Theros]

Sparky's critique was really useless. If he found it too simplistic, that's a valid thing to say, but, "It's just a bunch of boxes and text" doesn't give the designer anything to change.

Next time I hate something I'm going to say, "Not to be harsh, but all I see is pixels."

ahaha, I'd laugh my head off if you said that...

Anyhow, if you haven't noticed the picture in the link at the begining of this thread is updates!

Changes:

1) Changed the slogan text, added a period and resized the 2nd part of it
2) Changed the size of menu bar, made it white
3) Changed the two title texts to Green

Still looking for some suggestions, thanks

[insaniak]

I a bit confused by this whole thread, but this is referring to the link in the first thread...

Dont think it is honestly that bad... the logo is pretty nice, did you make that? The menu is a bit plain, being just normal Verdana text, but it looks to me as if the company is a small IT company, not some large multinational corporation. Is that the actual text? If it isn't then fine, if it is then my God is it boring!! A giant list of words with way to many syllables hehe! Try sticking it in a list?

But the design is clean and simple. I wouldn't have a problem navigating it. Yes it could be more cohesive and like, especially with the menu...but it wouldn't particuarly turn me away from the company, which I guess is the aim of the site (to not turn me away I mean) :).

[Theros]

I a bit confused by this whole thread, but this is referring to the link in the first thread...

Dont think it is honestly that bad... the logo is pretty nice, did you make that? The menu is a bit plain, being just normal Verdana text, but it looks to me as if the company is a small IT company, not some large multinational corporation. Is that the actual text? If it isn't then fine, if it is then my God is it boring!! A giant list of words with way to many syllables hehe! Try sticking it in a list?

But the design is clean and simple. I wouldn't have a problem navigating it. Yes it could be more cohesive and like, especially with the menu...but it wouldn't particuarly turn me away from the company, which I guess is the aim of the site (to not turn me away I mean) :).
Thanks! And no I didn't make the logo, their inhouse graphic artist did it, I quite like it other the over the other one. And yes, that is one of the major things that annoys me, there is no built in way to have a graphic menu, only text, you can only put in "seperators" in between items... Also, the text isn't the real text ROFL.. :) I hope it didn't put you to sleep...

[Anogar]

This is better. It's not quite there yet, but it's coming along.

1. Can you by any chance fit "What can we do for you?" into one line under the main header? I think that would look much better. Make them each one line long, and make sure that they're both exactly the same width, and that they both fill up the horizontal space presented. Give a bit of space between the two lines though. Play with it until it looks right. I suspect you'll want to put the first line ("IT Professionals") at precisely 33% down that green box, and then put a little space, then put the next line.

2. Can you try setting the text justification to "full left" instead of just straight "left"? See what that looks like. This should help the readability, since you have a lot of words there.

3. Is that body copy bold? You might not want to do that.

4. The green that you're using for the box and the two headlines could be a lot darker. That'd "class up" the site a bit.

5. I'm getting nitpicky now, but this site should be flawless, you want to feel like they've got the tech thing down, no flaws. Get rid of the artifcating and compression, if it's possible. It is especially noticiable around their heads, and on the logos of the "featured clients".

6. Do you have a picture you can put in the body copy to break it up a bit?

Good changes. You're getting there.

[Theros]

This is better. It's not quite there yet, but it's coming along.

1. Can you by any chance fit "What can we do for you?" into one line under the main header? I think that would look much better. Make them each one line long, and make sure that they're both exactly the same width, and that they both fill up the horizontal space presented. Give a bit of space between the two lines though. Play with it until it looks right. I suspect you'll want to put the first line ("IT Professionals") at precisely 33% down that green box, and then put a little space, then put the next line.

2. Can you try setting the text justification to "full left" instead of just straight "left"? See what that looks like. This should help the readability, since you have a lot of words there.

3. Is that body copy bold? You might not want to do that.

4. The green that you're using for the box and the two headlines could be a lot darker. That'd "class up" the site a bit.

5. I'm getting nitpicky now, but this site should be flawless, you want to feel like they've got the tech thing down, no flaws. Get rid of the artifcating and compression, if it's possible. It is especially noticiable around their heads, and on the logos of the "featured clients".

6. Do you have a picture you can put in the body copy to break it up a bit?

Good changes. You're getting there.
1) Hmm, okay I'll try that although that would mean either making the text smaller or decreasing the box width

2) I thought it is left already?

3) It's not bold.. Just really small

4) oh.. I just made it brighter to someone elses' opinion lol, I actually like the limerer colour

5) The featured Clients images I got from another site and they probably won't be on the real page... Also, are you sayng that the Banner image with the people is low quality? What can I do to fix that

6) I don't know what the other pages will look like so I can't answer your question at this time

[Anogar]

1. Make the text smaller. Just see how it looks.

2. It is left, you want it "full left".

[Theros]

1. Make the text smaller. Just see how it looks.

2. It is left, you want it "full left".
What do you mean by "full left" then, I'm not getting what your saying

Also, for some reason I like the bigger text more... to me it just seems a bit more professional?

[Anogar]

Your call on the text. I think that having it wrap around looks awkward. I would either make it bigger so that it takes a full two lines, or smaller so that it only takes one. (Probably smaller.)

You know, on the justification, I'm not sure that that's something that HTML supports, now that I try to find it. I come from a magazine design background. Basically it performs a "full" justification on everything except a dangling line.

[Theros]

Your call on the text. I think that having it wrap around looks awkward. I would either make it bigger so that it takes a full two lines, or smaller so that it only takes one. (Probably smaller.)

You know, on the justification, I'm not sure that that's something that HTML supports, now that I try to find it. I come from a magazine design background. Basically it performs a "full" justification on everything except a dangling line.

Ah, I don't think I know how to do what your talking about? So, Do you like the green box on the right or left?

[thesparky007]

LOL well not in a literal manner. I guess he was referring to the simplicity of the design. Simple is good- but only is fou know how to use it :)thats exactly what i meant, its way too simple

[Theros]

thats exactly what i meant, its way too simple

Well give me some things that you think I can implement with their system?

[thesparky007]

Well give me some things that you think I can implement with their system?first of all, what are the requirements the company wants?

talk to me on aim

[thesparky007]

alright, now i understand what you mean, but without actually ever using the program its kinda hard to give suggestions, but even with the restricitons you told us in ur first post, i can still think of a simple design that would work, my suggestion is to rework the layout so there is more space between objects and smaller text, look how the eplus website is, small text, its a simple layout but works, i think they prolly made that page in that program,
hope i made any sense, if not tlak to me again on aim