Site redevelopment

[nige1980]

Following all the advice I got about the old site I sat down and had a bit of a think and put together something. The images are a little blurred but they are just for ideas at this stage.

This is a work in progress so any pointers gratefully received.

http://www.bandits-rugby.co.uk/test/redesign/

Look forward to you ripping my ideas to shreds again! :|

[Anogar]

Nice job! :thumb: That's lightyears (or at least half a decade :lol:) ahead of your last design.

Things that need to change:

1. The header is ugly. It's a bit poorly composed, and it's made up of badly artifacted pictures.
2. The logo in the side bar is blurry.
3. The rollover isn't especially attractive.
4. The blue line next to the white line is a little odd looking.

It isn't perfect, but it's an absolute ton better than the last one. Nice improvement. :D

[nige1980]

Woo...my first positive comment on this forum!!!

Just knocked up the images very quickly to give some rough ideas...could you explain what artifacted pictures means though?

I'll keep working on it as and when I have time from my day job!

[Anogar]

Artifacting is what happens when you poorly compress something. It's the little jaggies and pixelation you see.

[nrirureta]

i think its real bad... :wasted:

[Anogar]

i think its real bad... :wasted:

Look at this and then say that:

http://www.bandits-rugby.co.uk/

;)

[nrirureta]

^ :lol:

[nige1980]

oi...i'm learning from my mistakes! I think it's bad is not what I would call constructive criticism! Anyway coming from a guy who only has a countdown timer on his homepage...pot...kettle...blank...etc!

[leisuresuitlissy]

I think its much better than the other one.

But I don't like the blue. And I think the text is too big and the borders are too thick.

m

[nige1980]

yep, agree, so just made it smaller and have reduced the borders to 2px.

I quite like the blue as it's one of the colours the team plays in

[nrirureta]

oi...i'm learning from my mistakes! I think it's bad is not what I would call constructive criticism! Anyway coming from a guy who only has a countdown timer on his homepage...pot...kettle...blank...etc!

^ thanks for that...

your site is bad so i told you that... i cant do constructive criticism because it doesnt have any room for improvement... its just plain bad...

:hoser:

[leisuresuitlissy]

I quite like the blue as it's one of the colours the team plays in

Fair enough...if thats one of the team colours...you should use it then.

Still though. I think it would work better if the page background was white or something and that blue was used more sparingly....

Just my opinion.

[nrirureta]

ok if we are to compare your site with mine (you started this :m:), here's a sneak peek at what mine is gonna be like... it's incomplete and not that great at all but still betters yours i guess...

[nrirureta]

oh and im sorry... my bad... i wont ever post again if i really dont have anything constructive to say...:kommie:

peace...

:hoser:

[Theros]

BTW, Nrirureta your site doesn't look that hot... honestly well, it just doesn't either.

OKAY,
I Know you'll hate me for saying this, but please learn CSS later on, it'll help you a lot

Now,
1) The blue is a bit strong, try to outbalance it with other strong colors... Try a yellow for size
2) Header is horrible, like anoglr said
3) That team picture is too small, I'd get rid of it and make that title bar smaller
4) Instead place that logo in the header
5) Get a better color for the background, maybe something that blends with the blue
6) Where is the menu?

[nrirureta]

BTW, Nrirureta your site doesn't look that hot... honestly well, it just doesn't either.



thanks... what can i do to improve it ???

sorry for hijacking the thread... :)

[nobody]

nrirureta start your own thread for critiques. Unconstructive criticism is not okay. You're coming off like a jerk and you need to stop. Your little picture of an envelop is definitely not enough to validate your attitude.

[nrirureta]

i guess i got pwned... i removed the little picture of an envelope...

[Pixelangry]

In the picture of the team, their wearing yellow and red, why would you make the site blue? scrap and start with new colors

[w1sh]

Im curious what programs you have available. Once I know that I'll be able to offer critism.

I can already see your level of programming skill.

Might I suggest you go with something more basic and cleaner.
Lemme slap something together for you.

[simplistik]

Well... just like ole boy I think the site is bad ;). However, if you're designing the new Windows error screen (blue screen of death) I think you're off to a good start. Quite simply the site is putridly bright, use the blue as an accent not the main body color. It makes it outrageously bright. And painful to read. The images... new site... new images... plain and simple. If they want you to do a new site you tell them you need new images. The images that you're currently using just make the site worse, I'd seriously prefer to not see them on there and just guess what the team looks like. Lastly the site structure is just poor... a huge lack of creativity... it's just a box here and a box there... no design elements whatsoever.

[w1sh]

nix that. sry.

[nige1980]

http://w1sh.lrehosting.com/rugby/

It's still bad, but you can have it if you like it.
w1sh, I couldn't get that link to work, did you remove the page already.

the guys in red and yellow were actually the opposition (China). The Bandits play in white, blue and black.

Have redesigned the header, but could someone make a suggestion to a hex code for a suitable background colour? or maybe even a colour scheme based on the team colours?

Have added a menu but it's not linked up yet!

For info I'm not a web designer...I started learning HTML in JUne this year so I could make a site for the team. I've got a few programmes, Flash 8, dreamweaver (never used), fireworks, html-kit (which I use to code the pages) and paint shop pro 9

Cheers

http://www.bandits-rugby.co.uk/test/redesign/

[nige1980]

and i just ordered photoshop cs version 8 so hopefully I can start to create some much more impressive graphics for the site!

Still looking for loads of advice please people! Plus what is the benefit of designing the site with CSS and absolute positioning rather than tables?

Critique and advice...god I'm getting greedy!! :}

[w1sh]

It's good that you're getting some good software. It is essential to creating anything decent on the web. I suggest you follow along with all of the Photoshop tutorials on here and get ahold of a lot more. When you know Photoshop inside and out, you can create ridiculously beautiful images very quickly.

So far as layout's go, I suggest you start studying CSS and Tables now.
http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp
W3Schools is a great resource for learning CSS.
And as always http://www.htmlgoodies.com makes learning this stuff easy.

I'd also suggest you invest in Dreamweaver, everything else is optional, but with Photoshop and Dreamweaver, you can make a ton of great websites quickly.

After you've studied: photo-creation, CSS, and tables, start looking at other sites and it's always a good idea to do a few rough sketches of the site you want, then a detailed sketch of it (including table widths and padding), before you begin work on it.

Web-design is actually pretty simple so long as you keep your code organized and stick with it.

There are an infinite number of tutorials to help you learn.

Edit: Just saw the programs you have. Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro are pretty much the same thing. Dreamweaver however is sexy.. Start using it constantly until you get used to it. It's well worth it. Especially if you connect it to your website through FTP...

Edit2: You can use absolute-positioning or tables with CSS.
Absolute positioning is good for placing things on exact pixels. I believe there might be some problems with some sites that use absolute positioning on different browsers (I'm sure there is a way to fix it and still use absolute positioning though).
Anyway, with tables, you can have things relatively positioned.. Generally speaking, this is better because once you get good at it, it's easy. Also, it is easy to set tables to expand and contract with the size of the window their in (this means you can keep whatever content on the page you want in the center of the screen no matter what size the viewport is... that is good)

After you get general web-design down (easy), you'll start becoming a nitpicker. You'll want every single thing a user could possibly want to work perfectly for every user regardless of what resolution their at or what browser they're using (...tedious until you get really good at it).

Again, good luck. Adios

[lorren.biffin]

Thought i would throw my two cents in there...

on the color question...go here: http://www.colourlovers.com/index.cfm

Not saying that i couldnt suggest something for you but i find the best way to teach someone is to point in a good direction rather than lead them blindly.

:) have fun!

[nige1980]

Thanks guys, much appreciated all your advice! No doubt I'll be back in a week or two looking for more critiques, but this little lot should keep me going for a while!!

[Pasquale]

nrirureta start your own thread for critiques. Unconstructive criticism is not okay. You're coming off like a jerk and you need to stop. Your little picture of an envelop is definitely not enough to validate your attitude. amen

[nige1980]

I've got a small problem I hope someone might be able to help me with:

If you look at http://www.bandits-rugby.co.uk/test/redesign

using firefox you see a 4 px sky blue border above the Bandit Country image, however if you view the same page using IE6 or 7 you see a 2px sky blue border, a 1px white space and then another 2px sky blue border. I don't want the 1px white space but I can't for the world of me work out why this is appearing. The top blue border is the bottom border of the header image, the lower blue border is the top border of the bandit country image (which will be removed when I work out why there is a white space between the cells). It's just to illustrate the problem I'm having.

If anyone can help i'd be very grateful!!