New Site Thoughts

[morroney]

Aloha Kirupians, it's been awhile...

I've rebuilt my site to contain a little more google friendly html as well as make it easier to update.

i wanted to get the community's thoughts. it's a very straight forward site, I'm not trying to wow people with cutting edge design...just want to look professional. :tie:

anyway it's at

(http://www.dkdesignhawaii.com)http://www.dkdesignhawaii.com

thanks for all the previous and continued inspiration... i owe much to the good advice of others!

[formscape]

go here, these guys collect the cutting edge stuff, maybe there's some tips you could pick up:
http://www.netdiver.net

ok down to business..

- ditch the image from the top left, it feels a bit clipart (not really pro to use clipart)
- ditch the rounded rectangle, (even if you're going to anti-alias the corners, it looks rough, and hasn't been used elsewhere so it's best to keep to the square forms).
- try some different colours (screen grab stuff from netDiver and colour picker it in photoshop if you have to). good colour and good type go a long way to producing credible design. You can go a long way by the old 'fake it til you make it' axiom with colour, and having instant access to years of experience from top design firms at your disposal will make 'faking easier, and you'll gain an understanding of where they're coming from.

- walk before you run. once you've got the colours right, then maybe think about adding some tasteful gradients back in, but until then, flat colour is better. Gradients often are an instant go-to when there's no other way of activating the space. Just play round with the composition on screen and see if you can get something exciting going in. Maybe this is peeling back the borders a bit, or fixing the foreground/background 'floating' sense?

- Centre alignment is another instant go-to, and i'm really not a fan. Better type hierarchies can fix this, and send all your text left - the design savvy will thank you for it.

- no tables in HTML. Tables are the devil.
- cut down the content. People are busier on the web these days, (i'm always browsing like 10-20 tabs). They'll want to see your work mainly, so maybe less of the oh-so-trendy blog style thing? Or grab a nice wordpress theme to work from, so there's a clearer orginisation of content.
- it's not a bad starting point, and with a bit of time spent figuring out what makes a good website look so sexy, you'll be able to pull this one up to standard. Try stuff, on paper. Take people on a journey, excite them a little :)

thanks,

j.

[morroney]

Thank you for your honest insight and critique, it's good motivation. I agree with most of your thoughts, I try to tell myself to use the easy way out less and put more time into creating something more like art. It's always a delicate balance...