my attempt. take a look folks

[brintonwhite]

I am playing around with dreamweaver and also learning how to do things with photoshop. I have made a mock up of a site and need some advice, criticism.

Here goes, I have broken it into specific points to think about.

1. On a scale of one to ten (one being poor) how amateurish does it look - banner, buttons.

2. When making this in dreamweaver I did not use templates and saved each page with the different text as seperate html pages. I am not sure if this is the correct way to do it as the page flashes when I test the links in IE and opera.

3. I would like the entire page and banner graphic to fill the entire window (stretch) but I am viewing it with a resolution of 1024 - 768 and there is a large white gap down the right hand side. It must be possible but i'm not sure how to do it (I could add at this point that I know how to make a column autostretch but not the banner graphic)

Thank you for reading and I hope that you can find the time to respond to my questions.

This post has been edited to remove earlier link. Please see later spree link below.

Thank you.

[thediablo]

got a long way to go dude.

i would say a 4, work more in the header, make it more cool.

Work a little more in the buttons,

its not a very good start, BUT, its a start! :D

keep up the work!

[H311y]

i think that you must see many site of design, just for extend your mind, a little see on the web and you are ready to create!
good luck!:)

[brintonwhite]

As I said, I am only a beginner with both dreamweaver and photoshop. Playing around for only a couple of weeks on the whole. So when you say its a very poor start, that seems a little unfair for just someone who is starting.

If anyone can answer the technical points I asked, that would be great.

[thediablo]

i didnt say its a POOR start... is just a START, and is ok

[brintonwhite]

you said it is not a very good start which is the same thing. I appreciate any comments anyway, so thanks.

[thediablo]

i didnt say poor :(

[nobody]

I think that's a great start man. It's not a very good website, but for a start it's great. You didn't make anything black with neon writing or anything so in my book you are doing great. Keep workin at it man.

[brintonwhite]

Do you think I am improving?

http://www.spree.us

[neverrain]

Without Sugar Coating: Nope still sucks. :P

1. Ok I think the font on the preloader is a little small, the color doesn’t match well with the bg color.

2. The emblem looks like I have seen it somewhere before, maybe like on a t-shirt company or something like that and if I am wrong it needs some work maybe a color make over. Why do you have the word Spree twice?

3. I am all about navigation, it’s what I do, I think the nav needs to be a little more, um...graphical or just a little more clever. You need some sort of good background navigation image other then just a solid color with some text on it, as the others said, work on the buttons. Personally I think you should have a navigation bar and not the floating buttons as you do now. Then again, just my opinion.

4. On a 1280x1024 screen the page looks bad because the background is only on the Flash movie (refer to my site (alpha version) http://www.julianwilson.tk) See how my site no matter how tall you make the window always is full screen (height wise), you do this by making the same background graphic as you have in your Flash movie so that it will expand to the screen size. ;)

I think you should either use a Flash shout box and or a Flash forum for your forum instead of someone else’s server.

It’s not a bad start for a beginner but I think you could do better if you expand your thoughts.

Over all I give the site a 3 out of 10.

Good Luck Working on it.
-data

[brintonwhite]

The future's not looking very good for me is it.:skull:

I'm a little unsure how to make the background I have spent many hours trying to figure this out. Because the flash background is a gradient How do I get the background the same?

I would love to know how to make a forum in flash but I feel this is way over my head in terms of technical ability. Do you know how to do it?

My navigation could certainly do with some work as you say but again, it's being able to do it technically that stops me. I would like smooth navigations like at the following site:

http://www.realitydesigns.co.uk/

I am unable to to it because I simply can't figure it out. I've posted on forums but got little help with it.

I thank you for your comments but feel bad because of how crap you think it is for a relative beginer.

[neverrain]

Well I wouldn't say the future isn't looking good for you, you just need to read all you can about Flash, work out your design problem, and as Morphuse says (Matrix dude) You must first free your mind to all known limits. :D

The navigaton on reality designs is a peice of cake, all he does is makes buttons (using a pixel font) and has an onRollover command to it, I am not sure if he uses Movieclips or buttons. :p:

Well you can find many flash forums already made, I suggest using the one over at http://www.flash-db.com, there's is very nice and free to use, hard to skin though. And yes I do know how to make them, along time ago here on Kirupa I used to ask about Flash forums all the time, finally I got started working on them myself. :snug:

as for the BG all you do it screen grab your gradient, crop it down to a 1px height and make it your content table background (meaning it tiles on the table you have your flash movie in).

Your better then me when I first started (like 9 months ago I think) so don't feel to bad about your design, you will get better at an alarming rate if you anything like us. :flower:

I suggest reading every tutorial here: http://www.actionscript.org.

Good luck, hope it works for you. :tb:
-data

[brintonwhite]

thanks. the link you gave me to the forum isn't working. unless the server is down?

[Laslett]

Concept is ok. As said colours down work.

What image are you trying to portray?

The bouncing balls get a bit irratating maybe you could use a dampening effect so they eventually go still

As for the menu maybe like a grey block with a thinish band of colour at the top or bottom.

then get your slider to slide in under the whole block. maybe even corner the edges.

There, thrown some ideas.

But will have to colur it up a bit