New Client Web Site

[krymson]

I am creating a "cost efficient" website for a new client. Basically 5 pages with a gallery, comments/testimonials, index, contact, and about. Ive got the basic layout done and everything, but the typography and stuff just isnt setting right with me. Note when you visit the contact and gallery pages are not working because i am still getting stuff for that. But pleas let me know any comments and feed back. Not this is a site for $150 but its including alot. They know its going to be a basic design with nothing REAL fancy in there as far as graphics wise. So please be gentle and im looking forward to constructive feed back.

http://krymsonproductions.co.cc/clients/granteld/Mock1/index.html

 

[ronaldroe]

Damn nice for the price. The type looks good to me, but then I'm shite with that anyway.

 

[krymson]

Its an introductory price to get my business off the ground. I'm offering it to my first 10 clients to get reviews and client feedback and hopefully word of mouth. Doing stuff that only takes me 1-3 days for 150 bucks working on it 5-8 hours a day to get quick turn around crank out alot in a little amount of time. but im no designer but i make due.

 

[Phreaddee]

yeah your line spacing is a little too wide, font is OK tho.

for $150, I think you are shooting yourself in the foot.

id suggest making the line in the header, line up with the content - its a little disjointed currently.

http://krymsonproductions.co.cc/clients/granteld/Mock1/testimonials.php
this testimonials page is a shocker, sorry but it is wrong in so many ways.

load it up and look at it for 10 minutes, and see if you are still happy with what you've done...

 

[krymson]

http://krymsonproductions.co.cc/clients/granteld/Mock1/testimonials.php
this testimonials page is a shocker, sorry but it is wrong in so many ways.

load it up and look at it for 10 minutes, and see if you are still happy with what you've done...

It was at my stopping point that i made for myself otherwise i wasnt going to quit until the whole site was done, it should look a bit better now working out the kinks. It's a commenting system call commentics, still trying to figure out how everything works, it uses php and txt files. But i think im starting to get there.

 

[d a v e]

i think you might need to take the "to" out of this sentence on front page
"Granteld Hair Salon is a full service hair salon catering to the Cypress, Texas." ?

and "smal"

the yellow background is too bright and really 90s looking pick something that fades it into the background more
see attached image for background idea

the white text is a little too white? try #e0e0e0 and see if it works better

favicon

change the state of the current page - to show where the user is on the site (use a dark red bg maybe to show current page)

as mentioned line height is too large

the swirls in the logo font look a bit broken and fragile (like bad hair - paste a duplicate of the text ) not scissors on top and it should look better - i quickly went over the top curl in Hair and it already looks better

you have a typo on your 404 page "archieves?" (from the gallery link)

link logo back to homepage

text needs more white space (margins/padding)

check for missing alt attributes and validate the site

a good job though for 150 dollars but a few basic things to iron out that will put you on a good standing for future sites (typography, checking copy for mistakes, etc) and i would aim for a strict doctype and lose the spry menu - there's simply no for such a basic menu when you can build the same thing in just css.

btw is your name cheekylizi or is that the name of yours or your client's mac?

 

[krymson]

Alright, did most of your suggestions and did the contact and the gallery pages done in CSS. The #e0e0e0 font looks better and i took your BG idea and reversed it. And i didnt link logo because its a bg image, but other than that looks good. Thanks for the help.

 

[notarypublic]

Your column on the right should really expand the whole height of the page.

The white vertical dividing line doesn't line up with the navigation bar, or anything really..

You don't need to convince people to come to the salon because there is a pizza hut in the same mall. They should want to come there to get a haircut.

Your testimonials page is great as an exercise, but is probably more robust than what you need for a small business like this. You only want good testimonials, since you probably won't be getting many - consider making it a static page with testimonials that you type in yourself.

Clicking on a gallery image should open the image in a new tab, or something bigger than a thumbnail.

4square logo looks off.. very grainy, I guess? It doesn't fit with the other two icons.

---------------------------------------------------

All that to say, it's still a pretty good website. Even as an introductory one, $300 would have been a fair rate. If you were making this as a normal site, $500 wouldn't be unreasonable at all. Think about what they pay for print ads (that run per month) or commercials (extremely expensive), having a website is having an interactive advertisement that people can find and look at any time. Don't sell yourself so short.

 

[ronaldroe]

Easy way to link your header when it's a background image:

Create a 1px gif that is a transparent. Place it within the header div, use CSS to stretch the image to the size of the header div. Then link the image to the home page.