Another time

1

once again, I need some critique and guidance on design and overall look. electrongeek already destroyed my last shred of self-confidence, so bring it on: time for a smackdown!

i know there is one bug that I have not yet figured out (the actionscript button does not become active right after seeing that section), and there is a lag on loading for dial-up and . . .

so do you best (or worst) and thanks in advance for your time and expert advice

:stuck_out_tongue: subQuark :stuck_out_tongue:

2

I like the overall look of the site, very cool. The only things i really noticed are:

1.) it might just be my res. but the text on the buttons for copyright, privacy policy, etc. is a little hard to read.

2.) the txt in each section is also a little hard to read, once again may be me. But a different, more contrasting color might help, as might a slightly larger font size.

3.) in the section “About ‘Q’”, the orange and green colors for create and deliver, they seem a little bright, i would prolly tone them down a bit.

All in all i really like the disign, it’s nice and clean. Very effective. :smirk:

3

thanks DeV, very good recommendations. i think that the font is a bit small too, boy that means redoing pics . . . but legibility is pretty important here!

I agree about the contrast (and I just upped the background brightness by 30% last night!). not sure how to keep the colour of the background without using an alpha screen and the pixel fonts don’t lend themselves to well to placing tinted versions below to create shadows and highlights.

font woes!!!

thanks for the critique, it is well appreciated

how 'bout those transitions! thanks to a really good coder (not me) on another forum

ElectronGeek, you okay?!? Where u b?

edit: DeV, what font do you use on the news section in your site? seems very legible. thanks

4

on the news section, and now most sections, i’m using verdana.

quite a few people were lettin me know i had case of multiple font disorder:sigh: . So i decided to tone it all down with a nice clean simple one.

:smirk:

5

It had some origonality which was a ncie change. Not a ton of in your face trendy stuff going on. I liked the menu. The site fit 800x600 which i didn’t think it would good job there. I kind of like the open look the site has with no outside boundarys. Nice site.

PS Nice logo:)

6

sintax321 thanks for the time and the input! yeah, it’ll barely fit in 800x600 but it was important to try to keep it at that size.

i’m glad it felt a bit original and not too techy for a portfolio site, i wanted it to be all flash but not seem so much like flash to the casual viewer. i think that’s an area that flash can do really well in, just getting the info out in an efficient manner (still can’t believe that Jakob Nielsen is partnered with MM now . . .)

now for you Dev, do you mean you are using verdana in that news scrollbox? are you using device fonts to keep it from antialiasing? What size is that font, 10?

thanks again sintax321 and DeV :eye:

edit: doh! the news section is HTML, what a doof I am :crazy:

7

Sorry Subquark, i just got home from work and I barely noticed this thread.

As for me destroying your confidence, that wasn’t my intention, I just wanted to help you improve. =)

From what I see now, you’ve improved a lot since the last time I saw your site. I like this version much more, but there are still a few things I noticed:

  1. The images in the background are really pixelated, they look like they’ve been stretched out or the quality is really poor.

  2. I like small text, but I think the text on your site is way too small. Since it’s so small and sitting on an image background, some of the content is really hard to read.

Overall I like the menu and how things are laid out. The color schem is nice as well, the major downside is the choppy images in the background. =)

8

Hi ElectronGeek! :beam: Glad you had a chance to check it out. I really value your ideas because you LOOK at a lot of sites and REALLY look at them. Plus you know what you are talking about. :!:

I’m most pleased with the transitions. It’s from this really good tutorial.

Yeah, the pics do suck. Not sure why, they are pngs made to the exact size and set to png compression of 80%. But they do have a Gaussian blur, are -40% saturated, lightened by 40% and their mc has a brightness of 30%. So that makes them look dumpy. I want a punch of colour so what do you think of a non-blur, full-colour version of the pic with an alpha screen over part of it?

The text, well, a few others said it’s small too. So I will look for something a tad bigger, probably from [COLOR=blue]Fonts for Flash[/COLOR]. What about the small menu items, should those go a bit bigger? Probably so, and I’ll have to redo those images as well . . . but I’m up for it. Any font suggestions?

Here’s to you ElectronGeek! (Swift3D)

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the verdana in the news section is in html size -7, the color is #333333. i think thats what makes it look that way, its not as bold so it kinda just smooths out a bit.

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yeah, it’s a good size and the clour scheme of the whole site is soothing and professional. I wonder if you should control the text size through CSS so that you are not at the mercy of the viewer’s preferences. I always surf at smaller (-1) or smallest (-2) on IE6. but on my pc, your fonts look nice :slight_smile:

11

okay ElectronGeek, I made a few changes (font and text background pics), see what you think.

I need to figure out how to get the big background better (boomerang thing). I drew the shapes in flash as fills, they are really big (like three times the finished size, exported them to PS7, converted to paths and applied all kinds of things to them.

Then sized it to the finished size for the site, I then saved it as 72 pix/in, also 300 pix/in pngs and both look like dookie! And with very high quality (90-95% png compression). Arghh!!!

12

Ok the images look better than before, still a little bit choppy around some edges, but not too noticable I guess.

I’m just picky…:-\

But it looks good, now work on your text, some of it is hard to read cause it’s sitting on an image background in that content box.

13

Whoooaaaa…did I just totally miss this?! I just now saw it and I LIKE IT. It was better than what I was expecting. The one thing I did’nt like about it were your sticky buttons…there is somthing about them that I do not like, I think they are just too “sticky”. But GOOD colors, and layout, I like it. Good Job

Oh and, it was a little slow loading on my T1, I dont know if that’s on my side. but it seemed a little choppy:crazy:

14

Hey ElectronGeek, I’m glad you are so picky on the pics. I guess I need to shoot some new ones. I use a 2.1 MP camera, so I don’t know what to do. Arghhh! But thanks, the pics need to be above average so your evil eye :eye: is well appreciated!

hey, you don’t like the drink I made for you!?! It’s a Warrior Woman, and despite it’s name, it’s quite refreshing (and blue!).

It sounds like I might need to do away with trying to use pics as a background, it is hard to show both a pic and have legible text.

Do you like the little jukebox graphic? It was inspired by your site :slight_smile:

I’ll keep hammering at it, thanks ElectronGeek :wink:

And gimmesomemore!!, thanks for the compliments, should be a pretty quick download, nothing is more than 120KB. I think the choppiness might be from the way I have it is coded. That transition stuff was challenging for me (BillyT’s tutorial did it).

Good catch on the stickiness, I can change that so they are not so sticky. I think I’ll keep the stickyness the same next to the main nav but certainly lower the stickyness on the portfolio page since those are also buttons. Great advice!

Thanks everybody! I’ll do the sticky tonight, probably dump the text pics and try to get the boomerang graphic crisper (any PS tips would greatly be appreciated). :!: