Band Website Critique

talk design
1

This site is totally not done, i know, but if you could just check it out and tell me what you think… be as critical as you want. just please do not comment on the following things.

  1. record label logo at the bottom ( i know it needs to be changed dramatically)
    2)preloader… its just temporary until im done the site.
  2. missing pictures… not uploaded all yet
  3. some of the buttons dont like anywhere yet soo… some dont work :sigh:
    any way other than that, goooo nuts.
  4. also the size of the swf… i know its big… im trying to fix that right now (any suggestions)

http://www.everynewday.net/crud/index1.html
your suggestions are greatly appreciated :stuck_out_tongue:

2

7 mb wow, load it externally will help for the loading time.

3

I like the site not many suggestions other than the ones you mentioned you are working on but the 7mb thing is a big problem and will lose many visitors at least that is what I have noticed when sites take to long to load.

4

i can find no reason why that site should be 7 megs…

5

the thing is, i have a lot of scaled down pictures… so its big. im in the process of making them smaller… kinda time consumin/ anoying, but worth it… im not too familiar with externally loading swf’s. i do that with my text, so im asuming its quite similar

6

7mb is rediculous. Load the images, sounds, loops when you need them. there are some tutorials on here about loading external images…

…ok, I’ve just looked some more… where are the high res images that are eating up all that size?

7

most of the high rez images are the banners on each page… they are majorly resized… im learning how to seperately load movie clips now… thanks for the advise :s:

8

you should resize and optimize your images in photoshop. I’m guessing you finagled all the images in flash. Yeah, definitely load everything externally.

I like the music…remind me of Thrice.

9

yup… i like the music to. thats why i did the sight :smile:

10

Very huge file, maybe try using the loadmovie feature and create seperate scenes for each section. Other than that the layout and interface is way cool. I like that grungy look, it works well with the site.

11

Site looks pretty good, could use a little more work with the transitions and such, but everything else looks good. Increase the navigation font size just a little bit so it’s a little easier to read. Everything else looks great and in order though.

To optimize the pictures and stuff, shrink them down in photoshop or a similar editing program to the size they need to be first. Then either save them as a lower quality image (assuming jpg) or use the optimize options within flash to get the filesize smaller. You shouldn’t even have to load the pictures/banners/ect. externally. Perhaps it’s the gallery that is hitting the filesize so largely. If you didn’t create thumbnails for the images and instead imported and shrunk the images, I suggest you do that.

12

You mispelled Downloads (DOWLOADS)

Other than the file size issue, its lookin’ good

13

I cant even count the number of times i made that exact same mistake…

14

Yup, i make spelling errors all the time… Its hard to spot them in your own work, but when someone else looks, its somehow more obvious…

15

yea it looks alright

Here’s some tips to help with you filesize issue

  1. Learn this:
    on (release) {
    loadMovieNum(“insertfilenamehere.swf”, 0);
    }     Put that code on a button or mc, 0 represents the bottom layer/level of the movie

  2. Don’t optimise your pictures in PS unless your are externally loading them. Compress the pictures using flash (you can do this by opening the library and right clicking on the picture and selecting Properties then adjusting the compression quality)

16

Still waiting :thumb:

17

thanks for all the tips guys!! im slowly but surely working the kinks out… thank you sooo much!! :slight_smile: keep em comin!