First Professional Project: XHTML/CSS

talk design
1

Boyar and Sandler Communications

Hey team! I’ve been asked to redesign this site and here’s what I’ve come up with. The client has been producing media for local school districts for years and is trying to branch out as a communications firm for non-school industries. They asked me to keep the old logo (pencil/paper is pretty school-ish IMO but it stays for now) but redesign the site with a more professional (but not web-2.0) look and feel. None of the links work, as I’ve only designed the homepage so far, but I’d be grateful for opinions on the design/layout.

One specific question: of the five sidebar images, the top two (Brochures and Newsletters) I photoshopped to match the logo colors, while the bottom three are in full color. Any preference?

Cheers,
Steve

2

When I first saw it my reaction was “oo looks pretty nice”

then I scrolled to the bottom and saw the 100 px tall turquoise bar.

Not hot ;/

3

[quote=sekasi;2351581]When I first saw it my reaction was “oo looks pretty nice”

then I scrolled to the bottom and saw the 100 px tall turquoise bar.

Not hot ;/[/quote]

Turquise bar a no-go? The color’s right out of the logo (specifically the pad). If not turquoise I’d probably use an off-white paper texture with a torn top edge for visual interest. Other thoughts?

Thanks for lookin :slight_smile:

4

[QUOTE=FlashPirateYarr;2351590]Turquise bar a no-go? The color’s right out of the logo (specifically the pad). If not turquoise I’d probably use an off-white paper texture with a torn top edge for visual interest. Other thoughts?

Thanks for lookin :)[/QUOTE]

I suggest a tint lighter than the “wood color”… I like the website BTW!

5

I’d trying running the main page and bg right into the bottom and skip the bar.

There’s also a blue border around the graph paper in IE.

6

Yeah, I think it’s IE 6.0 that can’t handle PNG graphics. (Browsershots shows IE7 handling them fine). I think found a fix for this issue in This Tutorial. I’m gonna give it a shot. Thanks!

7

According to a Browsershots run, this fix works in IE 6.0 (i.e. PNG alpha channels work) when the horizontal resolution is set to 1024, but not when it’s set to 1600. This makes no sense, so I’m going to let it be. If anyone’s using IE6 (and has reset their cache since last viewing the site) I’d love to know what you see.

8

use jQuerys png fix. works perfectly.

9

I would Have dudes business card sticking out from the footer.

10

I like it, nice and simple/clean, but yes, the footer section doesnt work so well…why not maintain the wood grain background and just have the footer as another piece of paper below the main one? Or something else…shouldnt be too hard to improve on the current footer.

11

The banner and icons are pretty yuck. The layout any typography is pretty classy, but those are not working (particularly the icons). I normally would say -death to wood textures-, but it’s really not that bad here, kinda works. Also, the bottom needs to go, or the papers need to hang over onto it. I like the dots :slight_smile: