Removed embarrassing post from when I was a complete noob.
I think everything seems stretched vertically. Especially the text on the main page - it’s hard to read. Work on your kerning - the letters are too closely spaced.
I also think there’s a better way to show off this man’s work. There are some beautiful things hidden there, but I think the main page is waaaay too busy.
IMHO you need a calm sensation to really appreciate this man’s work - and this is just too loud and busy…
People are coming to this site to find inspiration to decorate their homes, and they need to be shown what this man can offer in a simple and appealling way.
I’m thinking a simple flash gallery - showing one pic at a time with thumbs etc, would work much better.
And last but not least - this guy’s work doesn’t look cheap - and his website should reflect that. Think elegant, simple and precise.
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The look in general feels very kitchy. Too much texture, too much clickable stuff, and it’s all kinda randomly thrown around. The butterfly thing at the bottom was corny and looked weird. Also the buttons had way to much contrast and are hard on the eyes.
Sorry that your client is an idiot though. I mean what makes them think they know better than the people they hired to make the design? They hired you because they don’t know what they’re doing.
The look in general feels very kitchy. Too much texture
I guess that’s on purpose. I agree with the comments above. The site is well put together, but wouldn’t the clients prefer something more current?
Ask them to read our comments, lol!
It didn’t need to be Flash, you could have pulled off the same thing with half the hassle simply customizing a basic CMS.
[quote=esgraphicartist;2340303]You know what…
I ABSOLUTELY agree…[/quote]
■■■■, that’s a first! :lol:
And I agree with Fidodo - somehow your client should be made aware of the fact, that his field of expertise is decorating. NOT website design! 
I know it sounds like extra work, but maybe you should try to do a mock up of an elegant site, just draw it in photoshop, etc and show it to him? The way you feel it should look…
I <3 butteryfly 
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WHOAH. Since when did CSS become a plugin? Did I miss something here?
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I respectfully disagree.
You have to view a client as someone who has an idea what they want, but not necessarily the knowledge to understand what they need. You have to stand up to clients and poor design decisions because YOU are the expert. If you don’t act like it and tell them up front that their idea is poor then they won’t understand it.
I have (no joke) walked away from projects where clients made catastrophic decisions and were adamant about it. This might not be the preferred “American” attitude (Sure we can do it! Whatever you want, we’ll do it!!) but it is something I feel would be wise to adapt to some degree.
You are the expert. You are making sure your client is not getting just what they want but also something that will stand out as a great product/project. If you don’t and the project ends up being mediocre then that’s not the clients fault.
It’s yours.
And btw, flash has poor SEO. Css doesn’t. If you’re not USING flash (which you’re not tbh) then you are literally making a bad decision. If you are creating something that will need the power of flash, then that’s great. If you’re just looking to create a website and choose flash so you don’t have to do CSS… Then you, again, are making a bad decision.
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Posting your work in forums like these is designed for people to give their honest opinions with the intention of perhaps sharing their point of view. In the best case scenarios people take parts of the surge of comments and remember them while shrugging off the others.
In the bad cases people just get pissy and say that they will leave. Don’t be like that. It’s so destructive.
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This should have been xHTML/CSS. I’m a huge fan of Flash, I do almost nothing but Flash, but this was a mistake. You’re missing out on SEO, browser functionality like next / back / bookmark, typical conventions of use, accessibility. It’s just bad. You didn’t address any of the issues by using things like SWFAddress, so it’s just as bad a misuse of Flash as they come.
Pretty poor call, you’re not doing your clients any favors.
Correction:
it is impure when used incorrectly, as in this case
Flash is awesome at doing a select number of things, and this site, being a pretty static, “normal” site, you’re using flash for the wrong purpose, in this case its “because you can”
But then again, being the developer, you can choose what method to build your site, but its not “just some programmers” opinion that you are disagreeing with, in this case, you are disagreeing with 90% of the modern internetz
And heck, honestly, I would have done the same thing in your shoes, 3 years ago, but now I’ve taught myself HTML and CSS, and if you’re smart about it, your site will never be “code-heavy” (what does that even mean ?? Flash has its fair share of code to make some of the most basic things, function)
Like has been mentioned by you, and some others, its up to you, and ultimately up to the client… you never get paid for overworking, so if they’re happy, then you == win.
if they said "Nah I don’t like that i can’t find any of my work on google… "
THEN you’d have a problem
Please nix the flash and + the xhtml+css .
