Website overhaul

Jeff Parrott

So since Rick posted the CSS stuff a year or so ago I've been wanting to redo my website. I finally got around to it. Mainly I wanted to add a 2d section and take down some other sections. So far I came up with this:



I want something simple, easy to navigate and to the point. Also easy to update and add content. So I'm thinking a basic resume page, a 3d work page with links to the different works at the top and images of the work below once you click on a link. Same thing with the 2d page.

Anyways tear it up. Thanks for the crits.

stoofoo

I like it. Ship it.

pangarang

A very, VERY subtle watermark in the background - we're talking like 5-10% opacity, or maybe a texture would bring a little more personality to your site. Also that font works great for display text but choose a matching font for body text. Something more readable. But yeah, layout looks good, looks simple enough to navigate. Also it would be more interesting to choose another colour to go with the orange instead of a neutral gray. You're an artist. You're anything but neutral!

Anyway yeah the layout looks good, easy to use. Overall, lookin pretty good there.

renderhjs

hopefully some usefull crits for you:

imo. to big fonts,- looks like 32px+ for the menu esspecially with those sans-serif fonts wich have by itself already alot space. So`I´d either go for a more bold (thicker lines) font or reduce the fontsize. (It does look a little bit like print stuff- because of the big elements, screen designs usually have smaler fonts from my expierence)

The black 4pix outline has to much contrast compared to the other parts it doesn´t fit- perhaps make it more dense (more grey) and thinner.

When testing layouts better add some more pixels around your now croped layout to see how it looks in space and later in anything above 15''-

Jeff Parrott

So I changed the color scheme a bit around. I'll probably toy with it more once I get the functionality of the site back.

I also decided to only use that font on the header and buttons. The rest will be a more readable font, good call pangarang.

I'll look into a watermark in the bg eventually.

So darker outline and maybe thinner? I'll try that also. The font is large I'll give you that. It looks decent on my screen though. I think on a smaller screen it'll look bigger. I'll experiment with something a bit smaller or tightening up the deadspace.

So far I have www.jeffparrott.com working. I'll probably do a bit more work on it tonight and tomorrow. I'd like to get it back up by the weekend. I'm getting some weird spacing on IE with the buttons. Firefox and Safari look fine though.

IronHawk

cool so far but that yellow background is a bit overpowering. Maybe try flipping the text color and background.

qubism

1+1=3

try loose borders and backgrounds.
dont go for watermarks of any kind there.
big fonts arent nessacarly bad but should be choosen carefully.
in anyways most important thing is where are the real placeholders.
how do u judge one youre image layout by using letters as images!?

anyways the overall structure is so simple that nobody should have trouble browsing that.
but as u turned it into the site i must say i really dont dig the aliasing thats goin on and u really dont need that round stuff there. thats not minimalistic or basic... 1+1=3 again!

qubism

just saw that u edited the thing a bit more with images now in it. okay now that u have additional information to the image its not quiet clear what informtaion is on what pic cuz spaces are the same. NO SPACE! make some. u have it and its free! honestly i believe u can achive something better with the site by loosing all unnessacary graphics. honestly.

or compromise. do not box things. i mean u make spaces. tight spaces and put things in it tho they could have a nice feeling straight on a background... no need for framing things here.
youre not deviding things since theres nothing to devide it from. but important thing in the layout would be space to the edge of the frame. allways.

listen to me...

Jeff Parrott

qub, drop the backgrounds, borders, header graphics, etc. You're saying just minimalist text and images? Seems a little simple. Any other sites that have what you're saying? I'm definitely open to making those changes, I just don't get them fully.

Piotr

Ouch the background color. Remeber that the brighter the picture is, the more the pupil contracts. Which in the end makes harder to see small variations of colors and so on.

Light background - bad.

Yozora

I actually prefer the grey and orange title theme in your first post rather than the yellow and grey/blue title that you got right now

qubism

actuallly its even a coders believe to work with less images if u can use just css to do the whole look.

http://dergraph.com/askhat/

i made an example for askhat one time. its a rather simple one.
focusses on overview of all works (yours thumbs arent exactly thumbnail size but whatever suits is fine. depends on how much u have anyway. the first thumb is a link there too using lightbox (its getting popular around the internet) ... with modified css too to matchc the site itself....

Jeff Parrott

OK, so change out the color scheme, simplify everything. Basically you're saying have navigation for the whole site at all times instead of navigation to sections? It makes sense, I just worry about it being too confusing.

The CSS thing is giving me such a nightmare. The CSS version I did had some horrible IE problems with spacing. I looked into it and apparently IE hates CSS. So currently i cut out all the CSS. If I use one huge menu for the whole site it's going to be a nightmare without CSS. So maybe I'll have to go back to that.

Anyways, thanks for the pointers. I'll scrap what I have and get back to the simple stuff.

RustyFranks

yeah IE does render CSS horribly, but as long as you're using the most up-to-date IE, or even 6+ it shouldn't be too horrible. the spacing is almost always different from IE to Firefox. My general rule of thumb with sites is to design for IE and try to make it look somewhat decent in Firefox. If you're looking for a job, that means corporate networks which means mostly IE.

Jeff Parrott

I updated it. Basically I ripped off the site qub did. Now my problems are the design is pretty simple, and too similar to that sample site, and the resume page navigation I think.

Not sure if I should have the thumbs up at the top when you click on resume or what. Any ideas?

Also qub that lightbox thing is great. I really like it. I ended up using it. I just need to customize the images a bit more for it. I need to figure out a way to only have 1 button but then you can go through a bunch of images. Like an image for game a, you click it, and you have shot 1 of that game, click next to see shot 2, etc. I just don't think I need a bazillion thumbs up for every game. Any ideas on that? Thanks for the help. Definitely getting something more of what I want. It's uber simple to update now.

bounchfx

it's not working at all for me right now