My second website. Let me know what you think.

[defeated]

Hi all,

I've just launched my second website last week.  It is a Medical Sales Training Site.  I wanted it to look very corporate and professional.  I've integrated a wordpress blog.... took quite a while to change the css to make it look like the rest of the site.  All feedback both positive and negative greatly appreciated!

 

The address is http://www.medrep.ie

[JonnoTheDev]

Looks like one of those cheap template designs. Don't think that the colour scheme really works. The right column is a waste of space with random stock images and the navigation on some of the right column pages doesnt display properly. Corporate & professional aren't the words I would use. Take a look at http://www.mineralsmarketing.com/ A lot cleaner and consistent.

[Adam]

Red was a bad choice for the highlights. Need to choose a better color scheme - plenty of color scheme generators and tools out there to help you (Google)!

 

I wanted it to look very corporate and professional

 

Sorry but you don't pull that off. Capsule images for the links certainly don't help. As Neil said, the images in the right column just look random & lost. Simple gradients everywhere give it a cheap knocked up effect - in my personal opinion color to white gradients rarely look good anyway!

 

Needs a lot of work to pull off 'professional' I'm afraid!

 

A

[Maq]

-Keep the colors simple.  Use light colors, not black.

-Switch the header image and title.

-Each link has like 2-3 images of business people in the right column.  You should do max -1 but have links to other sections of your site, like the "course menu" has.

-It's not that bad, just needs a little tweaking.

[defeated]

Red was a bad choice for the highlights

The colour scheme came from the logo.  I wanted to use as few colours as I could because that was my brief.

 

The original site looked like this... http://www.medrep.ie/oldsite

none of the navigation will work because of redirects but that is what I had to work from.

My brief was to keep the colours and three columns.

 

Is the general consensus to only put one picture in the right col?  I had a hard time finding images that conveyed both medical and sales.  So I opted for a mix of both.  There is no reason for the column to be there on most pages, but I have used it on a few.  I don't want to add in extra unnecessary navigation.  I want to keep that as simple as possible.

 

Regarding the pill pointer in the navigation... the client loved it... I was not sure about it but it has grown on me.

 

I'd love to be pointed to some better ideas for the <h1><h2> background grads.  I did have plain text but it needed something.  I can do nearly anything with a picture but designing is not my forte.

[msinternet]

Hi,

 

Sorry. Well, it's better than the old one at least.

 

The background is ok. The red is too strong a colour as is the black. The black panels draw the eye too much and flat colour plus corners = out of date looking. Also the gradient header background just look out of date.

 

Try printing the design and drawing on it in pencil stuff like adding round corners and a few shadows and gradients (not too much though). Look at kuler.adobe.com to test colour schemes and look through www.templatemonster.com for design ideas. Try not to copy too much but buttons, borders, shiny bits etc are fine to get inspiration from.

 

Hope that helped

 

Martin

[defeated]

Thank you Martin.  That is really good advice.  I can't believe I didn't know about Kuler!  For colour blind people like me that is gold!  Love the idea of printing and then drawing on it.  I may not change anything on this site just yet...... while the client is happy.... but I can't wait to get stuck into the next one with your advice.

 

Thanks again

Ian.