my current WIP.. any ideas?

[blueman378]

yes... they wanted blue.

 

anyway its only the homepage atm but let me know what you think.

 

www.rofilla.com/mistybrook/

[sKunKbad]

Not a big fan of animation and stuff that moves around on screen, so the menu is a little annoying to me. If blue and animated menus is what the customer wants, then who cares? If the customer is willing to pay, then don't worry about it.

[nrg_alpha]

- I'm not much of a fan of animated menus either to be honest (it reminds of sites that try to impress with flash animations). Keeping the menu system fast and responsive (instantaneous reaction) would be the approach I would take.

 

- I don't mind the blue to be honest. But the header could perhaps be better served by using a professional logo or logo-type of some sort. As it stands, I find the header, menu and sub heading text too 'rounded / kiddie-ish' for my liking (but this is strictly my opinion). It doesn't look awful however.

 

- There's a gap between the top menu and the main body content. I think it would look better if that gap was gone (as it stands, it feels slightly disjointed IMO).

 

- I think there may be a layer of redundancy here. I am seeing the 'Have your say' icon beside the header, and you have the 'Get in touch' menu item. I would name it 'Contact', as this is what typically is used, and as a result, I'm not so sure about the 'Have your say' icon. Just feels redundant.

 

- Overall, while the look is indeed clean and simple, as a visitor, I'm not buying the whole award winning dog breading thing. The 'Welcome' part explains what the site does, but perhaps it's the copy that isn't convincing me. Is there links to the awards won? Is there nice award graphics that can be displayed? Are these dogs for sale? Perhaps the main point of the site isn't clear enough?

 

- The photos in the scrolling sideshow is not really enticing nor impressive IMO. I'm also don't think the captions like 'This is photo number 1 series;9' is terribly helpful. I think using this gallery to its more full potential would help out alot (better photos with better captions).

 

- A better favico than a microchip would be more suitable (perhaps an outline of a dog's head?).

 

Overall not horrible by any stretch.. I think it just needs more purpose.. more precise descriptions (better content in general). As it stands, it feels like a hobbyist site more than anything else. If professionalism is the goal, perhaps google around and have a look at what other dog breeding sites look like, and what they are doing. They might give you some additional insight and ideas.

[blueman378]

Hi there guys, thanks for the feedback,

 

With regard to the caption for the photos/ the slideshow in general, the caption will be replaced by actual descriptions of the photo. there will obviously be more than 3 different photos, this was simply setup with what they had given me to work with at the time, the favicon has not been created (the microchip is simply a fallthrough of my top level site.

 

Once i have more content from the client it will have better descriptions of everything, basically any "content" on the page is simply what i have come up with instead of placing lorem ipsum as the client doesnt quite understand what it is.

 

ive applied most of what ou have said, wanna have another look?

 

with regard to the "round/childness" that is what the client asked for so that is what i am required to do.

 

Regards,

Matthew Hailwood

 

 

[nrg_alpha]

Hmmm.. it appears as though the only change was the removal of the 'Have your say' (which I don't mind, as it removes a layer of redundancy overlap). I would still consider renaming 'Get in touch' with 'Contact', just becuase it is the most used convention (but this is not a deal breaker IMO). Perhaps 'The news' could be simply 'News' and placed right after 'About Us'? Generally, it seems like contact is the last item on the menu.. so some shuffling things around could help out (admittedly, these are small asthetic changes).

 

Too bad about the client's choice for fonts.. Would be nice to see something more professional looking. But I understand where you're coming from.. if that's what they want, then that's what they get. Otherwise, looks pretty much the same as before.

[steviewdr]

I didn't read all the previous posts too carefully but here are my thoughts:

 

The text on the navigation is a little too big in relation to the other text (header text).

The header text could really do with an image of a labrador or logo of some sort.

Minor issue: the down arrow on the keyboard works the images. This is ok, but if the page is really long, using the down arrow only moves the images (instead of scrolling the images).

The "Whats happening" section. You could make the bullets bigger and more pronounced. You could even use a graphical bullet.

 

Looks good apart from that. The background gradient might be a little too strong. Perhaps a lighter gradient color change would be a little easier on the eye.

 

-steve