First Ever Website

[pensyd]

Hi Guys,

 

I have pretty much finished my first ever website.

 

I know its not the greatest but that would have been expecting too much.

 

Please have a look and let me know any thoughts you may have.

 

Its best viewed in Firefox.

 

www.davids-photography.com

 

Let the first page go through all the photos if you like.

 

Thanks

 

Be Gentle 

[blueman378]

Not bad for a first attempt.

 

Thought #1

 

add some more colour.

 

even if it is just a solid black background that spans 100% wide and contains this info(in white text):

DAVID'S PHOTOGRAPHY

 

Sydney Australia

 

***@***.com

 

Thought #2

 

The font is fine for your contact info, and maybe even the footer.

But i would not suggest using it for your menu.

 

Thought #3

 

Shrink the size of the text on your footer.

 

a footer is meant to be noticeable, but not dominant

 

[xeronix]

Looks good, however, I personally think you need a logo.

 

It doesn't matter what type, but as long it's in that top left corner, you're good.

 

 

[pensyd]

Thank you guys,

 

Greatly appreciate the feedback.

 

I will make the changes and see how it goes.

 

Thank you again.

[fortnox007]

try to rearrange this like it where a postcard. I bet you know as a photographer what I mean.

[Shp0ngl3]

For the galleries I would use lightbox to display the pictures. Drop the iframe. Right away it will look far more professional

[KevinM1]

To be perfectly honest, if you mean for this to be a serious website for your business, you'll need to do a complete overhaul.

 

1. Never, ever, ever use Comic Sans as your font.  You are not a comic book.

 

2. Don't use a gradient for a background.  That's okay for "Grandma's pictures of her summer vacation."  Not for a site belonging to a professional.

 

3. Site structure.  You need to organize your pages, and create areas that clearly demarcate navigation, content, etc.  Look at every other site you've been to.  They have columns.  They have clearly defined headers and footers.  These structures exist for a reason.  Use them.

 

4. Ditch the iframes.  Also, on your front page, the images, when clicked, bring me to an error page.  You need to fix it.

 

I'm not trying to be harsh, just realistic.  You're (presumably) trying to separate yourself from the pack to generate more business for yourself.  In order to do it, you need to see how the competition does it, and then attempt to do it better.  I understand that this is your first attempt, and honestly for a first attempt it's not too bad (you should have seen the monstrosities I made back in the day).  That said, since this is a site showcasing your business, it needs to be held to a higher standard.

 

This attempt should be considered a rough draft.  You got your feet wet with the process.  Now it's time to go at it for real.

[xeronix]

As well as with the recommendations given above, browse some website design template websites.

 

I sometimes find inspiration there, as there is so much variety to choose from. Base your site around one of theirs.

[pensyd]

Thanks guys for all your input i greatly appreciate it.

 

I am having a really good look around and will redo the whole thing.

 

After stepping back and looking at it constructively myself, instead of just patting myself on the back for a job well done, lol

 

I can see there is room for alot of improvement.

 

I do have one question though, what would be the best type of image gallery for alot of images?

 

Thanks again guys.

 

David

[KevinM1]

I'm not familiar with 3rd party image gallery systems.  My sites have never been focused on art.  I'm sure someone else would be able to help there.  That said, you should take a look at Lightbox as a way to show individual photos when a thumbnail is clicked.  It's smoother than using an iframe.

 

Also, and I mean this with all sincerity, kudos for taking the criticism in the way in which it was intended.  A lot of people come here merely looking for a pat on the back and get angry when others don't simply shower them with praise.  So, keep at it and keep looking to improve.

[xeronix]

Most likely a flash image gallery, I know you can find a lot of them around.

 

Some of them look REALLY good.

 

Unless you want to take the plunge into Flash, Actionscript and XML

[pensyd]

I have had a look at some flash galleries, and have to say, Flash is well over my head and knowledge levels, but thanks.

 

As i said i am a total newbie, my knowledge of web site design and building would probably fit only just in my left ear, so i am open to all critiques, both good and bad.  Learning is what its all about.

 

I will keep looking at different galleries, and see what one takes my fancy.

 

Thanks again for your help.

[pensyd]

Hi again,

 

If anyone is interested, i have redesigned my site. 

 

I will be straight up and honest with you, i found a site I liked and copied its layout. I did make some changes to it, so its not a total rip off.

 

Only the home, about, galleries and links pages have been changed.  I am still looking for an image gallery that i like.

 

Anyway let me know what you think.

 

Thanks heaps

 

David

[pensyd]

Sorry, save you looking all the way up the top again.

 

www.davids-photography.com

[KevinM1]

Much better.  And, I'm happy to see that the main layout doesn't use tables.  Yay!

 

A couple of things stand out like a sore thumb:

 

1. The spacing for the elements on the 'About' page is a bit messed up.  Your bio box is way too far to the right.

 

2. Spelling error at the top.  Firfox should be Firefox.

 

Some other suggestions:

 

You should probably have a few extra pixels of margin or padding to the top of the site.  It feels a bit too close to the top of the browsing window.  Nothing drastic, just literally a few (3-5) pixels should do the trick.

 

You have a couple of text-only links on your links page that are hard to read, as they share the same color as your footer font.  The spacing is also a bit off, as the other links are large images, and then there's a lot of empty space for the text-only links below them.  Feels kinda empty down there.

 

RE: Fix #1 - looking at some of the other pages, it looks like there's some more spacing issues.  I never normally browse with a maximized browser window, but I have it set to a decent width so I never have to scroll horizontally to view content.  I'm getting a horizontal scroll bar on both 'About' and 'Links'.  Definitely need to fix that.  A cursory look at your code shows me that it may have to do with the <div id="gallery"> element - you don't have a closing tag (</div>) for it.

 

Still, much better.  And, every time I look at your site, it reminds me I went into the wrong field.  :'(

[pensyd]

Hi Nightslyr,

 

Thanks for your comments, i too noticed the about page being spread too far apart when i uploaded it.  Definitely didnt look like then when i tested.

 

I will have a look at the gallery id too thank you.

 

I guess it always pays to run a spell check over your work, no matter how good or bad your coding is, 

 

Thanks again, hopefully it is getting there.  Still looking for a gallery i like, that will come though.

[KevinM1]

Hi Nightslyr,

 

Thanks for your comments, i too noticed the about page being spread too far apart when i uploaded it.  Definitely didnt look like then when i tested.

 

I will have a look at the gallery id too thank you.

 

I guess it always pays to run a spell check over your work, no matter how good or bad your coding is, 

 

Thanks again, hopefully it is getting there.  Still looking for a gallery i like, that will come though.

 

Are you testing within Dreamweaver?  I've heard that the previews it shows aren't entirely accurate.  Be sure to test in the big four (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera) at the very least.

[Andy-H]

Only checked out the Gallery section, I think your site is spot on mate. Naked Aussie girls swing the vote in your favour every time.

[pensyd]

lol thanks Andy.

 

To be honest only been testing in Firefox, but will definitely test in all of them now.

 

Thanks again guys, i have seen a couple of things i need and will fix up.

[pensyd]

Ok i have made some changes, moved the header in and down abit, corrected spelling lol

 

It works great in Firefox, chrome and Opera, but IE doesnt like it for some reason, i am not sure why.

 

The menu fonts and the header are all over the shop.

 

For the moment i have turned off the actual galleries and contact page, so only the 4 main pages are working, home, about, gallery and links

 

Thanks

[KevinM1]

Ok i have made some changes, moved the header in and down abit, corrected spelling lol

 

It works great in Firefox, chrome and Opera, but IE doesnt like it for some reason, i am not sure why.

 

The menu fonts and the header are all over the shop.

 

For the moment i have turned off the actual galleries and contact page, so only the 4 main pages are working, home, about, gallery and links

 

Thanks

 

Yeah, IE can be a bit tricky.  Your best bet is to use a CSS reset.  One of the standard ones can be found here: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/reset.css

 

Let us know if you need more help with it (e.g., what a reset is, why it's necessary, how to use it, etc.).

[pensyd]

Awesome,

 

The reset fixed up the menu font and size, and i found out where i went wrong with the header.

 

So all fixed now, works in IE 8 atleast, which is fine by me.

 

I have put a line in to hopefully make them upgrade if they are using less than IE 8

 

Thank you again.  I do believe it is taking shape.

[KevinM1]

jQuery/JavaScript gallery, brand new (just got the link through my Twitter feed a few minutes ago): http://manos.malihu.gr/sideways-jquery-fullscreen-image-gallery

 

Since it's all JavaScript and CSS, you can re-skin it.

[fortnox007]

Good JOB!!! that's at least a 600 percent improvement

small thingy (I would adjust the height a small bit, For laptop viewers it's a scroller

[thezodiac]

For a starters site it isn't bad how ever I have some criticism or how ever you wanna call it:

 

# The homepage should consist more text.

# On HD resolution you got a very wide website menu on the left content at the right.

# I noticed some 404 errors, this should never happen on a live site.

# Personally I wouldn't add the "best viewed in FF.." in the main menu.

# You don't use any headings tags like h1 and h2.

# Title tag is stuffed with to much text.

 

About the design, I like basic designs so for me it is okay how ever try to align everything on the right position.