Which design do you prefer? Looking for honest opinions please!

Major_Disaster

Major_Disaster

Major_Disaster

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Joined
2 Nov 2007
Posts
488
Hey,

Im looking for your honest opinions... Im the first to say im a developer - not a designer (being color blind doesnt help either!)

So, with that said, which design do you prefer? This is the new design of a home page for an industrial supply company. The logo (not yet created) would go in the top left corner.

Design One (Light)

or

Design Two (Dark)

EDIT:

Design Three (Compromise)

And before you say it, i appreciate my choice of font and font colors are pretty bad. Any help here would also be appreciated.

Thanks
 
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Thanks for the replies.

Im surprised you both favour the dark design as i was learning towards the light one - but im definately going to follow any the feedback.

Just as an idea, i quickly made a third mockup as a comprimise between the two designs - what do you think?

Cheers
 
The reason everyone's going for the dark backgrounds [the only difference I can see] is that it adds some contrast, and therefore a teeny bit more visual interest.

And considering there's no logo in there yet, we can't really make any sort of helpful answers - we're not judging the whole yet.

Of the three, I think the white background one would work best once the logo's in place, as it would not detract from the main images in the slider. Though to be honest there's so little difference that it's not worth spending too much time on - make a decision now and move on to something less trivial :)

I too think you're being harsh on yourself - I've seen many worse non-designer sites out there. You've got a fair grip on things like proportion, balance and contrast, and the restraint shown in the layout is admirable. The most common mistake of non-designers/novice designers is that they try to do too much, but that's not the case here. Kudos :)

Some constructive criticism for balance? Sure :D Your typography needs some work:

Don't use justified text. Yes, it looks neater as it creates edges. But it really arses up readability on all but the narrowest columns.

Give more space at the bottom of your paragraphs, so they seem more like paragraphs. It makes words less intimidating for the scan-readers and increases overall readability.

Reduce the line height of the smaller text, especially that in the rollovers of the bottom three images. Some line spacing is good, but in this case you've gone too far and it requires the eye to jump to the next line, as opposed to flow to the next line.

But overall, yeah - good stuff. Hope you're not charging hourly rates, though :D
 
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Design 1, it's really clean. A logo will fit nicely on the left. You could put in a small light grey gradient behind it, would look great.
 
Thanks a lot for all the comments and thoughts - i really appreciate it.

Thanks espcially to simisker for your comments, i will take your tips when it comes to the typography.

I do agree however, that i should be worrying more about a logo and fit the design around that - not the other way around of having a design and trying to stick a logo in it somewhere... so i may be back at a later date!

But i do appreciate all your comments, and i hope its not me tooting my own horn to say that the general design is broadly quite well accepted?

So, cheers for the comments. Ill use them and come back when ive got something more to show.
 
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