Web coding/design positive critique

[lozza]

Evening all, Tonight i have mostly been working on a new website design.

It may become a real thing, however it may not but serves as good practice for me. Basically it's a mini project for my web design evening class - it is for a site the tutor wants to get up and running - free labour he's getting the students to do the work for him with the design he thinks is most appropriate going live.

The domain name is atypus.eu Atypus being a type of spider.

The brief, brief was to produce the front index page, to have some connection with the atypus spider, nothing corney.

the look of the site should:

• provide a profesional image
• be stylish
• be memorable
• striking
• creative
• yet subtle

I'm not sure if i've managed to get any of those things but please take a look: atypus

The site validates for CSS and html 4.01 strict, however i'm not sure i've gone about the best was of doing the CSS (i'm thinking that some selectors are maybe not needed as the styling could possibly be included in another selector) or the order of the html code. The CSS code is in the header so if you view source you'll see the CSS and html. ( i will at a later date put the CSS in an external style sheet)

The logo and the web image are really rather poo atm but i will work on that (i'm not the best a chopping) I'm also thinking of a fade either side of column 2 to divide it away from the nav menu in column 3.

So any comments on ways to improve the layout/code/graphics are muchly appreciated. Please try and be constructive with comments - if you don't like something please suggest how you would do it differently.

And if you want to have a go some nice jazzy graphics and logo please do

 

[agw_01]

Trying to get a feel for webdesign myself, I will say one thing...

I don't like the over usage of dots for the links in the bottom left corner.

Maybe right-justified without the dots would look better.

Or perhaps a similar sort of formatting as those links in the upper right corner.

 

[Wimnat]

I'd say that's a really good start.

I think the colours could be different... A slightly more exciting brown ( in other words, a lighter brown) and a more striking red too.

Also, I'd have another go at redrawing the spider web as it looks a little err crappy.

 

[iCraig]

The first thing that strikes me is the lack of focus. When you first arrive on the site, the main content should be easy to identify. With yours it's not clear straight away. The darkened centre block, encourages the user to focus on the two light grey blocks either side. These being larger than the centre doesn't help either. I originally thought the right hand side was your main content area.

Why is everything mis-sized? It may of been your intention but the left right and centre are all different heights and look a bit messy IMO.

Other than that it looks good, nice easy colours and nice fonts. The menu is a little boring, but it does the job well.

Overall, it's pretty good.

 

[lozza]

The first thing that strikes me is the lack of focus. When you first arrive on the site, the main content should be easy to identify. With yours it's not clear straight away. The darkened centre block, encourages the user to focus on the two light grey blocks either side. These being larger than the centre doesn't help either. I originally thought the right hand side was your main content area.

Maybe swapping the colours would help, light greay inside, brown outside? Content area would enlarge with more content.

Why is everything mis-sized? It may of been your intention but the left right and centre are all different heights and look a bit messy IMO.

I chose to do it that way to get away from the norm of 3 columns, the idea was to try and make the site memorable by being outside the box as it were. the left column woul be the only one that stays the same size, the middle and right would both change depending on how much content was in them.

Other than that it looks good, nice easy colours and nice fonts. The menu is a little boring, but it does the job well.

Overall, it's pretty good.

Cheers!

 

[LazyManc]

I chose to do it that way to get away from the norm of 3 columns, the idea was to try and make the site memorable by being outside the box as it were. the left column woul be the only one that stays the same size, the middle and right would both change depending on how much content was in them.

Maybe try exaggerating it a bit more then because at the minute it looks more like a mis-alignment than a deliberate design choice.

And not to be a pedant, but aren't "Striking" and "Subtle" antonyms, i.e. mutually exclusive? Sounds like an impossible brief

 

[lozza]

Maybe try exaggerating it a bit more then because at the minute it looks more like a mis-alignment than a deliberate design choice.

I think/hope that when i get a boarder sorted for the centre column it will divide it up a bit better so it will be clearer that it's meant to be that way.

And not to be a pedant, but aren't "Striking" and "Subtle" antonyms, i.e. mutually exclusive? Sounds like an impossible brief

That my friend, you can take up with the tutor, but i must say clients are quite often impossible!