Yet another design criticism thread

DanCake0 · 17 Jun 2009 at 00:16

I have quite a few projects and I can code whatever comes to mind really easily. Design on the other hand leaves me frustrated, especially when most sites nowadays are so high quality.

Take a look at the following design:

Click for the full size version

Hopefully you can see what I had in mind.

I really want to improve my design skills, how should I do this?
I do look at other sites for inspiration but I have trouble incorporating those ideas short of copying.

Don't hold back, I really want to improve!

V4NT0M · 17 Jun 2009 at 00:36

Looks pretty good to me, but the main content bit could do with a bit more... Well a bit more, if you get my meaning.

DanCake0 · 17 Jun 2009 at 01:14

Thank for the input, i've added some more text plus fixed a problem with the background.

Edward01 · 17 Jun 2009 at 01:22

it's very good but i'm not a fan of the double menus on the right. If it was me i'd keep the one on the far right how it is but then the next one along i'd make more simple. Maybe get rid of the blue title bars on it and the set table look and replace them with a few light blue/grey top and bottom borders or something.

mr.sly · 17 Jun 2009 at 02:09

Without going to college/Uni just try and read as many design related books as you can, blogs and other design sites (maybe by designers you find visually interesting) and check out lots of CSS galleries.

tsinc80697 · 17 Jun 2009 at 09:52

Looks ok but very "templatey". Also if you're going to use tabs for the navigation, design the page so it looks like the tabs aren't jsut flat, but actually move forward when you're on the specific page.

http://www.tutorial9.net/ Does it, when you click a tab it becomes active and moves forward to show you what page you;re on and looks like the page has depth rather than being very flat.

Try spicing your design up a bit as at the moment you have a header, quite plain, a generic search box and then just lines and lines of text.

AGD · 17 Jun 2009 at 13:56

Get rid of the grey background at the sides - it looks better just white.

jac4593 · 17 Jun 2009 at 14:09

bibalasvegas said:
Get rid of the grey background at the sides - it looks better just white.

Yeah I think the fast transition to gray would have some effect on the users viewing, possibly on the right side of the first/second paragraph include an image so the mind automatically finds the piece easier to read?

I'm not sure =)

DanCake0 · 18 Jun 2009 at 00:04

Edward01 said:
it's very good but i'm not a fan of the double menus on the right. If it was me i'd keep the one on the far right how it is but then the next one along i'd make more simple. Maybe get rid of the blue title bars on it and the set table look and replace them with a few light blue/grey top and bottom borders or something.

The reason I opted for two sidebars was because they will contain a fairly large number of items. I'll have a play around to see what works best.

mr.sly said:
Without going to college/Uni just try and read as many design related books as you can, blogs and other design sites (maybe by designers you find visually interesting) and check out lots of CSS galleries.

Does anyone know of any good CSS galleries? CSS zen garden hasn't been updated in a while.

tsinc80697 said:
Looks ok but very "templatey". Also if you're going to use tabs for the navigation, design the page so it looks like the tabs aren't jsut flat, but actually move forward when you're on the specific page.

http://www.tutorial9.net/ Does it, when you click a tab it becomes active and moves forward to show you what page you;re on and looks like the page has depth rather than being very flat.

Try spicing your design up a bit as at the moment you have a header, quite plain, a generic search box and then just lines and lines of text.

I agree, it was just a quick mockup to show what I can currently do. The actual code is fairly high quality, the design, not so much.

bibalasvegas said:
Get rid of the grey background at the sides - it looks better just white.

Without it everything seems to blend into the background.

jac4593 said:
Yeah I think the fast transition to gray would have some effect on the users viewing, possibly on the right side of the first/second paragraph include an image so the mind automatically finds the piece easier to read?

I'm not sure =)

This was just a quick example of my current design skills, the actual site would be a lot more polished and wouldn't just contain text.