i started www.heartheissues.com a few months back with no real idea as to how it would turn out, and simply as a way to drive traffic before the election...

well, it's turned into much more, i get significant consistent traffic, and i've added more and more content as we go.

what's NOT good is, i just made a very basic design; actually, i'd barely even call it that.

i'm not great with web design, but i'm reasonbly good at putting an idea into reality...i just don't know how i should re-do it.

can anyone give me some ideas, maybe even point out an example or two, of how i could redo the site to give it a better look. what's there now really has to go.

First I'd get some decent imaging software. What are you using? The graphics at the moment are pixelated. I use Macromedia Fireworks for things like titles + menus, and I use Photoshop for photos.

Just get the title and your menu sorted (both of which can be done in Fireworks).

Also, have a look around other websites.
Example: http://www.macromedia.com
You see how the infomation is presented in boxes. Think of your own way to present your information that is more visually pleasing than straight down!

Well, I'd say that'd be a good start. The content of your site is very good by the way! Nice One!

Hey dpakman, excellent domain name! The site has some real potential, however like you said, it needs some work.
First your images, ixnay on the clip art please. Clip art is a web design faux-pas. Next I would re-work the site to look more like a news page. With headlines, and small images to go with them. i.e. www.nytimes.com. I would also come up with a better colour scheme that reflects political views and USA.
That should get you thinking...

alright, these are the types of suggestions i need as a semi-newbie to web DESIGN, but not content, hahah.

a couple of questions for both of you:

-what should i replace the clip art with? i don't want to go to just text, and at the same time, i'm not good at creating graphics from scratch, and i dont' think i would want to pay someone to make an image for me every time i put up a new feature.

-if i wanted to design something with a layout like the macromedia site or nytimes.com, how is that typical done? are parts done first in photoshop, and then brought into your dreamweaver/frontpage/etc? the roundd rectangles on macromedia.com are a nice tough for sure. the only problem i see with the nytimes.com style layout is that since i still don't have an abundant amount of content, it might be kind of "bare"

I know exactly your concerns, since I once had the same type of questions.

To answer your second questions first, it's difficult to imagine exactly what your web site whole will look like, so after deciding what your website is, who it's for, and what it will do, I design an interface with photoshop. Since your new to image software, just take some grid paper, pencil and ruler, and measure out what the general layout will look like. I wasn't saying I think your site should look like nytimes.com, I was just giving an example of a news style page, which is what i'm gathering from your homepage.

If you want decent images, and rid of the clip, an alternative would be stock photography, although it does cost a little, it will make your site look more professional. www.istockphoto.com <-- is my fav. You might want to ask a friend to help you optimize the images, and resize for your site.

Keep me informed on your progress, i must go...

Originally Posted by Jdawg

I know exactly your concerns, since I once had the same type of questions.

To answer your second questions first, it's difficult to imagine exactly what your web site whole will look like, so after deciding what your website is, who it's for, and what it will do, I design an interface with photoshop. Since your new to image software, just take some grid paper, pencil and ruler, and measure out what the general layout will look like. I wasn't saying I think your site should look like nytimes.com, I was just giving an example of a news style page, which is what i'm gathering from your homepage.

If you want decent images, and rid of the clip, an alternative would be stock photography, although it does cost a little, it will make your site look more professional. www.istockphoto.com <-- is my fav. You might want to ask a friend to help you optimize the images, and resize for your site.

Keep me informed on your progress, i must go...

fair enough, i actually am godo enough with photoshop that i could outline a basic layout with it, but once that's done, the actual layout would be done right in the HTML editor?

ok, so here's what i've worked up so far...any thoughts?

i think what i've got so far is pretty good, the question i have is about the shared borders.

i know that frames are antiquated, and i dont know any other way of making it so that when i add somethign to the menu on the left, it will update on all the pages other than using shared borders...

are shared borders search engine friendly, and are there any other downsides to using them?

again, i don't know any other way to have the menus update site-wide without manuall doing it for every page (would be insane) or using frames.

Hey don't sweat, there's always a way. You're right about frames, they're useless, but then how to keep things easily updatable without having to change each page? There's a few ways you can do this, myself I just learned this new trick. Find out about .asp , it has all the benefits of frames (not many), best for SEO and you only need to update the one page. I basically works by adding a one line comment script in each page, which will call your sidebar. You only need to update your sidebar page once, and it will be applied to all pages which it is called to. NEAT! this will make all the pages blah.asp insteald of blah.html - Oh and you have to make sure your server accepts .asp.

Your new layout looks nice though, one more recommendation, check out as many news sites as you can to get ideas on how they positions text, the size of text, colours used etc...

Originally Posted by Jdawg

Hey don't sweat, there's always a way. You're right about frames, they're useless, but then how to keep things easily updatable without having to change each page? There's a few ways you can do this, myself I just learned this new trick. Find out about .asp , it has all the benefits of frames (not many), best for SEO and you only need to update the one page. I basically works by adding a one line comment script in each page, which will call your sidebar. You only need to update your sidebar page once, and it will be applied to all pages which it is called to. NEAT! this will make all the pages blah.asp insteald of blah.html - Oh and you have to make sure your server accepts .asp.

Your new layout looks nice though, one more recommendation, check out as many news sites as you can to get ideas on how they positions text, the size of text, colours used etc...

alright, well this is goingp retty well so far. i decided to replace the right sidebar with a vertical google ads box, which i had forgotten to plan for.

looking for an opinion on whether any parts of the table should have a background color.

i was thinking maybe the left sidebar with the menu should be a light blue or something other than white?

any other ideas for mixing up the colors at all?

I don't want to really help you with colors cause that depends on your personal preference. Just remember that when you use background colors, they shouldn't detract the user, they should be subtle and help identify the different categories and sections of your site.

Very good design. It's really improved!

I don't have such a massive problem with frames but using some kind of server technology (ASP, PHP, Coldfusion or JSP). But this could work out expensive (but I'm not sure the ins and outs of ASP).

If you're sticking wih the blue-white scheme (which looks good by the way) then it may be a good idea to colour the menu blue, as you said.

alright, here's what i've got...any thoughts? i think it's an immeasurable improvement on what was there before, but i can probly make it even better:

www.heartheissues.com

Can you edit the background of the buttons to be the same blue. It looks untidy when it's white.

Originally Posted by itscooper

Can you edit the background of the buttons to be the same blue. It looks untidy when it's white.

done, good suggestions.