I've been working pretty hard to improve the design of my site lately. Somehow I managed to break my Dreamweaver template, so I've been doing the code by hand, removing a lot of unnecessary stuff, going from tables to divs, and thinking about how everything is presented.

The new design that came out of all this is a lot better than the old one, except at the top of the page. I'm not really sure how to deal with that? I'd like it to work from ~900 pixels up, which prevents me from just using an image full bleed. And when I try centering one in the middle of a background color, it just doesn't look right. Can anybody give me some advice on how to improve the design, mainly at the top of the page?

Lesli with Hummingbird Moth



It just seems like a photo that cool and unique deserves a better presentation. I'm not quite sure how, though? Any suggestions?

When someone told you that your website is nice then, thats the time you have to consider a full make-over!

I'm sorry to say but I think that you could benefit from a complete re-design. It's just a bit of a wacky site at the moment! I think you have used too much colour variety and what with the background patterns on the navigation bar as well, it's just a really weird look. As well as that, the layout is... strange. the picture should be nearer the top, the title should be indented etc.

If you want, I could give you a hand with a new layout?

PM me if you want

I can see that youre a photographer - so what i would suggest is a more plainer looking site. Use white as the main color, and then maybe just grey and one other bright splash of color.
That way it is your photos that stand out from the whole of the site

Forrest I agree with Nixon. I think with a site like yours you should make the design as plain as possible. It'll let the images stand out more. I would stick with either a white or black background, (I kind of like black for image sites for some reason) something neutral. Grays would work too.

By keeping the background free of color it'll make your images pop and that's what you really want people to be noticing.

Here's a site I did for a furniture maker. We wanted the focus of the site to be on the images so I gave him a pretty simple design, but I think in doing that the images stand out and your eye is drawn to them.

I must add that those are some nice photos you have on your site. From an amateur photographer (very amateur) your different degrees of lighting, focus, and depth are really quite impressive.

I think you need to make it a little clearer what your objective is by having this online photo gallery. (maybe I missed this somewhere?)

1. Do you plan to sell your work?
2. Is it a portfolio for future clients?
3. Do you plan to exhibit your work?
4. Could people get these in print?
5. Is it a tutorial site?

I think clearly stating what your objective is would give you a solid foundation to build your design around.

Too much colors that don't really match, causes clutter (different background colors, fonts, etc..). Simplicity will probably make it a much better site to view. Pick a couple of colors and make a layout from that and work from there.

if you are planning on leaving the design the way it is the only way i can think of making it any better would be to change the color template
the colors you are using right now are too dark and varied

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I wish this part was easier; you would think that somebody who can use a camera can design a 2D scene, but it's not so.

It sounds unanimous that I should simply the design and kill off a lot of the color. I've been thinking about how to do that, will start playing with new design ideas over the weekend.

But can anybody give me some advice about the top of the page? I'm still not sure how to make that look right; I've got a lot of photos that work as long panoramas, but I'm not sure how to transition from that to the rest of a page.

Also, thanks especially to Sydpix for the advice about trying to pick a more specific niche. Right now I'm not selling prints; I've sold commercial rights to a few images, but mostly this is a portfolio for future clients, and a means of breaking out of the IT industry. But I also want to carry articles and software that fill a niche. My soft focus article is the only one of its kind - I searched for how to do this for most of a day after a portrait shoot went bad ( make up ). Once I figured out how to do it, it seemed natural to write up an article with instructions. But the main focus of the site is to show off the photos.

It sounds to me like you need to breakup your front page into different columns that would allow the user to decide were he/she wants to go.

First off I think you need to come up with a brief description about your site on the front page that explains your purpose. If it's a portfolio, explain what your goals are in the description.

Secondly, you have some awesome photos to be creative with in your design. You have a lot of beautiful green photos. Maybe a green themed site?

Here is an example I found http://www.sixshootermedia.com/ostem...he_old_forest/

This would be very easy to accomplish with xhtml and css.

Thirdly, get your articles on the front page somehow. Create a "latest articles" and as you post a new article, create a link to it on your home page for return users to see updated content. This would keep them coming back.

Nice photography!
Here are some quick fix ideas
1. Make a plain color background (a much lighter one).
2. Borders on your images clash with page background, make the outer border the same color as your page background color
3. Push the menu bar away from the window border and consider centering the website.
4. Put your logo/name proudly on top of the page instead of the picture (that should link to the homepage).

http://weddings.davidwittig.com/