Im working on a personal project... a fishing community. I want to get some suggestions on the design..

Click here for a screenshot

Thanks

Sam

EDIT: Changed the link to my latest attempt. The original can be seen here..

NOTE: This was before I edited the original post

Heres another idea I was thinking of working of:

Screen Shot

Im almost embarrassed... it seems I am in a bit of a slump.. figures... now that Im working on my own stuff! lol I am trying to go a little Web 2.0.. atleast the KISS part

No suggestions?? man.. I think I have designers block! lol

I think the overall layout looks pretty good. I would suggest including some of the color that you use in the bottom left table to help break up some of the other content like 1 of the 3 columns. A simple textured background would also help give the site some depth.

Thanks Darren..

I finally got a little creative kick and came up with my final design...

http://www.cactusflatsdesign.com/ima...een_shot_3.jpg

Suggestions?

I think it looks good. I like the watercolor type image at the top. It is a lot more eye catching than your previous design. The only thing that I think looks out of place now is the logo. It looks a little too young and playful when compared to the rest of the theme. A more rustic version would seem more fitting.

Sam it looks good. I like the beige and brown tones. Very easy on the eyes. I'm not a fan of 486 banners in headers though. That's just my opinion. Sort of cheapens a site I think. But overall, it's a great site.

Gone fishing.....

The colors look great. Navigation looks no brainer. But why limit to just Arizona? Is there any other competition for fisherman communities or fisherman just in Arizona?

layout is good just work on your content and you'll be golden with some proper marketing

Thanks for the replies!

Darren: I agree that a more rustic logo would be more fitting. I have some ideas Im gonna play with.

Charliehorse: I did remove the banner in my final design(see the original post). I agree that banners can make a good design look cheap. I want to do some advertising on the site, so I think will fit some smaller ads and some adwords on the site bar and on the bottom of the page..

vetdudue: Thats a good question. Before I started, I did some research and there is a little more competition for nation wide fishing communities. I never considered doing it that way. The idea came to me as a site for Arizona Fishermen... I have some ideas that would definitely compete with some of the national sites, but I think I will see how the site does as is..

Here are some of the sites I am getting my inspiration from:

Fish Swami ( I like their implementation of a fishing log )
Angling Masters ( Similar to what Im doing )
Fishing.us ( A lot of features I want to incorporate )
Fishing Files ( Made by the same company as the website above )

It seems that most of the fishing communities out there are mainly forum based. While I will have forums and unfortunately am going to be using my forum user tables and authentication system for the rest of the site (to avoid duplicate user tables), the site will have many more features than just a forum. I also have some ideas that I haven't seen implemented yet... but I will have to do some more research.


So, thanks for the reviews and keep em coming!

Sam

I made the change to the logo... Im not sure how well it blends... it still seems a little off..

Screen Shot w/ new logo

I also changed the BG color.. there was too much green IMO.. or was the green better?

Sam

Nice layout .. but i think you have to work with meta tags rather than your design

Originally Posted by farishussain

Nice layout .. but i think you have to work with meta tags rather than your design