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Looking to make this site come alive
Old 07-25-2009, 07:28 PM Looking to make this site come alive
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Edit: The first few replies were for a different layout - one that I ended up getting rid of.

This is the basic style for a site I'm doing. I want something to replace the middle gradient but I don't know what. The guy says it looks like hospital colors. I need this site to really catch peoples attention while still looking very professional. Can someone think of something to put in the middle that isn't a solid color that would work better than the gradient?

http://evanpresnol.com/

Last edited by kagronick; 07-26-2009 at 08:35 PM..
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Old 07-25-2009, 09:16 PM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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I don't think your going to catch many peoples attention with
that design. At least not for the right reasons.

You've got liquid width header on an 800px body which looks quite
odd on larger screen resolutions.

"Providers of eggs, milk, dairy and other restaurant foods"
Surely you can come up with a better tag line than that?

The image of the van.
What are you trying to tell visitors with this picture?
I doesn't even have a logo on it so it could be anybody's.

I don't know why you picked blue.
Blue is not a "food" color.

I would scrap it and start again.
Take a look at a few WordPress themes.
You should get some good ideas from those.
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Old 07-25-2009, 11:56 PM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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Yes I noticed that there was no logo on the van.
I suppose blue could be OK as they seem to be for "cold" foods.
How about "We supply restaurants with dairy products and eggs"

Are you the leading one ?
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Old 07-26-2009, 12:53 AM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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I thought it would be obvious that a picture that random was just a place holder - along with the lorieum ipsum text. The tagline isn't mine - its the client's. I was really hoping for something better than scrap it, start again, and look at anything else for ideas.
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Old 07-26-2009, 01:46 AM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kagronick View Post
I thought it would be obvious that a picture that random was just a place holder - along with the lorieum ipsum text. The tagline isn't mine - its the client's. I was really hoping for something better than scrap it, start again, and look at anything else for ideas.
Sorry if my comments were discouraging but it is sometimes better to rip up the canvas and start afresh. And there is no shame in looking at WordPress or other theme galleries to get some ideas and inspiration.

By the way, how do you go about making your websites?
You should start with just PhotoShop mockup.
As you've probably found out, often the most difficult part of web design
is not the coding but just getting the client to sign off on one
particular concept!

So my advice to you would be to play around with PhotoShop
or whatever graphics editor you have, finalise a design first,
then start coding it.

BTW
If your client already has stationery printed with that tag line I suppose there is not much you can do.
If not you have a professional responsibility to at least try to talk him into something
with a bit more compelling marketing pitch.

Last edited by TWD; 07-26-2009 at 01:50 AM..
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Old 07-26-2009, 03:14 AM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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I must agree with TWD, the colors don't represent food well. I think, if you really wanted to salvage this design to add some orange. Its complementary to blue and is associated with citrus, heath foods, and energy. The buttons are the best part of this site, they look good. I would, also, suggest for professionalism adding copyrights and webmaster information at the bottom. I don't think it is a horrid design, just looks unfinished.

-LNC
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Old 07-26-2009, 04:31 AM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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Na na! I was even liking to close it ASAP as the hue was not that good. Choose some different color for your theme.
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Old 07-26-2009, 08:34 PM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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Thanks for the advice. I scrapped most of it. The menu has a cool effect. Here it is now:

http://evanpresnol.com/

The content div will expand vertically. I don't see the need to have it take up the rest of the width horizontally. This site is supposed to be simple but I want it to look elegant.
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Old 07-26-2009, 09:52 PM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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That definately an improvement.

You are going to need to work out how to
incorporate some images into the design though.

Another thing is that the Flash menu does
look nice but you need to remember that
Search Engines dont read Flash content to
any great extent.

So if you want the other pages of the site
to be crawlable you'll need to think
of adding a html sitemap into a footer section
perhaps.
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Old 07-26-2009, 10:23 PM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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Good idea. I will keep that in mind from now on. I will also have to make an alternative menu for people who do not have flash that will display in the flash menu's place. Would that be crawlable? The guy hasn't sent me any pictures yet, or verbage. The end result definitly won't look as blank as this.
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Old 07-26-2009, 10:46 PM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kagronick View Post
I will also have to make an alternative menu for people who do not have flash that will display in the flash menu's place. Would that be crawlable?
You mean via using a <NOSCRIPT> tag I assume?

I think this is a tricky question.

To the best of my knowledge Yahoo and the lesser SEs don't read
JavaScript so if you put your nav links into the NOSCRIPT portion,
they would probably be fine. But in the past NOSCRIPT has been
abused by SEO blackhats so I wouldnt rely on it.

Google (according to Matt Cutts) does interpret JavaScript
so they might not look at the <NOSCRIPT> version
which means they would just see the Flash swf file.

Google now claims that they can read text within Flash:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...-indexing.html
BUT...
There are still some issues
http://www.timnash.co.uk/07/2008/flash-seo/


So the safest bet would be to have an HTML footer sitemap.
Your site is small anyway, so it wouldnt be a big deal to implement
I should think.

Last edited by TWD; 07-26-2009 at 11:36 PM..
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Old 07-27-2009, 10:46 AM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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It needs images and much more direction as to who and how and where you supply your products.
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Old 07-27-2009, 03:01 PM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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Of course it does. I'm still waiting for content from the client. I was thinking to put something on the bottom. Some kind of an image with an absolute positioned div.
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Old 07-27-2009, 04:09 PM Re: Looking to make this site come alive
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I would suggest looking for a new template. There are many templates that you can find (even good ones) for free if you know the right places to look. Try doing some searches on templates. However, I personally cannot see that website going very far due to the simplicity of that fluid template. I would also change the color scheme.
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