Website Review and Suggestions

**andrej** · 09-18-2011, 10:13 AM

Please review my web design site:

http://designx3m.com/

And do you like my domain name, too?

**phazorRise** · 09-18-2011, 01:06 PM

what i see at first place ( or catch my eyes ) is height of footer is more than header on frontpage ( on portfolio page it's cool ). This is maybe due to content is smaller.
You can make portfolio page more attractive by adding some jQuery/mootools stuff and more info about projects you've done.
As menu is using rounded corners you can use it for content column also. That would look more elegant. And header is like having fully black background, it would look good with some gradient not necessarily with image when CSS3 can do the trick. You are not using favicon ,add one something cool like your logo.

On your contact form, you're using image to display email-id. Right? Why ? You can simply type a text. Image is also not correctly aligned. Form labels are of nearly same color as of background. So not readable easily.

I like you logo and domain name too.

**Aunt5ally** · 10:40 AM

haven't gone to it yet but do not like the name, no. too hard to grip/remember. the 3x thing is not very good. too difficult. imo.

see, i misremembered it from higher up. it was x3, not 3x. it's a bad name.,

okay. i looked at it. i think you need to do something different to the font. maybe someone else can say what. or maybe not. either way, that's what i find. it makes me think of my own work and reminds me to make sure none of my fonts look like that. hold on, i'll check...

nope. on all my main interfaces i just checked, all my fonts are lovely. you need to fix that, i'm quite sure

**Aunt5ally** · 10:40 AM

but philosophically - if you sell web design, why are we telling you what's good or not good? it doesn't really add up, right? time to spend some money on a bit of extra hard work? some courses? some books? I'd do it. You clearly have talent. Why not take a proper design course and you'd know all this stuff. Fonts is basic stuff. Easy stuff. Obvious stuff. Vital stuff. Look at the font in the textarea as you post on this site, or facebook, look at the fonts around you, at the ones on the page. Yours don't look nice, like these ones do. Web design is 99% nice fonts 1% everything else.

**andrej** · 09-19-2011, 05:32 AM

Thank you guys for your reviews. I have added a favicon. The reason why I use an image instead of text for my email is protection against spam. I'm doing this on all my sites.

Aunt5ally, what fonts would you suggest me to use for e.g. the menu links, titles of the pages and the main text on my website? I'm not very good at using fonts. This is something that I have to improve.

**Aunt5ally** · 10:40 AM

<font face="verdana,monaco,geneva" size="1">
seems to do it for my sites, but check on google, check this forum you're on (ie check the source) - just make it look like that. when it's better you'll see it is and figure it out. but those fonts seem to work.

**andrej** · 07:20 AM

I'm using Wordpress and I found the following in the style.css file of my theme:
font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;

I have tried changing that to the following:
font-family: Verdana, monaco, geneva; font-size: 12px;

but I didn't see any changes. I think the font that loads is Verdana. Maybe you see my site differently than others and me. Could you post a screenshot of how my site loads for you? (feel free to PM me)

**Aunt5ally** · 10:41 AM

will do. tied up at the moment but will do it asap

**Aunt5ally** · 10:41 AM

No need for a screenshot, I was mistaken. the reason it looks bad is not the font choice it's the font-background combo. black on grey is what's doing it. It's looking amateurish. I totally assumed that the font was just different and possibly some sneakily not sans-enough font, but it wasn't.

Sorry. I have to be careful about what I assume is the problem. Why don't you test the about page and the welcome text in white-font on blue background. Just to get an idea if that changes it. Makes it feel more crisp and professional. At the moment it feels a little bit blurry. I am tempted (which is rare for me, VERY rare) to assert the notion that there may be too much text. Too wordy. Maybe. Maybe it's the clunk which is making it look bad. Something about it means that even just typing live into this textarea at the bottom of this page is a more professional-looking screen than when I flip to the tab with your page...

Or try black on white, traditional,. and make the border grey instead of white. On the welcome text. And if that works, repeat for about page.

yeah. look at this. this is **** hot. i dug it up on the goog in about a nanosecond
http://www.clarewebdesign.co.uk/home

it's obscenely good

I've bookmarked it, it's that good. You just saw 100% successful web-design in action.

Her fonts: white on black. Just my style.

How could you compete with that? Doesn't the wealth that site generates make you hungry to be as good as they are? I'm sure you could transform your page to be as good in a single day.

Indeed I needed to hijack a spare tab to look at clarewebdesign again, so keen was I to check it again and enjoy its beauty and be sure I want to pay them money some time, that I chose the tab with YOUR site on it, to lose... that's the point. It's a competitive place this and when designing you need maximum quality everything - looks and brains. It all counts.

**andrej** · 09-20-2011, 05:32 AM

OK, thank you for your clarification Aunt5ally. I will try to improve my site.

**logoonlinepros** · 09-20-2011, 07:01 AM

I think you need to change whole design of your site and please also put some content on your site. I like your navigation button styles.

**TWD** · 09-22-2011, 08:30 PM

What does "X3M" mean? Does it have some meaning?

Overall not bad.
But as others have said, you need to do something a bit more creative with your fonts. It just looks generic. Do some research on CSS3 font-face styles.

Also, on your portfolio page, you should really add more than just a simple thumbnail. Potential clients will want to see a larger pop up image and/or link to the live site and/or a written summary of the project.

**andrej** · 09-23-2011, 09:48 AM

X3M means extreme. Thank you for your review.

**TWD** · 07:12 PM

Oh, I see now.

**studentbasecamp** · 10-03-2011, 06:50 AM

overall nice work, but i think the background color is a little bit dark

**agusnew** · 10-18-2011, 09:04 AM

what do you mean x3m?
3 meters ? hehe, just want to know my friend
i think this nice portfolio