Website Review and Suggestions

**ForrestCroce** · 01-19-2007, 01:45 AM

Hi,

I'm an ASP.NET programmer by day, and share as much knowledge as I can in those forums. Also this means I'm very comfortable with html ... but not design. From where I sit, it seems like I've done the easy part. My layout / design is ugly as sin, but I'm trying to evolve it into something I can be proud of.

On the bright side, I'm also a photographer, and have a working knowledge of CS 2. More as it relates to photography ( curves, channel mixer, dodge/burn, layers and masks ) than for creating graphics, but that's better than nothing.

The site is mostly to show off my photos, but I have a couple of how-to articles and plan to write reviews of the handful of lenses I use. I might take photog up as a side business down the line, but for now this is a hobby.

http://forrestcroce.com/Galleries/Landscapes.html
http://forrestcroce.com/Galleries/Seattle.html
http://forrestcroce.com/Galleries/Portraits.html

I'm planning to add an image to the blank space at the bottom of the nav bar. And thinking about turning the background into a gradient ( top to bottom ).

So, if anybody has any thoughts or pointers on how to de-uglify this, I'll be forever grateful!

**waynem80** · 01:51 AM

Beautiful photos !! , website needs some work though, looks kinda like the old school look to me.

Try not to over use your drop shadows, it's too much. In Fact, I would maybe get rid of them all together, use gradients but very suttle. And I would think of a different color scheme. do a google on color palettes and try to find a palette you like and use that, should be around 4 to 5 colors total.

wayne

**ForrestCroce** · 01-19-2007, 02:25 AM

Thanks!

You're right - I turned down the shadows and it's an improvement.

I've been surfing an awful lot, looking at the different designs people use. I'm not trying to steal anybody's work, actually, I really want to learn how this is done and apply my own style. But I notice most of the newer-looking sites have blank space on the right and left, and the page content in the center column. It looks pretty attractive, and might be an answer for what to do with the banner ... but it takes up a lot of real-estate, and I've got the large versions of the photos at 800 px.

I can't figure out a way to get the banner to stretch to fill the top of the page and look decent, or have it gradient out into something better. I like the long, wide photo, but I'm not sure how to really deal with it?

**waynem80** · 01-19-2007, 10:31 AM

First off ya need to do away with tables. I designed my whole site with CSS. It's the best way to go. Tables are for tabular data and that it... So I would first do a search on CSS tutorials, and learn that, you'll have so much more design power this way.

wayne

**jenyfari** · 01-20-2007, 04:19 AM

I am not fussed on the background for the menu on the left hand side. I would prefer a plain colour background.

Great pics!!