Website Review and Suggestions

**tonya** · 06:35 AM

Hi

This is now the final draft - comments appreciated !!

http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout14.html

I am working on a site for a Luxury B&B / Guest house.

There is no content yet - this is a design idea review only!

1 - http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout11.html

2 - http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout12.html

3 - http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout12-B.html

4 - http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout20-B.html

The customer really likes the deep reds so the other was just a contrast. The flash is a quicky just to have something there b4 I do final graphics.

I just want initial feedback really! Ideas on colour etc.

The guy also really likes the idea of gold / yellow font so I did this -
http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout8.html - which I hate but perhaps you guys can tell me what you think.

Feedback much appreciated as I am at the stage of wanting to get design complete & plugging content in.

Cheers muchly

**CSS4Life** · 08-08-2007, 02:04 PM

I'd edge towards the 2nd and 4th designs personally. The custom design isn't terrible but I prefer the others. If I had to choose, I'd say design #2 - the rich purple colour seems to match with a LUXURY guest house!

Too many sites are plain - a nice rich colour is great

**tonya** · 08-08-2007, 03:54 PM

Thats great news as I also like that one too. Now that I have the coding & CSS & layout all done it is basically the colour scheme that needs sorting - then content of course.

Keep the comments rolling in though. Cheers

**dee_el07** · 08-08-2007, 04:37 PM

Great design! i like the no. 2 and 3.. they are look fabulous and i think it really fits to luxury when you use that two designs..

**tonya** · 08-09-2007, 01:03 PM

Great I think no2 will be the final design I go for then. Thanks Guys !

**dlaroche22** · 08-09-2007, 01:57 PM

I also like the design #2 as well. I would also recommend working on the flash video as it appears skippy when i viewed it. I think you mentioned something about redoing the flash part anyways, but overall great design and i would like to see the final product.

**tonya** · 08-09-2007, 04:20 PM

Thanks dlaroche22 - yes the flash was a quick demo just to get something in there nice & quick & needs refining. The other graphics will come with content too but cheers for the feedback on design & yes when it is complete I will post the whole site up for review. Its just I was struggling to make my mind up & customers on the best colour scheme.

Cheers guys all comments have been useful.

**dcpweb** · 08-10-2007, 06:54 PM

Hi,

I like the second design concept you have created. The flash animation should run at 25fps for a smooth animation. The logo and title banner is good well done. I like the drop shadow on the template.

I think the flash needs alot more work, let me know if you need some help

regards

**tonya** · 08-10-2007, 07:30 PM

Thanks for offer of help on flash. I actually did it in swish as although I used to teach basic flash I am not that great at using it. Sounds mad I know but you dont have to be an expert in it to run an intro level adult class & it was part of a graphics course I used to run.

I may well get in touch thanks

**greedylobster** · 08-12-2007, 04:19 AM

I liked the deep green bg, but the positioning as in layout8. I would tone down the letters in the bg a little too. I struggled to read the name of the place ?Treherne (that's the font that you picked), also not sure if & malvern retreat looks in place...

**tonya** · 08-12-2007, 07:01 AM

I like the deep green/ teal too but the customer has decided on the deep wine color. The font is Caeldera for the 'Treherne House' (you read it right) but initially we played with a font called 'parchment' because the customer has adopted the scripted T as the logo for the house.

Because I said that the T in parchment was not readable and when we used it then no readable T it looked like 'reherne' with a curly thing in front we decided to try laying a readable T over the top.

Perhaps I should move this parchemnt T out of the way or move the text over so both can be seen more clearly.

What is it about layout 8 that looks better? The colours? No because you like the green so the height, width, positioning of text?

Malvern retreat is a small part of the business (the self catering apt available) so needs to eb featured but the main name is Treherne House so this needs to be most prominent. Perhaps both need to be same font size or layered differently.

To adjust & try to strike just the right note it would help if you could outline more details. Thanks for the feedback though all this will hopefully result in just the right product.

**ADAM Web Design** · 08-12-2007, 09:20 AM

I hate gold as a colour normally, but in this case I think your client's right. A darker gold with the deep wine, or maybe a bit deeper, would really look sharp (it doesn't look too bad on the sample you made).

The key is to use it as an accent colour and not the dominant colour, though...too much gold = pimp look = bad.

One more thing: I'm not too crazy about the Arial font and the colour that you used for the text in the Flash. There are spots where you have white on light where it's hard to read, and I never liked the idea of using a standard Windows font on a graphic element.

**tonya** · 08-12-2007, 09:33 AM

Thanks for that I will have to play with the gold colour then. Perhaps using gold only as an accent on the parchment T with the rest of the font dropped across but still in white.

The flash graphic was just a mega quicky thrown together in 5 mins to place something in the space rather than leave a gray blank so the customer could see where the graphic would go but thanks for the pointers & when I do the finalised graphics I will make sure I use a font that fits with others used probably Goudy Old style as its used for the 'Malvern Retreat' text. I will also ensure all text is seen and does not bleed out into background. Essentially that it is positioned properly.

At the moment I am taking the photo's around the property and putting content together so that once we are set on the main design we can start to actually build the site together. I think I will use goergia as font for the site - not arial or maybe verdana if the georgia does not work but that will become clear when we start to place content.

Here's a new question:

Customer wants me to create a flash menu a bit like the one I did for this site (created ages & ages ago). http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/number12/r...nt_welcome.asp I am attempting to stear him away from this saying that actual text links in sizable real text (I tend to use % to size text rather than fixed px) will work much better and help with ranking. Plus I hate that these embedded flash menu's need activating in the newer browsers before they are usable.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

**Adulu** · 08-12-2007, 09:34 AM

I have take a look at you site.
It's no enough luxury feeling.

**tonya** · 08-12-2007, 09:38 AM

FYI - my original colour scheme was this http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/three.html

The customer however felt it was more brown than deep red or dark wine and rejected it hence the later versions.

**tonya** · 09:44 AM

Adulu - which layout are you referring to? There are five layouts listed at the top as the links which I wanted feedback on. I felt that number 2 in particular had a feel of real luxury. Previous reviews seemed to agree. Why do you think it shows no luxury - please expand. The review btw was not the number 12 restaurant link - this is a customers site from years ago & was just to show the menu .. The links were these .

There is no content yet - this is a design idea review only!

1 - http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout11.html

2 - http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout12.html

3 - http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout12-B.html

4 - http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout20-B.html

5 - original colour scheme rejected by customer http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/three.html

6 - gold added to deep red http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout8.html

**ADAM Web Design** · 08-12-2007, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Customer wants me to create a flash menu a bit like the one I did for this site (created ages & ages ago). http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/number12/r...nt_welcome.asp I am attempting to stear him away from this saying that actual text links in sizable real text (I tend to use % to size text rather than fixed px) will work much better and help with ranking. Plus I hate that these embedded flash menu's need activating in the newer browsers before they are usable.

Those three reasons are enough right there, Tonya. The only other thing I might come up with is that Flash is still an optional plugin and therefore not installed on everyone's machine.

What you can always do as an alternative is a Flash menu on top and a plain text one on the bottom.

**tonya** · 08-13-2007, 05:40 AM

Thanks for that Adam.

I think that makes it all the more important that I steer them into a text menu & keep the flash graphic. I can always put a message under the flash graphic advising people to use the optional flash plugin or maybe a static graphic in the background of the flash space for people who either are not using the flash plugin or don't want to.

**tonya** · 08-16-2007, 06:32 AM

This is now the final draft of the design for the site - what does everyone think ??

http://www.bitsmail.co.uk/Treherne/layout14.html

Ignore the flash as this is not the final graphic just a quick placement tester.