[Matthew]

Hello

I am gonna make an update to my web-site, this is what I have made so far. I think it looks very empty to the left on the page, does anyone have any tips on what I should have there?
If you have any other comments or crits feel free to give them too me. :)




see you
Matthew

[bitz]

Hey Matthew,

Why not move the top left image above the menu bar with the -Lensflares.net- ? That way the whole page can be moved to the left.

Also, you might just want to have a 'Gallery' link, instead of 'Gallery 1' and 'Gallery 2', after all, if you expand and want a 'Gallery 3', you don't want to have to redo the entire menu bar.

Just make pages within the Gallery pages and have 'Next Gallery' and 'Prev Gallery' buttons.

Looks nice tho.
--
sh

[Matthew]

bitz - Thank you for the tips there, I moved everything to the left and also made only a gallery link, didn�t thought of those things before, thank you. :)

I will work on it some more so it will take a while before I put the new site up.

Matthew

[Gort]

Bitz has a good point. The page has a reasonable grid like strutcure to it - except for the graphic in the upper left. Integrate the upper left hand graphic into the rest of the "structure". It's present, visual detachment is a distraction.

I would not move the whole page to the left unless you modify the background to offset the composition (of it being left). I would define the grid, design in the grid and then keep the whole grid centered with the current background.

Just' 2 cents...
_________________
- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

[Matthew]

Gort - Thank you there Gort. You are right about the grid looking style, now I have problem what I should place to the right.

I tried earlier to left concentrate the whole thing as what bitz talked about but maybe this became worser than the earlier one.



Thank you for your help
Matthew

[bitz]

Hey Matthew. The top part definetly looks better. If you're looking for more balance to it, try and do everything centered.

If you're looking for ideas, you can look at several web pages for 'side' columns that they usually have. I did that on my page:

http://www.phase2.net/

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bitz

[Matthew]

bitz - thank you for your continueing tips. :)

Maan this is driving me crazy, there are so many ways to go around this design. I tried it more of a centered and I think this one is better than the previous ones, what do you think?



Thank you
Matthew

[bitz]

Hey Matthew, looking good. One last tip would to be to shorten the cell size for the table that is containing the text so that it's the same size as the menu and picture above.

That way, you have more of a single rectangular structure. It also makes your text take up more room so it looks like more is being said

Try it out and see if you like it.

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bitz

[Matthew]

Yeah that is super. :) I am gonna stay with this design cause I think it works very well now. :)
I am gonna change in the text and also make The Gallery page and the link page and the rest of the site, Thank you for your help bitz. And also thank you Gort.
I am adding both of you to my links under the sijun links page if it is ok? You will be in the top bitz. :)



Once again, Thank you bitz. :)
Matthew

[bitz]

Hey Matthew,

Feel free to link my site from yours After your site is done, just give me the URL and I'll post a link up on the phase2.net site.

Nice job on the site, looking alot better!

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bitz

[hwslut]

Lookin' good Matthew. Great suggestions bitz. Huge improvement. Nice, clean, simply design. Much, much better than your current page, Matthew (no offence, of course).

[Matthew]

bitz - Cool, ok I will pm you when it is finished, maybe will put it up next week. thank you, yea I liked this one too. :)

hwslut - no offense taken, thank you. :)

see you
Matthew

[Tronbot]

i think the navigation bar and the photo dont look connected to the page, if you know what i mean.... the contrast is very big, and with the black outline they dont really fit... maybe remove the outline and take a slightly desaturated piece of the background texture?

or maybe you could try to make the navbar from the left side to the right?

anyway, its nice already

[Matthew]

The photo is a painted picture I made a while ago. :)

Yeah I think you are right there, I have thought about to make the red background less red, maybe towards more grey ....hmm I will have to make some experiments with what you said, thank you for the tips Tronbot.

I will see what I can do
Matthew

[Tronbot]

May I do a quick "overpaint" here to show you what I meant?

[Tronbot]

uhhmm.... i hope you dont mind, but i hadn't got anything better to do , so i did this very quick one:



just an idea....

[Matthew]

Wow. :) That looks beautiful. :)

Yeah I can see what you mean now, the dark red looks beautiful, now I wonder, I should maybe have the logo-picture more darkred too? ..hmm

Thank you for the over-paint and if you have more suggestions please give them too me cause this rocks, maan I have some work to do then. :)

Matthew

[Tronbot]

mmh... i think i would leave the logo picture as it is, because i think the black&white style fits perfectly to the red background...

[Matthew]

This is officially giving me a headache..hehe.

Ok this time I changed the background, changed the menu and changed the logo thou I think the logo would look better in full spectrum color, think I will change that to color.
Is it better or worse?




a big thank you to everyone for helping me out. :)
Matthew