Thread: Opinions wanted for website design

Hi all -

Thanks to some rockin' photos taken by Michael Baxter this past weekend I have grand plans for re-designing my website. My old website is here.

My husband tossed together a prototype home page for me here.

Questions:

1) I like the white background on the prototype site, but Michael took many pictures on a black background. Would it be jarring to click on one of the links and navigate to a page with a black background? Is there any way around this?

2) Is the white background weird to begin with?

3) What color should the lettering be on the home page? I told my husband to make it match the blue of the costume, but I don't know if that's too much blue.

4) Are the edges of the picture visible in your browser?

THANKS!

Lily

I think it's beautiful!! You could probably work the black and white theme if you keep it super simple. I like the color of the letting; it matches you hair and it would work on black or white. And yes, I can see the edges of the photo (about 1/2 inch above and both sides)

To answer:

1. You can try a light gray background for the pictures, if you think it's off. It's easier to say if I could see a page with them.
2. The white background is great, actually; with the veil pictures, it gives a nice, ethereal look to your site that's catch in people's minds.
3. It's tough to go wrong with black type, actually. With such a nice design, you'll want to keep some elements, like typeface, as basic and simple as possible. It's easy to go overboard with the fancy stuff, but remember that you want to have people not just visit, but keep coming back.
4. If by "edge" you mean "elbow cut off", yes. But there's no colored-in border, if you get my drift. Tested in IE 6.x and Firefox 2.0.x, both on Windows XP.

Bonus round: I'm a big fan of simple menus; too many people forget that a ton of options oftentimes means no option is chosen. I love that you have just a handful of links in front!
One point is that, personally, I found the "reservations" link to be a bit confusing, at the same time as being a really brilliant idea! You might want to try "contact" instead, and on the next page offer "reserve me for a performance" as a drop down option or the like.

Does all that help?

Lilya, I love this! what a great pic and great design. have nothing constructive to say :-)

White backgrounds on webpages should be banned.

Back in the days of CRT monitors, a white computer screen - be it from web pages or mis-coded applications - would give me a splitting headache after about 30 minutes.

With the advent of LCD monitors that don't flicker like the CRTs would, this problem has been mitigated, but not totally eliminated. I still don't like the glare, even if the flicker is gone.

A background like used here on Bhuz (Yellowish) is very nice. Still high contrast, but not so glare-ey...

This is an issue that is VERY SLOWLY working its way into the consciousness of the GP as well as computer ergonomics people. I give it at least another 10 years before it suddenly becomes a "big deal".

All this said - that is a BEAUTIFUL webpage!

Beautiful.

I don't mind the white, but I do have to scroll left/right for your page and I have a fairly large monitor and my settings are 1024 x 768 pixels . You might want to tweak that. It's not off by much, but it is a bit irritating.

And your image is very beautiful, btw.

Samira

I like it. I love it's simplicity and the photo is fantastic.

I like the white background for the home page. I'm not sure if an entire white-background website would bother me, as it does Zorba, but what if you had the outer edges of the white-background photos sort of slowly fade into another color that you would use as the background color for the page? Could that work? I'm no photoshop expert but I think it could be done.

I like the lettering color as is but blue would likely be fine as well.

I can see the page fine in my browser.

I really like the design, and your picture is beautiful. I like the light background too, but I do think an off white is better than a stark bright white if a lot is going to be shown on the page.

So jealous!

Lilya, I think this is beautiful! I understand the technical aspects of the white, but I think it's angelic and lovely--just like you!! :-) Can't wait to see the other pics Michael took!

I like it! I do agree that a softer white would be better. Darnit, I am so sad that I missed the photo shoot. Can't wait to see everyone's pictures!

Thank you for all the kind comments! I would like to be able to at least fade the white into a soft grey near the edges, but this will require photoshop. Any photoshop gurus out there want a little work? Maybe I should start another thread....

Right now, when I look at the prototype page the right edge of the photo is clearly visible but the left edge is only barely visible, which at first made me think that the photo wasn't centered.

I like the rusty red lettering--I think it corresponds well to your skin tone and hair color and brightens the whole page.

So, I'm not sure how to solve the centering issue. Of the three computers I've used to look at the page, on one the picture was bigger than the window; on one it was about the right size and on one there was a ton of grey edge. My husband alleges there's no way to make it fit on all monitors....

Originally Posted by lilya

So, I'm not sure how to solve the centering issue. Of the three computers I've used to look at the page, on one the picture was bigger than the window; on one it was about the right size and on one there was a ton of grey edge. My husband alleges there's no way to make it fit on all monitors....

He's right. There isn't any way to make it fit all monitors exactly. So it's good to try to fit the most common pixel dimensions and then go from there. If you can at least make the layout centered, then the grey on the sides will be even on the larger monitors. And if you are really creative, you can have your image fade into whatever your "background" color is so that it doesn't look very different on other monitors. Personally I prefer a layout that is not so wide so it fits better on a majority of monitors, but that is personal preference.

It still looks beautiful.

Samira