Opinions on new site design

http://thejefffiles.com/newsite/

I'm redesigning the layout for my website, and I had my friend Josh draw up a design for it....but I honestly really don't like it, it doesn't allow for any expandability whatsoever like my original design does....

However, what does everyone else think about it? I've redesigned my site to have a more powerful management system for posting news and things like that, and the code for that is created so I could technically apply it to any design.

So, should I just go with this design? or do you think it's too clunky to get around with and I should just keep my old design and put the new management system in to it?

I really really really don't like it. Maybe if that page was just a front page and the links go to actual pages. But as it stands I think its awful. The information is too hard to access and read. Also my eyes didn't like it.

This design seems a bit buggy in Firefox (OSX).
Your floating frame overlaps some of the link text, and scrolling induces some refreshing issues.

The old design is better, though perhaps it would look a little better with brighter color (such as the blues in the new design -- not the really bright blue, though, that one is a bit annoying).

I personally don't like websites like that....you have way too much info on your site for it to work efficiently. I say, try another design or two, if they wont work keep the old one, but maybe change the colors :p

Most layouts that are pretty don't look quite as elegant once you put 200 projects in them. They're often too confining and restricted.

Simlpe, but elegant -- always the way to go. :)

I thought it was super cool! But really buggy in Mozilla like Zach L. said. The only thing I could suggest as far as the old design, is making the menu fonts on the main page, more like bold:Arial, verdana, ya know?

strongly dislike... i think plain text might even be better than that, at least i could use my browsers search function ;)

No offence but I cant stand websites that have navigation like that, so i strongly dislike.

Yeah - I'm not liking it either. No offence, it's just a bit showy.

Well, no offense taken, I am completely with everyone on not liking it, heh. I've already gotten to work redesigning my main page. I'm getting rid of the color customizing thing temporarily and just sticking with the invision scheme.

The new design's scrapped, I can't stand it :rolleyes:

Thank god. It's hideous.

I didn't think it was that bad....


Yes I did. I usually try to be different, but I can't here :(

I've modified the main site's design a little bit, it looks a lot slicker than it used to now. I think I've gotten the colors sorted out a bit better now too. (Lots of ideas from Brain Cell)

Looks better..... the logo tho... it just looks cheesy as hell. No offense, but it's really hideous.

I was going to comment on the logo as well. Possibly try at least a cooling looking photoshop font job for a site title. Something sleek looking. Not specifically "cool" but maybe classy.

No no and no =[ The pop-up window is annoying, I might want to read something and not have to close it to go to another page, and the whole 'Things around a circle' is so unoriginal.

Redid the logo.....tell me what you think. It's just a pure grey text logo, simple and effective hopefully.

the logo makes my eyes hurt, turn up the quality...or something

Hmm, had a stroke on the edges that made it blurrier than I though it was I guess. Stroke's gone, image is more crisp now.

Wouldn't have to be that big. And you should consider dressing it up just a little bit. I think you're in the same boat with me. Lots of programming and layout skills, but crap for graphics/designer skills. ;)

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Originally Posted by ober

I think you're in the same boat with me. Lots of programming and layout skills, but crap for graphics/designer skills. ;)

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Hah, yup, definitely.

Quote:

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I think you're in the same boat with me. Lots of programming and layout skills, but crap for graphics/designer skills.

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I think great programming and layout skills, and great graphics/designer skills too! You're doing a great job, you could've put ferries on your logo, and it's good that you didn't! Good job soldier!

I don't like it.
Call me boring, but I prefer simple designs...a nice banner on top, a sidebar (or two) on the left (and right) side of the screen.
Put in some fancy shmancy borders and some good colours and I call that a good design.

edit - read rest of the thread...
for sprucing up what you've got.....

What you have right now is great if you want it to load fast (for example if you have low bandwidth or a slow server, lots of traphic or all three).
That said, I doubt you're getting the same traphic as google is getting, so you can probably fancy it up a bit.
Make something nice for border graphics (include corner graphics for the top left/right and bottom left/right, they look nice)
You might want to differentiate your sidebar 'header' text versus sidebar links text...make it a fancier font and bold it or something. Make the sidebar links small text maybe?
You could maybe spruce up the banner with some kind of neato background...something nerdy like a matrix effect or a series of 1's and 0's might look neat :) Photoshop is king :P

I'm not great at designing...but I know when something looks good, and I've seen some great work...and some horrible work.

For some reason I'm having nightmares about bowling balls now.