Critique: My Website please.

Guys,

Recently changed my website (music download site), and working over the past week to get it finished. Just wondered if anyone has the time to cast their eyes over it and give me an honest opinion.

I just want feedback on general look and feel, ease of navigation and that sort of thing. Please be honest, I still don't fell 100% about it, but cannot see what to change to make it any better.

The banner at the top will be going too, I am not good at graphic design so that is there temporarily until I can pay someone to do a better job.

Thanks guys,
Adam.

Website: http://www.djadamash.com

Mm, I like it...though it seems a bit cramped.

Perhaps a lighter background colour would open it up more, or even graphic design.

Lighter background? How do you mean, the background it white already lol

I know what you mean about it seeming cramped, don't know how to space it up anymore than I already have though. I think the subscription thing can go, thats poop lol

Lol I meant these parts, or maybe that's just my browser...?

http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/6926/thatpartht8.jpg

Shit the bed you either got a HUGE monitor or very high resolution!

I see what you mean now... I might try find a background image to jazz it up a little then :)

You any good at banner designs? ;)

Just a wide screen resolution, mines even worse then that! lol :P

But I like it, pretty easy to navigate.. simple layout works nicely.. the banner doesn't quite fit imo. Not sure why, personal taste at the end of the day :P.

About the resolution thing... I am pretty sure most people have resolutions that high nowadays anyways, but I still think the dark gray looks fine. Though I find the leftside menu bar title headings look ugly as hell, since you ask. For example "Subscribe to newsletter" "listen now" "featured DJ."

Lol, I wonder what reso. moniter you have :lol:

1280 * 800 is my screen resolution and my screen is (laptop) 15.4". I can see the black panels on the right and left too but it doesn't particularly bother me.

The site is laid out well, easy to read and is uniform when navigating from page to page. The pages load quickly. I love the contact page and the links page. Pretty creative.

I like it over all. Is this your first attempt at building a website? It's better than my first (and only) attempt. :)

This is an ongoing development which was my first attempt at web design. Although the site is now 2 years old, and only one of 3 I have built, so new to it all and still learning.

I have just created a new banner for it too, which I think completely changes the look of the site, and I love it, considering I am usually rubbish at banner designs etc.

Any further comments for improvement?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wasup

About the resolution thing... I am pretty sure most people have resolutions that high nowadays anyways, but I still think the dark gray looks fine. Though I find the leftside menu bar title headings look ugly as hell, since you ask. For example "Subscribe to newsletter" "listen now" "featured DJ."

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Mine is 1280x1024 but I have the vista side bar so that's why it doesn't look as wide I guess.

Thanks for the feedback, how would you recommend changing the leftside menu's? Just changing the text, wording, or format all together?

I have made a few more changes for anyone who is interested? www.djadamash.com

Thanks,
Adam

I have a much much larger resolution than you, anyways.

Also, I don't really know how to change the leftside menus, I just know they don't look that good. They don't look "slick" like the rest of the website. Big, fat, embossed, heavily contrasted buttons. Notice how the rest of your website (like the top navigation menu, which looks good) has low contrast (dark gray on light gray) with a nice gradient for the light gray portion. The leftside menus have big, bold ugly font with a confusing drop shadow. It's like... a black box with writing on it... around the black box is an offwhite line that surrounds it, and behind that is a dark gray shadow. I think how it goes from black to off white to gray is ugly. I'm especially not a big fan of the heavy contrast - pure white on pure black reminds me of one of those ugly windows themes for people who have trouble seeing. It's not really meant to be a good "color" combination.

About the banner - I'm not a huge fan of it, to be honest. That blue color doesn't really carry throughout your website, so it seems rather random. Also it is very oversatured so I think perhaps you should experiment with making it less saturated. Again, I'm not a fan of the pure white on black combination, however I think the fact that it's not bold ugly font makes it not look as bad. Not to mention I think dark/regular gray on black looks pretty ugly as well (off white may look okay though, just experiment). One big critique though: get rid of that ugly emboss. Photoshop emboss is no-go zone unless you are going for a pure tacky appeal. Not to mention on those particular letters, because they are so thin, it just looks like white lettering with spots of black. Especially noticeable on the As (of which you have 3 in your name, adding to the effect). Emboss could be nice when it is really subtle, but due to the thin nature of your letters it just looks like black stribes going through your name, and because of the black background it looks like the letters are broken up. Lastly, remove the blue dot between the D and the J in DJ.

You wanted criticism, so there you go. Good luck :)

I like the general design, Adam, in fact I wish my own site looked half as nice, but I have a few critiques. Bear with me, as I don't mean to sound harsh, and I'm speaking from a mostly aesthetic point of view.

The white text on the black glossy background isn't so bad, I think, but the way it is positioned, or rather the way the images beneath are positioned, doesn't quite work. In my humble opinion, the text should be centered both horizontally and vertically on the bars, if possible. Oh, and it looked better to me in bold. :P

Your drop shadows are too spread out, too. Try adjusting the angle in PS, bring it to -45 or the like. Not an even -45, though. Just the straight on drop shadow looks horrifically tacky, and unrealistic. And the banner needs to be a tad less bright on the left, it distracts the eye from the text. Also, and this is just nitpicking, but there's a blue spot beneath the U in FUNKY that messes up legibility slightly.

Like I said, don't take it as harsh. :D

Thanks for the continued feedback guys.

I will be making some changes to the black boxes in PS when I get a chance, the images came like that, so might swap them all together with something which flows better :)

I am an expert in CMS content management systems, and installing scripts ext... So , in all I think you did very well for your self.

Clean and crisp. I'd suggest creating a logo and a header that kinda brands you and ads more of your personality to your webspace.

Thanks again guys :D

I do have a logo but couldn't really make it fit the banner, will look into it though :)

DJ ADAM ASH IS IN THE HOUSE>

Your site is all that my man! :goodjob: Nice work.

Thanks for the comments mate :D

Really, really nice banner + site.

Nice podcasts too, thought I'd throw that in.

Thanks!! The site was looking bad until the banner - it really changed the whole look!

Thanks for listening too :)