someone please take a look

[John Rayner]

Hi quinn,

Hopefully this is not a fixed bid job. If so, you are going to loose your shirt! Changes this late in the game should be outside the scope of the contract. Fixed bid jobs are for fixed amount of time/work. Open ended contract should be an hourly rate. The client buys so much of your time. If they choose to waste your time redesigning the site, then it is their penny and not yours.

I usually suggest an 8 hour contract to start with. If they like the work I produce, then they hire me for more. If they do not, then it is only 1 days labor they paid. I collect the money up front. You see, artists are like whores... when the client is done with you, are are reluctant to pay for your time, no matter how much they like your work.

On the flash slide show, Ask your client how they intend on getting people to look at their site? The only picture most people are willing to wait for has some hair around it, if you get my meaning. Time is money, particularily for the adverage business man. Fluff without substance will hurt more than help.

Just looking at your new page... Why do you use a black table on a dark gray background? Change one or the other. it highlights that you have are using a fixed width table and not all the page. Browser real estate is precious, do not waste a single pixel if you can help it.

[weldorman]

HI Quinn,

Don't exactly know what is happening, but this is what it looks like on my end with IE 6 on Win98SE. On dial-up and it did load slow also.

Mike

[Quinn]

Weldorman...

wow..thats pretty funky. But not exactly what I was going for . Thanks for the peek.

now would you all mind taking a peek at this new link. Same home page just redone a little bit. I reduce some of the graphic file sizes, added a bit, and redid a bit.

thanks all
Quinn

[John Rayner]

Ummm... quinn,

you either forgot the link again or you didn't fix any problems...

[Quinn]

Uhg!!!...yep john I forgot the link again. I guess two jobs and trying to start a business has turned my brain to mush. Sorry bout that.

Try this one
site in progress

Quinn

[John Rayner]

Hello Quinn,

The Gear looks better and the table matches the background. The buttons are no longer dynamic (no mouseover). Looks a bit better...

The building is a little dark. I would play with this part of the graphic some more.

[weldorman]

Hi Quinn,
I am still getting the same weird offsets as the first site.I do like your graphics.

John,
Are you seeing this site as it should be ie:everything all centered or does it show up like the jpg I posted? What browser do you use if you don't mind me asking?

[John Rayner]

"What browser do you use if you don't mind me asking?" - weldorman

Hi weldorman,

I checked out his site with ie at 1024X768. The browser is tiling the background for you. You are using a larger screen than I and it is begining to tile. He needs to have better control of his table size...

[weldorman]

Thanks John
I tried using different resolutions, but got the same results. I had to completely rework the code for the page to look right. Weird.
Maybe it is time to try out some of the other browsers available.

Mike

[zone13]

I'm a newbie and definitely no expert either, but have some experiences in website design. You can see my site at http://zone13.digitalgrafis.com

I'm nor replying specifically to weldorman's site in talks but more to general issue. I think good site needs plans and before designing a site we need to consider some factors. IMHO website design is like this:


WTF is that? Well, it means that webdesign is a combination of:

- Marketing Strategy: why the site is made, what's the site are for, who's the target audiences, are they going to use low or hi-bandwith, what education & economy level are they? Questions like that.

- Content Structuring: We have to define what are the contents, is it text, graphics or other types, is there special features or additional applications, how much is the contents, how to categorize it so it's easy to be accessed?

- Graphic Design: what's the style, look and feel, what colors to be used, layouts etc. Is it going to be optimized for 800x600 view? If so, then how it's going to be looked in 1280x1024 view?

- Navigational Flow: How the information can be accessed, how to add cues so visitors so they're not lost in your site, how to show the breadcrumbs, how many click needs to open certain information?

- Coding/Programming: This relates to what technology to be used, Flash, CSS, Tabled HTML, type of database, programming language. Is it cross-browser compatible, etc.

If we do so, previous to designing a website, I think we can minimize the trial and errors, saves a lot of time and hopefully, less headaches.

Well, it's just IMHO and uh... sorry for the long post.