What is best font to use?

[IeMS]

Lots of suggestions. Some I'll take, others I'll have to chew on. I am wondering if I simply need a new logo, with a new color scheme (even though I like the blue & green) as a better example of "integrated marketing", and I'll have to simply rebrand and based the redesign of the website off of that. I have found a couple of pictures that perhaps could be used as a base. What would you charge for such a project? Feel free to email privately (via my website) if its ok.

[Gare]

Hi Rob—

You open yourself up to a lot of responses when you solicit help/work on a public forum! :)

I'll assume that much of your post is directed at me, personally. Okay: It's good that you're thinking of working from the general to the specific—I believe that's the way designers should work, with a rough-out of a graphical idea and then honing in on the details.

I think you need to begin with a concept. A "core" from which the other graphical and text ideas spring. I suggest that you forget about nit-picking and correcting the nits. There's nothing absolutely wrong with blue and green, except they suggest ecology...and as I mentioned, they don't artistically accent one another. there's nothing wrong with the puzzle pieces, but they look as though they were just thrown into the overall site as an attraction. There's nothing really I see immediately that supports the jigsaw pieces. Plus, puzzle pieces have been done to death, Rob. They've become a visual cliché in 2012, and probably 1995.

You need fewer talking points up front because it's visually intimidating for anyone to digest. You need balance: you need to prioritize what you want to communicate, and let other items be subordinate. You're in a tough field, very competitive, and you need to show and prove to me that your company is on the top of the heap by demonstrating it with your own website, you know?

And that CSS scooter stuff on the menu is quite disorienting! There should be a reason for an effect on a web page. If there isn't, you leave the impression that you're not serious and want to attract attention any way you can, instead of focusing on what you are and what you do, in a compelling, artistic way.

My best,

Gary

[IeMS]

Gary, The can of worms opened and are swarming the moment I asked for an opinion from my peers. Unfortunately my peers are not my target market but I understand that if I cannot impres you guys, how can I be extected to get the attention of my customer - the small business owner, so I respect and am doing all that I can to make sense of it. What I've tried to do is exactly as you said - start with a theme that represents the message "integrated", choose colors that represent who I am and what I try to do - trustworthy, loyal, and wanting to help a small business grow, and design a usable unique site around that. I missed the mark somewhere as the site is not from a template. Again, I am wondering if I need a new logo, a symbol of "integrated emarketing" as the image?