Wedding Belles

With the weather the way it is at the moment here (I think we're getting a months worth of day per day at the moment) I am getting on with some sites and finished one this week for a client whose business is wedding flowers and chair covers. This one was a nice one in the sense of the full design was left up to me with the exception of the nav bar. I was tempted to go for a fully white site but it has to cater for weddings for all cultures so that is why it has ended up the way it is. Hopefully it is still a clean site.

www.inspireweddingflowers.com

Very beautiful site. I think it is very clean, and the photos are wonderful.

Makes me want to get married again. :) Very attractive and inviting site.

Thanks Francis and Gary, very kind comments as always appreciated from you guys.

A fine balance you have there. I notice the colours for the flash banner pics are always black and white with one other colour taking no more than 30% or so of the banner pic area so it always matches the sites white below and the black that the banner sits on. I once tried a banner with pics that where great on their own but didn't match the site as they had too much going on in them.

Thank you arpeggio, I actually was initially going to go for greyscale images with one or two colours highlighted so for instance on the first photo it would be the green and on one of the chair cover photos it was to be purple. I am really surprised anyone noticed that, you certainly have a great eye for detail.

Thanks. Having tried as a serious ametuer I learn how much goes behind design and that desireable results takes thought and can be hard work.

I'm sure this is something my end as your sites are usually stunning but, with this one, I have a big black space with the main body underneath. I am assuming there is a banner picture or flash in there but it isn't showing up for me. I am using Firefox 13.01 Win 7 64bit. The banner at the top shows ok (menus etc.) and the 'Inspire' logo at the foot of the black space is also there. All other elements appear to be there but I have black space on all pages except the gallery.

I have checked it with all the latest browsers including firefox and it is all good, there is a black background set to full width of the browser and a flash slideshow element there so check your flash is installed ok; I always check my sites using opera, chrome, firefox, safari and internet explorer as well as on an iphone, and ipad and a blackberry mobile and on at least 3 pcs and laptops and no problems so far. The gallery page does not have the flash element.

Hi, no joy I'm afraid. Works great in IE but nothing in Firefox. I also ran another couple of known sites and it works fine but not this one, Perhaps a glitch on my machine.

very simple.. and impressing btw.. it really gives a wedding mode :)

the banner is all black for me in FF 14.0.1
had to open up IE to see that there shd be a banner in there

possibly something to do with FF extensions, but there is definitely a problem
i thought it might be adblock plus so i switched it off but still it shows a black area

Attachment 91698

I have checked it on firefox 14.0.1 and it is perfect for me, as you say possible an extension you may have installed. Tried it on all the pcs in the office and on my laptop, all are ok. I contacted snacktools (with which I created the banner) and they tested it to be ok as well. Just one of those things I suppose.

yeah, these things are often the results of imperfect extensions

The wedding site you created is fabulous! I already posted this in one of Skech's posts, but am going to ask here as well. I absolutely low how you and he manage to create a background that fits in with the website itself (stretching it across the whole width of the screen). I would like to know how that is done but I can't find what I'm looking for in the help section. Can you assist? Is it something somewhat simple to do?

Michelle

Hi Michelle, I believe that Skech is using the long thin bar method (at least that's what I call it) where he takes a long thin rectangle that is at least as tall or even a little taller than the page and applies the colours to it. Then a bitmap copy is made (or if you are using one of the web designer programs you need to export and and reimport the bitmap) and you simply set the bitmap as your background. I recall a video that showed this process nicely, I'm sure if you ask in the Xara Web Design Forum that some one there will be able to help you find a link to that video, and/or answer any further questions you have about this :)

Excellent job!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MLong

The wedding site you created is fabulous! I already posted this in one of Skech's posts, but am going to ask here as well. I absolutely low how you and he manage to create a background that fits in with the website itself (stretching it across the whole width of the screen). I would like to know how that is done but I can't find what I'm looking for in the help section. Can you assist? Is it something somewhat simple to do?

Michelle

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Thank you Angelize. I will check out that forum and see what I can find. I've been looking in my manual and I just can't seem to find what I'm looking for. I think that I would like to create a graphic background for my website. I haven't completely decided what I want yet, but, I first need to figure out how to create a background that blends with the actual page. He seems to be able to do that nicely.

Michelle

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angelize

Hi Michelle, I believe that Skech is using the long thin bar method (at least that's what I call it) where he takes a long thin rectangle that is at least as tall or even a little taller than the page and applies the colours to it. Then a bitmap copy is made (or if you are using one of the web designer programs you need to export and and reimport the bitmap) and you simply set the bitmap as your background. I recall a video that showed this process nicely, I'm sure if you ask in the Xara Web Design Forum that some one there will be able to help you find a link to that video, and/or answer any further questions you have about this :)

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Thanks Angelize. I will check out that forum. I think I want to create smome type of graphic background however, I haven't quite made up my mind what I want yet. Skech seems to beable to blend his backgrounds with his pages very nicely and I would like to incorporate something that will do the same. I just can't seem to find what I want in my manual.

[Edit: Sorry Frances, I see you've already explained it!]

Sketch uses a repeated background image - it is long and thin in this case 35pixels wide by 1400pixels. He has carefully created this image to match the rest of the page design. It is an old trick used commonly by web designers and often mentioned on TG. I'm sure sketch doesn't mind me explaining it.

http://www.inspireweddingflowers.com...tm_files/0.png

A quick google took me to: http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/wo...workbook_2.htm

Paul

Very clean, very nice site, the timings on the slide show lend themselves beautifully to the site, complimenting the images well. The whole site seems Calm. not sure exactly how a site can make me feel calm but this one does (might have a browse next time the wife has a go...lol).

In all serious though, this is a well designed, i like the use of white space, photos are really nice, the word 'Inspire' and logo overlay on the photos works very well too. Nice, inviting design.

Thank you for the very kind words, originally the client wanted a fairly typical site with lots and lots of photos and a dark red background which I managed to convince them to change and we came up with the light 'white' site you see. It was not an aim to be a calm site but thank you, hopefully the gallery photos will be updated with some professional photos soon.