Would appreciate any comments/criticism about my website

[mvssysprog]

Good morning....

I have been working on my website (www.stoppersnstuff.net) for over two months, and last night, my daughter (who works on her corporate website - content - not coding) looked at it and said it looked too dated. So she proceeded to have me simplify it, clean up the colors, and change my heading. It looks a little bland to me now. If any of you would have any suggestions, I would really appreciate it. I am including my original homepage prior to the changes.

Thank you in advance.

Dave

[gwpriester]

Dave

What's appropriate for a corporate website is not always right for a small hand crafted site. While as a designer I might tend to favor your daughter's designs, I think the image you posted looks more folksy and down to earth and real.

RE: the new design, it is a bit cleaner and easier to navigate so it is not a bad direction to go. You need work on the buttons though. The mouseover buttons are blank!

[angelize]

I agree with Gary, your original design does look more folksy. And as well as the mouseovers on the buttons I also noticed that the last gallery hair bows and pins isn't working. Perhaps the button isn't linked?

One suggestion I can make is that photos don't always have to be rectangular try taking one or two of the photos and close cropping the photo to remove the background, make it big and repel the text around it

[mvssysprog]

Thank you both! I have been struggling with my buttons. I am very new at this (and I know it shows). I will try to adopt the changes in style that she incorporated, but go back to my color and form that I had.

I will try to close crop some of the photos and repel the text around it.. Building a website has been quite an experience so far. One thing that has been made obvious is that I need a better camera for my photos of wood...

Again, my sincere appreciation for your suggestions. I will be working on it today.

Dave

[mvssysprog]

Good evening....

I have reverted my colors back and made some changes to my navigation, so now you can see which section you are on. I took one of the photos of the ikebana bowls with flowers and repelled the text (which looks neat). I would appreciate any comments, criticisms, or suggestions to make the site better. My next chore is to build a store, but not until I get the rest of the site better or more pleasing to the eye.

Thanks a lot in advance.

Dave

[angelize]

A couple of things come to mind now that I can look at your original site close up.

1. The yellow text on the brown background is hard on the eyes, perhaps a lighter brown background with dark brown text would retain some of the folksy appeal yet give you a cleaner look kind of a compromise between your original site and your daughters ultra clean layout.

2 you do some beautiful wood work take some of the photos and crop them out of their backgrounds, make them big (supersize them! ) and repel the text around them and really show them off.

3 Stoppers N stuff is a great name perhaps instead of the wood filled banner give the name some personality, mold it bevel it and give it a wood fill

I have attached an example of what I mean (I hope you don't mind!) I just dropped in some Lorum ipsum filler text and a navbar from the designs gallery I also let the bowl overlap the edge of the page you will need to go into the website properties page and deselect clip to pages to do this.

[Boy]

I like all your suggestions as shown in your mockup! Makes the site look more interesting and attractive.

[mvssysprog]

WOW! (my first reaction to Angelize's adaptation - of course I don't mind...lol)

I need to learn how to do the lettering (will hit the books today). I do have a question... how did you eliminate all of the background for the woodturnings? I have been trying to figure that out for a very long time (even prior to my getting a website). Is there a tool that you use to do that?

Thank you so much for the suggestions...

One more question.... is there a way to globally change the page background and the color of the lettering? Or do I need to go into every panel to change it?

The mockup is fantastic!

Dave

[angelize]

Ok according to your profile you have Webdesigner MX premium so you should be able to do everything I did with that

The wood lettering
Type your text (don't be afraid to play with some different fonts!) at this point colour doesn't matter
Use the mold tool and apply a default mold to it (the first rectangular button to the left on the mold tool info bar) and click the corner nodes of the mold to display the curve edit handles use them to mold your text into the shape you want.
Once you are happy with your mold apply a bevel to your text. I just used a rounded bevel but you can experiment with the different types. ( I always encourage experimentation! )
Now that your text is moulded and beveled give it a wood fill (I used one from the fill gallery but you can easily drop a photo of your own onto the page, delete it ( yes delete it), and then use the bitmap gallery to to access it and with your molded, beveled text selected click fill at the top of either gallery to fill your text with the wood bitmap.

Eliminating the background
I used the shape editor tool to trace an outline around the bowl and the stopper when you get all the way around back to the begining place the last nodel over the first node an watch for the little plus sign and they will join and you will have a closed shape select both the shape and the photo and Ctrl +3 to intersect it. Here is a video that shows the basics of using the shape editor tool for this it is an old video and shows a much older version but the basics are the same http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8XgHkZo1J8

global changes

The lettering can easily be placed on all pages but if the current lettering was not made to repeat on all pages you will have to remove it manually from all pages. Once the old heading is removed place your new heading where you want it on the page and arrange repeat on all pages

the page background colour should be easy to change open the page and layer gallery, and unlock the page background layer expand the shadow group and select the rectangle now you can use the colour editor to edit your colour and all pages should change. Don't forget to lock this layer again when you are done! it is important not to design on this layer!

[mvssysprog]

Angelize,

Thank you so much for your advice. I will be working on making the changes this evening. This is all new to me, especially eliminating the background. I tried doing it in PSP, but it left a white background... I'll try it your way...
I sincerely appreicate yours and everyone assistance. This is my first crack at a website, and everyone on these forum sections has been wonderful!

Dave