How's this looking (photo site)

[ukaskew]

http://www.secombe.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

Opinions very welcome on this, spent a bit of time putting this together since yesterday as I want a placeholder for my motorsport stuff (the actual galleries are still on Smugmug) which I will add a nice straightforward URL to as well soon. The idea being I have one easy place for people to visit, as I get quite a few requests from drivers/teams/sponsors etc, and as good as Smugmug is, it's not easy to personalise it. The only 'active' pages are the frontpage, Guides, Contact and Links sections so far.

Obviously content is lacking as it's gearing up for the 2009 season and I have loads of Guides etc to add over the winter, but I've added a few of the last events of 2008 to the frontpage to give you an idea of how it's going to look (the plan would be to have the 6 most recent events on the frontpage, and they would then be archived in the Events section once it gets going, along with a calendar of forthcoming events). I've set it up so I can quickly add new events to it as soon as I've put them on Smugmug.

Mainly interested in how you think the colour scheme, navigation and general design of it all looks before I really start adding content. I've done all this in Frontpage 2002 as I don't know any HTML or anything remotely fancy, so no suggestions to add anything particularly clever please, I wouldn't have a clue!

 

[MaLicE]

change the font...

apart from that its nice

 

[Nigel]

I like the colour scheme and general layout, something doesn't look right though.

 

[Gaz]

Looks all right too me

 

[Track'd]

I'm liking this site at the moment, and with a bit of imagination and simplifying (i.e. plain black background etc), would look awesome with motorsport content. http://www.raven-photography.nl/

 

[Andy.]

You need to sort out the margins/ layout on a couple of pages. The section jumps across the page a couple of pixels on different pages.

I think it would benefit from having the menu in a different colour background, even if it was just a darker grey, but the grey/ orange look suits it well. Really good effort!

I know that you dont want to hear it, but if you are interested in making sites, take a couple of hours out to learn some CSS. It is so much easier to manage than tables for layouts etc and not as daunting as it may first appear.

 

[Andy.]

Found the layout problem, on the home page, the table widths are specified as %'s and on the contact page they are in pixels. If you put them all to the same value, it will mean that the page stays central throughout.

 

[ukaskew]

Found the layout problem, on the home page, the table widths are specified as %'s and on the contact page they are in pixels. If you put them all to the same value, it will mean that the page stays central throughout.

This has been driving me insane, I've just checked every single table on the entire site and in Frontpage they are all specified as being in pixels (800), yet when I look at the html, it has percentages for a lot of them. Will edit them manually and see it that works. The annoying thing is, when I view the site in IE it's fine, but in my normal Firefox browser it jumps.

Thanks for the tips anyhow, I will add something to the navigation bar.

 

[RSi Dave]

Agree with the font. Calibri would look pretty sweet. Great pictures

 

[ChrisH]

think your problem is front page its s**t to say the least, used it at college, design isn't the same as preview, so it has to look wrong in design to be right in preview very weird.

 

[ukaskew]

think your problem is front page its s**t to say the least, used it at college, design isn't the same as preview, so it has to look wrong in design to be right in preview very weird.

Yep it's pretty frustrating, but if I get it right once then all is well, as designing sites is not something I want to do on a regular basis.

 

[Leeshez]

Very nice.

 

[Andy.]

you could get yourself a cheap domain name to make it easier for people to find.

trackpics.co.uk for 6 quid for two years?

 

[ukaskew]

you could get yourself a cheap domain name to make it easier for people to find.

trackpics.co.uk for 6 quid for two years?

Yep I'm going to do something like that over the winter, don't want to spend too much as I don't tend to sell my pictures.

 

[JJ!]

Very nice, but very small changes I would make, the text that is in the grey boxes (e.g. Castle Combe Formula Ford Carnival (04/10/2008)) look to close to the edge of the grey boxes - if that makes sense! lol

 

[ukaskew]

Very nice, but very small changes I would make, the text that is in the grey boxes (e.g. Castle Combe Formula Ford Carnival (04/10/2008)) look to close to the edge of the grey boxes - if that makes sense! lol

Yup that makes sense, needs a bit of a margin.

 

[Andy.]

Yep I'm going to do something like that over the winter, don't want to spend too much as I don't tend to sell my pictures.

True, 3 pounds a year is not too bad though.