here it is without any text -

I have a version with type - you can see how it is used on this page:
http://www.tonicvision.tv/master_pag...l/contact.html

the page needs some work - I was just changing it so that the bars on the left pop out - supposedly at the same time - in the last version you had to mouse over them to get them to come out and no-one knew to do it (on some of the sections they work - on others they do not - just starting to overhaul this site)

The logo looks very nice.

My only comment about it specifically would be its size byte-wise. It is over 50kb, which is pretty big.

I then had a look at your page and checked the other graphics on there and I totalled it at about 90kb. Again, for an html page, that is quite big and a user with a typical 56k connection would have to wait nearly 30 seconds for it to load. The buttons are typically around 5-6kb each, and yet they are very simple in terms of colour/detail.

Then, moving on to the gallery, I noticed a similar issue. The psychedelic car image is 76kb alone, and the other images/buttons (which admittedly will be cached if people haven't bookmarked the page separately) add a further 25kb. So that page is up at about 100kb total (over 30 seconds to load).

I guess my point would be that a picture of those dimensions could easily be brought down to 25kb-ish or even less. And at least the same ratio of reduction could be obtained with your other images. The buttons could easily be brought down to under 1kb each.

One final thing - I looked at the Khoja gallery and the one image there is 100kb on its own. The same applies there.

All this can be easily sorted out, so I hope you don't think I'm being negative. :)

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Sualdam

not at all - I am undergoing an overhaul of the site and your comments are valuable.

regarding the logo - does it make sense to you? the concept was taking the mundane and tuning into something "colorful?" I wanted it animated because that is about 80% of the work I get (After Effects - not Flash - still gotta learn that)

I am thinking of eventually re-creating many of the animations like the logo in flash (I posted a thread asking for help re- the opening page animation)
http://www.WebProWorld.com/viewtopic.php?p=38050

When I first created the site - it was my first and I had a cable modem - now I have about 38k (living in no-mans land) and I see all the flaws. The Khoja gallery I did not design so there is not a lot I can do there.

what would you suggest when it comes down to good image optimization without the loss of detail? I have heard of special software that can crunch jpegs a lot nicer than fireworks or image ready? Have you heard of anything like this?

Again - thank you for taking the time to check out the site - I do not find your comments negative - but would love advice on how to approach "optimizing" the site... without cutting out any of the sections (as you can tell - I am sort of mid stream with the re-design - I am trying to clean up the format for that all the sections act the same way... the animation compression issues I brought up a couple of weeks ago on a thread here - and while I have tried some of the new settings suggested - the image degradation is really bad... still trying out other options.0

My impression of the logo was 'turning nothing into something' - I definitely got that from it.

Interestingly, if you DID use Flash I bet you could get that logo down to 1-2kb tops.

The Khoja gallery was just the one I looked at - the point I guess is that the images were a bit top heavy. Optimising them can be done using any one of dozens of free compression utilities. Most graphics packages have exactly what you need built-in - especially Fireworks. I don't think you ned anything fancy (if anything does make out it is 'special' in that respect, steer clear).

JPEG/JPG format is ideal for photos with a lot of detail. You'll find - depending on the photo - that you can go as low as 50% compression with no noticeable loss of quality on the web. A 50% reduction would crush a 500kb-1Mb image down to well under 50kb, I think. JPGs lose their purpose when the photo/image has lots of flat colours, because watermarks will appear.

If you have simple designs (like your buttons and your main logo patters), GIFs are ideal. Cut down the number of colours as far as they'll go (the compression method for GIFs) and you'll get very small files.

Personally, I find GIFs tend to be a bit bigger than JPGs when comparing like for like, but they serve a real purpose.

At the end of the day, if you are happy with it a small degradation is probably totally acceptable since no one will know what the original was like.

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Sualdam

Sualdam: thanks for the details as to how to compress the images.

Funny, last night I started trying to convert the logo to flash - I have all the elements there - just trying to get used to the keyframes and timelines in flash which is physically so different from After Effects - although the logic is all the same.

Again, thank you

(once I get something working I will send it along or post it )

If it's any help, I couldn't resist having a go in Flash. I managed to get a swf about 4.3kb, so that's less than a tenth the size of your original. You could probably get a bit lower, because the dots were frame-by-frame in my quick version. (Actually, you could probably do it in almost pure code, and that would be tight).

Here's the logo in Flash - link

And if that's any use to you, here's the FLA:

Here's the source file - link

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Sualdam

WOW thanks Sualdam

this is very cool. am checking it out now.
:)