www.takdesigns.com

tkeneipp · #1 (**permalink**) 12-12-2003, 11:11 PM

I would welcome any interested party to review our recently redesigned website. We are a one and a half person firm operating in the wilds of Eastern Oregon and have little access to peer interaction and appreciate this opportunity. All constructive suggestions are welcome! We will gladly return the favor if requested.

Keep those reviews coming!

info202 · #2 (**permalink**) 12-12-2003, 11:44 PM

I like your site, although I am not sure about the face on your home page... he is a tad scary.
you need more text on your home page... the average number of words should be at least 200 per page.
on some of the pages, there are spaces between the lines in your sentences. you should also check your punctuation - you need some commas in a few places.
I noticed that you do not have meta tags - perhaps you are still working on them.
your site navigates easily and looks good (except for the scary face .. ~S~)

waanagaran · #3 (**permalink**) 12-13-2003, 01:22 AM

It's a very nice design. I went to all the pages and loading was fast. I guess you have to consider some people's sentiments on what info202 called as scary face (which is scary indeed). What is beautiful to an artist can be scary to other people. That image may scare a lot of people but the site's design quality may compel people to look beyond that scary face in your home page.

tikanet · #4 (**permalink**) 12-13-2003, 01:47 AM

Your work is exceptional! I very much enjoyed each of the examples on your Web Portfolio page. Exquisite, each and every one. All are a pleasure to the eye.

Your navigation is perfect; simple and consistent. The informational blurbs are concise, yet well formed. Your page graphics are unique and refreshingly original. I viewed all sixteen of your pages and appreciated each and every one of them.

Just a couple of suggestions:

1) Declare a document type (on each page). Not that I encountered load problems, and not that it's just good form, but because, well, I really shouldn't take this opportunity to hoist my old pedantic self on some rickety soapbox, so I'll spare you the lecture.

2) The text around your b.gif on your index page does not wrap quite as it might ideally do so. Looks like it might be because the b.gif image has so much extra bottom space, or maybe because the alignment is just "left." A simple solution is to use a <span> with an inline style declaration of the character size, weight and color that matches that of your b.gif. Also, you don't need to place the text in a paragraph

tag. The table's data cell is a perfectly adequate container for the text, and it's the one in which you've already declared the style class.

3) Interactivity is a power of this medium that should, whenever possible and appropriate, be used. Even if you have to stoop to formmail.pl, as much as it pains me to mention it, some way other than forcing your visitor to use their machine's email client should be provided as a means of contacting (interacting with) you. And besides, why expose yourself to email harvesting spiders, and believe me, they're out running rampant, looking for pages just like your Contact page. You make it really easy for them because they're looking for files with names precisely like contact.htm.

4) You've probably noticed it, the hanging last line of text on the Company page. It's likely corrected by eliminiating the last <span> (financial and floral industrie</span><span class="text">s</span>) and the

that contains it.

Yes, your "classical" design talents do indeed "stand out." So good is your sense of aesthetics that a few coding shortcomings escape the attention of all but those who might be looking for them.

tkeneipp · #5 (**permalink**) 12-13-2003, 02:57 AM

Thanks guys... and girls! I really appreciate your input. First, I must add that we are still refining the site and will shortly have our print portfolio online (it will be laid out like the web portfolio, so I did not think it really nessesary to this discussion)and will have all the meta tags and behind the scene stuff done in a day or two..

Maybe I should respond to some of the comments so far:

info202: You are not the first person to call the face scary I know that there are going to be people who find it much to startling. But then there are as many that like the shocking effect. Perhaps our desire to stand out has gotten the best of us. I am waiting to see. As for the amount of text, I have never heard of a 200 word rule. I guess that could be applicable is I was really going for SEO, but we direct most potential clients to the site in other ways and have never felt the battle for the highest ranking was worth the time it takes.

waanagaran: see above about the face... I took a minute to click on your website and must say I was impressed by the graphic design.

tikanet: Thank you! Thank you very much, not only for you nice comments about the design aspect, but for taking the time to really look and for your great code advice. I have already gone back and fixed the <span> issues you identified! If I can ever be of service or if your in need of my design "sensibilities" let me know!

I look forward to reading more posts from everyone!

Phil Walker · #6 (**permalink**) 12-13-2003, 06:20 AM

Hi Timothy

Great site! I like the 'scary' face, in fact I like all the imagery and the clear easy to use site navigation.

I think the short sharp style of the textual information presented is ideally suited to your product.

I love the beach as well.

tkeneipp · #7 (**permalink**) 12-13-2003, 06:31 AM

Thanks! I took a quick look at your site and enjoyed it very much. Quite different style, but you programing skills are obvious!

tkeneipp · #8 (**permalink**) 12-13-2003, 09:46 PM

Come on guys and gals. I need more input on this. I want to get hacked to little pieces and be raked over the coals!

(please note, that I am aware that the coding still neds a few things, like meta tags, but wont mess with them until the end)

matauri · #9 (**permalink**) 12-13-2003, 10:04 PM

Personally I love the opening page. But I am very much into 'in your face' designs. I always feel they make you want to look further.

Page times are excellent. Your portfolio is very impressive in the design elements.

All in all...a good representation of your work :-)

Cindy

SyrenSong · #10 (**permalink**) 12-13-2003, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tkeneipp

Come on guys and gals. I need more input on this. I want to get hacked to little pieces and be raked over the coals!

(please note, that I am aware that the coding still neds a few things, like meta tags, but wont mess with them until the end)

Sure. Say we should rake you over the coals, then take away some of the leaves so we can't rake 'em up! lol!

I think you've done an excellent job here. That makes it very hard to criticise your work. The pages load quickly. There aren't any typos that I noticed. You've got all your ALT tags in order.

Quite frankly, the only things I can come up with are rather nit-picky. Namely:

On your Process page, the height of your Table is slightly larger than on the rest of your pages, so things seem to "jump" a little bit when going to or from that particular page.

(I'm assuming you're planning on specifying a DOCTYPE so your site will validate properly.)

Also, all your images should have ALT tags - even the ones that are only spacers - in order for your page to validate. Just use "" in place of text, if there's no real purpose to the image (like bullet images).

You also need to specify a TYPE with your javascript tags for validation purposes.

And finally (again for validation purposes), the HEIGHT attribute is not a valid markup attribute.

See? I told you I'd have to get really picky. ;)

Seriously though, I don't normally get into that sort of thing in my reviews, except when the sites are really a mess. It's just that you asked for picky, soooooo....... ;)

The face isn't to my liking, but that's a personal preference, not a comment on your design choice. It's a very striking image and a real attention-getter. Since that's what you seem to have in mind by using it, it certainly does the job!

Great site! :)

tkeneipp · #11 (**permalink**) 12-14-2003, 02:31 AM

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwww!

Now we are getting somewhere! Keep firing them away. I don't mind a good kick in the proverbial nuts in this forum. SyrenSong, thanks for the detailed "raking" on the code side of things.

And thank you to everyone who has both loved and hated the site so far.

vwebworld · #12 (**permalink**) 12-14-2003, 04:02 AM

Timothy... Timothy..Timothy,

COMMUNICATE? The pic just doesn't "say" that to me.
Yes, it's bold, brash, and "in your face". So, if
your idea is to slap the viewer in the face...
you've accomplished that.

The photos on the site are very good! and add a
great "look".

Ok, on to - your web portfolio page:
The screen shots of the sample web pages are heavy.
That is, the file sizes are 50-70+Kb. So, it can
take a while to load/view. I imagine the pics
could be optimized/compressed more so that the
file sizes are no more than 20-30K. Since these are
only samples... the viewer doesn't expect the pic
to be extremely high quality.

Oh, jumping back to you home page:
The "B" in "Branding" - first pagragraph doesn't
fill the three lines that are indented... "ewe",
makes me think there's a mistake.

Your menu:
It's good! But, I'm surpised you do not use a CSS
menu... rather than an image based script swap.
Especially since the image swaps are just colors.

Your email footer:
You should definitely have a link to your email
from the email adress you have displayed.
Remember, you want to make it as easy as possible
for the viewer/potential client to contact you.

Text/Content:
Tim, great site, pics, good process description...
but what do I do if I want you to do som work for me?
I think you should have a link on every
page that displays your work, the process... a link
to a "contact form" that the viewer can fill out.
Rather than "forcing" them to open their email program
and write you requesting info, to contact them...etc.
If you have a form... you can gather info you need.
Maybe questions like: Looking or Print, Web, both?
Goal for web/print? Existing website?....etc

Quote:

Take a look at TAK Designs and see how we can make your next web, print or branding project a success

Oh... how boring is that!
What about something like:
"Make success a part of your communication. Let
TAK Designs take you there".

Pump up your text/content to match your bold graphic.

~Roland[/b]

tkeneipp · #13 (**permalink**) 12-14-2003, 08:06 AM

Roland, Roland, Roland...

Thank you so very much for your insightful review.

YES! My intention is to shock and challenge the viewers expectations with the opening image. To even have them spend a second or two to wonder how that fits and play with their curiosity!

There are a million and one web developers out there and most of their sites look similar and scream developer. What I want to do is scream DESIGNER. We want to "design" communication and sometimes shocking the reader/viewer has its benefits. Not that I am married to that image, but I looked long and hard to find a unique image that fit the feel I wanted and was not a silly cliche stock photo! I would welcome other thoughts as to the type of image that would better reflect the concept (the closed mouth says lack of communication and that is what we are shouting about) and has not been done a hundred times. I am still looking and accepting input here.

You are right about the portfolio page images being a bit high, but being screen shots, I was concerned about quality. I will try to compress them a bit. I purposefully kept them between 50 and 60k since the rest of the page is next to nothing.

As for the navigation, you have hit on one of my weaknesses. I have been using CSS for text control only and for not much else. I need to spend more time with it and learn. Coding is not my strong suite. Any thoughts about good learning sources for CSS is most welcome.

Will do on the email link. And have started working on a contact form to expand that page.

Text is always a challenge for me as I am a very visual person. I will continue to try and refine it. Perhaps that is why I try to crank up the visual side of things so much.

Roland, again thank you for your input and I welcome it any from others out there.

Peace!

tkeneipp · #14 (**permalink**) 12-14-2003, 09:21 AM

Okay...

I made the email at the bottom of all pages active. Since I did not want it to be so strong I used a little CSS here, so it stays the same color and only changes state when moused over. Is this to subtle?

tkeneipp · #15 (**permalink**) 12-14-2003, 09:36 AM

Okay...

I made the email at the bottom of all pages active. Since I did not want it to be so strong I used a little CSS here, so it stays the same color and only changes state when moused over. Is this to subtle?

tkeneipp · #16 (**permalink**) 12-14-2003, 11:07 PM

Okay...

Roland maybe you or someone else can help me here. I spent a little time and figured out how to do the CSS rollover effects. That seems great as long as I want to only use the standard web fonts for my buttons. What do you do if you want to have more control of the font on your buttons? I have not tried portable fonts, but I understand including fonts in your web page can really slow things down, so is there a good way to do this?

mruser · #17 (**permalink**) 12-15-2003, 12:35 AM

If you really want control over how a button looks or acts you script it in flash. that is the best way to get it the way you would like to see it. But as we are all not flash experts there are other ways to produce some nice looking buttons. You can with a mininmum of graphics experience create buttons in Photoshop or Paintshop and then do a really quick and dirty little rollover effect using javascript check the tutorials section of my site. The little script there works in all current browsers and can even be animated with a little extra effort. My example covers both.

mruser · #18 (**permalink**) 12-15-2003, 12:39 AM

I would go transparent with the image so it appears like a watermark well maybe not quite that weak but you get the idea. Its a kewl graphic and works well but yes it could be subdued.
Cheers

tkeneipp · #19 (**permalink**) 12-15-2003, 01:21 AM

Thanks for the comments! I am hoping to get a few more comments on the main image before I make up my mind. That's why I put the poll, so I could keep track.

Since I just wanted very flat buttons, I created them in fireworks and do use a little jave rollover script. My question was really if CSS could work in this senario with nonstandard fonts.

A quick update here: I finally finished my print portfolio and got it on line. It lays out pretty much like the web one, but some pages have a slightly different orientation. Your comments on the site or the work contained therein are welcome.

vwebworld · #20 (**permalink**) 12-15-2003, 09:23 AM

Timothy,

Here's a good resources for CSS:
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Yes, using a "non standard" font presents a problem.
You can also use CSS to do and image swap too.. rather
than java script.

~Roland

vwebworld · #21 (**permalink**) 12-15-2003, 09:51 AM

Hi Timothy,

I crafted a sample CSS menu....
the CSS:
#navlist ul { list-style-type: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:
12px; color: #000000; margin: 0; padding: 0 }
#navlist li {
margin: 0 0 0px 5;
}

#navlist a { display: block; width: 170px; background-color: #C8C8A0; filter: alpha(opacity=100);
border: 0px solid #000000; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 2px; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px }

#navlist a:link, #navlist a:visited {
color: #000000;
/*/*/color: #000000;
text-decoration: none; /* */
}
#navlist a:hover {
border: 0px solid #000080;
background-color: #B84850;
filter: alpha(opacity=100)
background-image: url();
color: #000000;
}

#uberlink a:link, #uberlink a:visited, #uberlink a:hover {
/*/*/border: 0px solid #FFFFFF;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
background-image: url();
color: #000000; /* */
}

The menu (to be placed where approrpiate):
<div id="navlist">
<ul>[*]HOME[*]WEB[*]PRINT[*]PROCESS[*]COMPANY[*]CONTACT[/list]</div>

~Roland

tikanet · #22 (**permalink**) 12-15-2003, 03:19 PM

Of course you can do without the uberlink declaration. And adding Verdana to the font-family in the navlist UL block would nicely round out the most ubiquitous sans-serif font styles. Also, adding margin: 2 0 0px 5; to the navlist LI statement would more closely match your existing spacing between menu items.

But while we're discussing this menu issue, I'd like to throw out the possiblity of creating greater contrast between the text and the background for the rollover state by making the text appear white, or at least lighter than black.

LH · #23 (**permalink**) 12-17-2003, 12:36 PM

I like your site. It is clear and straight to the point. Navigation is easy to use, however I'd either take off "Home" button when the visitor is already on your home page OR would use home2.gif to differentiate and identify the current location. In fact you could do that on each subsequent section of the site.

Each section has a title image with that section's name on it. The strongest pieces, I find, are CONTACT and PRINT. WEB and COMPANY images lack certain degree of contrast. Web especially -- if a user follows the sections in the order they are, WEB is the first one that that has section name on it and since one doesn't know yet where to look, I find it difficult to locate it at first. I actually didn't noticed it at all, until I was about to click on another button. The image itself is quite polarized and has quite a few contrast parts that compete with the word WEB.

Face -- is a strong visual, but I'm not so sure it's appropriately used. It seems like it's going to be quite painful just to open that mouth and you tell him to communicate... Psychologically this visual is creating a conflict rather than supporting your message.

I love your print section. Great work.

Feel free to visit our site! ;)

mdhazen · #24 (**permalink**) 12-17-2003, 05:14 PM

Hi..

Great looking site with plenty of eye-candy images! We love those! Clean layout, consistent easy to use navigation, and pretty images all lend to a nicely designed website.

One thing to look at perhaps is the height of each page is different accross the board - so as the user clicks through the individual main pages, the height shifts - definitely not a deal breaker - just a small item I thought you might like to be aware of.

Keep up the great work.

Happy Holidays,

Michael

View Poll Results: Is the face image to strong?
yes	20	20.83%
no	34	35.42%
sicko!	42	43.75%
Voters: 96. You may not vote on this poll

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