I am designing a micro-site as part of a co-marketing project with a couple of other companies we work with.

The aim of the site is to promote the idea of hen parties at home, offering a fun and sophisticated alternative to the traditional hen party. So we wanted to avoid the usual hen party ‘L’ plate themes…

The work in progress site is Hen Party Ideas at Home

There is currently a debate over the colour scheme. To me our colours look lively and interesting and reflect the need to excite convince people that having a hen party at home is just as much fun as a night on the town but without the tackiness of a traditional hen night.

However it has also been suggested the colours are too bright & may be misconstrued as a bit brassy and that pastel colours would be more appropriate.

I’d be interested in hearing some honest feedback on the choice of colours as I’m probably too close to the project to have a totally unbiased opinion.

Many thanks...

I like the colours and agree with you that it should be upbeat, hen parties are supposed to be fun not dowdy pastels IMO. if it were mine I personally would reduce the width of it a little because it makes me use the horizontal scroll on my PC and I hate that

good luck with it

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I love the use of white space and the design appears well thought out and balanced. I do find it a little too "candy coated" but then again, I'm not a part of the target market.

There appears to be too much of the bright pink. I'd change a few page elements to match other colours in your palette.

For example, consider changing the page headings to match the purple background colour in the "wine tasting" tab.

To increase usability, the links in the right column could be another colour as well. You might consider making them a more standard colour, indicative of what users might expect to find "clickable". For example, most users would expect to see links in blue. You can alter the shade of blue while still having the link appear intuitively clickable.

.02

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Is it just me? Or do any other women here find the term "Hen Party" to be offputting? If that were link text, I wouldn't click it. But I guess that's not what you were looking for an opinion on . . .

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If the shoe fits... JK

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Hmmmm...I think the bright pink is off-putting but that's personal taste...

Also, "hen party" is kinda old fashioned and a term used by men to discuss women...not really the phrase women would likely use for themselves...and not used at all by younger fems.

Off-topic: How many posts do I need before I'm not labeled "new member"? I'm more of a lurker but I've been around an awfully long time...

Looks like it's 25.

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Thanks for the design tips, all very useful...

On the subject of the term 'hen party' - our target market is the UK where hen party is a common term and not at all derogative towards women. In the US you tend to refer to our hen parties as 'Batchelorette Parties'...

- John

hahaha...too funny BJ, thanx

Hi

Very Nice site.

However the over hyphenated domain name is not the best choice for building a business online.

There is no brand building being done.

If you are going for rankings in Google I would think the term

**hen party ideas at home))

would not draw enough traffic to warrant the usage of such a URL


For others who have issues with the niche of the site....... hen parties are UK pre wedding parties, and what someone chooses as a niche is none of our business, to chastise him here is rather short sighted,,,,, especially when a woman condones the words 'bitch slapping'...

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really nice site and layout, personally I do think the pink is a little too bright and perhaps 'brassy', especially sinc eyou are trying to steer away from the traditional 'tacky' hen night - not that yours looks tacky but i think there are other colours you could use that are lively without being as bright - try looking at sites like handbag.com, topshop, asos etc etc - all very stylish sites predominantly for girls with great colour way ideas.

I don't think pastels is the way forward - that would give the impression of a hen night in doing facials and stuff to me - your site looks much more fun than that! the pink you are using may work well if you bought in another colour to work with it?

Also I would use imagery of groups of girls having fun together - i think they would really help with the overall tone of it.

One other thing is the little house icon on the boxes on the right remind me of mortgage advice sites with quick links to facts and figures - i think you could find much more appropriate icons to use - maybe a small martini glass or wine glass or something?

love the layout and links etc though - a great home page layout looks like it will be a great site!