CRITIQUE: Autofocus

[Jezebel]

So I'm going to be revamping Autofocus.com soon because I've had the same look for sooooooo many years. I get a lot of compliments on the way the site looks now and it was good while it lasted, but I've been bitten by the change bug. A while back I posted something about selling my old design if anyone was interested in it - the offer is still standing if anyone wants a new site without much work.

Anyway - this is the new design I'm playing with. This is just a mockup and nothing is in place/coded yet. I wanted something fairly simple with a unique, artistic twist. I'm still playing with the placement of the image - depending on your resolution the space either looks just right or really spread out, so I gotta work on that.

http://div.dyndns.org/photos/redesigns/1b.html

So what do you all think of the design so far?

[adirty1]

very nice but sooooo slow to load. I am on the backbone of the net at work. Its UT then us... I do like the design so far.

[agillette]

Hey there Jezebell,

Nice site, I take it you still have lots to finish up on it. It's definatly different. It is also very slow for me, and we run on DS3, and OC-48 direct i-Net connections.

Regards,

AG

[ndsimm]

very artistic, but also slow to load on my Office T1

[TXhummer2]

makes the pics pop, though slow loading on your dev server. 8 warnings in HTML Validator extension for ff.

[Jezebel]

Yeah - the slow loading is a result of my bad internet connection at home. I'm hosting the site locally (though when it's finished it will be on a normal server with a nice speedy load time :D).

Thanks for the feedback so far. It's unfortunate my connection is so bad here. Ironically enough there is a guy in my apt working on the internet stuff. hahah

[Clayton Wallace]

I really dig the tree and glowing lantern.
Don't dig the font (at all)
Pic of clouds looks really at odds with the art/arternative effect I gather you're going for.
In general I think the way the photos are displayed needs to be more cohesive with the style generated by the high contrast tree and general style. Maybe a rugged window around the pics would help?

Site looks much better at 1280 than 1024. At 1024 I didn't even see the images on the right.
I'm not familiar enough with your previous site to make informed comparisons, but I think you have a good idea in a very rough draft form here. I'm looking forward to seeing updates!

[Clint_Smith]

yeah 1024 I had to scroll...which gets on my nerves...just a peeve though. Very artistic. Kinda dark, but I think it is cool

[LadyShutterBug]

the tree and lantern make me think "the nightmare before christmas"... i like it, neat look, if that's what you're going for. very funky-bordering-on-goth-meetswhimsically-dark. or something like that.

i lust after the first image on your site. it reminds me of one of my favorite paintings ever--- Maxfield Parrish's "Ecstasy", of the woman standing on the edge of the cliff in the clouds. just absolutely sublime.