CRITIQUE: www.lonestar-photo.com

[Happyfunball]

All,

First, thanks for all of the great information in Website Talk, it really made this process smoother.

Please give me your thoughts on my new site, which is not a day old yet. It was published at 3:00am...work sure came early today.

http://lonestar-photo.com

Background:
This is my first site since around 1998 and 2001, when I put one or two very simple sites together in notepad, with a few finishing touches in FP. I had rudementary knowledge of HTML, but when I started reading up on site design this time I kept running across something called CSS...wow, I am a fan now :) Total time invested, about 60 hours, including much study time on sites in the "Tools" Section

Tools used to build this site:
- FP2003 for ease of formatting once all style sheets and base index layouts were done in notepad (old habits die hard)
- Simpleviewer (Manual Mode) for galleries
- AllWebMenus Pro - Java menu design - GREAT program at a reasonable cost ($39 on "sale"), can't rave enough about this one.
- Book: Stylin' with CSS - Wyke-Smith
- Site: http://www.html.net/tutorials/css/introduction.asp
- Site: http://www.w3.org

Known issues/future features: (any help appreciated)
- Firefox 1.0.7 does not center menu bar, but centers on left border.
- "Back" or "Close" buttons on galleries...will add this as time allows to improve user experience.
- Client Login is in "Duct Tape Beta" until I can figure out how to do this more seamlessly.

[agillette]

Well, it's looking good. Needs a bit more of lonestar-photo touch to it, but i would say your getting there.

I did notice when i clicked on some of the links they would not come up. So you may want to double check your links.

Other than that, it's looking good. Can't wait to see the final product.

Regards,

AG

[sharpfocus]

Nice website, too many links don't work though. ...Bob

[janetg]

hi there...

i would definitely change the blue link text - it's really hard to read against dark backgrounds.

I think overall you have a nice site going there, although i would change the font to something other than times roman - i find it hard to read, and personally i think it leaves a cheap impression. something like verdana, or arial, tahoma looks nicer.

i would like to know if there are many people here that use pbase for their client's photos?

[Happyfunball]

Thanks all, the links should not be broken...I went through an checked them again. This may be a result of hosting on my free SBC account, which can flake out. I am planning on moving it over to a hosted site in the near future.

On the fonts, I spent a good amount of time learning about which are installed on browsers and OS's, which can prove very limiting, and excluded severa good ones, including Tahoma, which I liked. I wish Copperplate was everywhere :) I landed on Times for two reasons. One, it is a blockier font, closer to Copperplate, and the second is that with the upcoming Windows Vista launch the default for all applications and new Office 2007 will be Ariel...but for now Times does look commonplace.

When I get home I will try to post a few links to commonality in fonts across browsers.

[adirty1]

did you do your LLC or did you get a lawyer to set it up

[Happyfunball]

adirty1,

I went with a lawyer out of Round Rock who provides a very good LLC package for around $1000.

[Happyfunball]

It also appears that the IE6 pop up blocker is blocking my galleries unfortunately. I might either need to put them in the frame, or find a way around the pop up blockers...

[Happyfunball]

Here is the font survey mentioned above for those who are interested:

http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/index.shtml

[LadyShutterBug]

the white-on-dark-blue kills my eyes. and survey or no survey, the times new roman makes the page look very dated and "homemade", if that makes sense.

:) i'd like to see a gorgeous image on the first page, too. i felt like i was waiting for somethign else to load.

i love the banner across the top and the galleries, though.

[Daniel Bates]

I second Kasey's suggestions. Try a sans-serif font, and put an image (or slideshow maybe) on the front page, so visitors can see exactly what style of photography you do.

[Happyfunball]

Thanks for the ideas! After living with it a while, I can certainly see that a nice splash image would work well for the front page. I will add that in.

On the fonts, I'll have to see what works with the site. May I ask why you suggest sans-serif? I'm still very much a beginner when it comes to fonts in general....

[Happyfunball]

Made a few changes based on feedback here:

- Font to Tahoma
- Front page images
- A bit more "Texas" feel
- Link colors that work better with theme
- Moved over to a real server!

Thanks for the help y'all!

[janetg]

looks better, the only thing more i would do, would be to lighten up the blue body of the main site - to better match the hue of the top gradient - and i mean, just a bit lightened, not much...

[Happyfunball]

Thanks Janet, I made that little tweak too. It pretty much appeared black on most of the noncalibrated monitors I saw. This should help. Thanks again all!