www.sweetmemoriesphotography.net

[CybrStudd]

Here's the site I made for my fiance that's been up for a while now, but I'd like input, but positive and negative. I want to try to make it the best I can, but I can't test it on every browser and screen resolution. I know it works in Opera, Firefox, and IE.

Let me know what you think!

http://www.sweetmemoriesphotography.net

[epoh]

My first thought was that the image at the top was a mistake.. because it's just plain white, no border or anything and everything else is black. Try adding some type of visual border to it so it blends in with the rest of the page.

[Torrey]

I'm not a web-designer and only a low-level photographer, so think of my opinion as that of more of a client viewpoint. I agree with Amy above that a border would help. The fact that the white section butts to the top of the screen bothers me a little...I would at least pull that down a little. The picture of you and your fiance together is somewhat representative of your ability...you both have kind-of a "deer in the headlights" look, like the situation is very unnatural, and set against a plain solid background. I'm not sure if others in the industry do it, but I probably wouldn't mention my equipment either. Quite a few amateurs have Rebels and Photoshop, and I would worry that they might start thinking of just saving the cash, handing the camera off to cousin Larry, then cropping and adjusting themselves in photoshop. Oh, and it may still be a work in progress, but it seems like your "home" button is broken.

[CybrStudd]

I just fixed the Home button, I switched from regular htm to shtml to do some server side includes, and missed changing that link (I think I checked every one except that one). The picture of her and I we didn't take, it's actually another studio we went to before we got into photography that took that picture, but maybe we need to just do our own to have a better example or just remove it and put a slideshow of different images.

As for the top image, I mainly just tried offsetting the rose image to the left and filling the rest white just to have a place for the title, but I'll have to look into doing some sort of border around it. Any suggestions as to what type of border? Should I make the entire top area a large graphic instead of a small graphic of a rose?

Thanks everyone!

[TxLerman]

My suggestions for improvement are from a customer perspective. (1) Weddings are to white as funerals are to black. So, stick with the white background or something softer and discontinue the use of black. Black does not say Weddings, Family Events, etc. (2) I would replace the picture of the 2 of you with a really nice portrait where the 2 of you are dressed up. Make it look like it came from a Wedding, Senior Portraits, etc. The casual clothes and light blue background do not suggest high quality photography and professionalism even if the picture is technically perfect. Take a shot of your fiance in a nice dress (wedding dress?) in a park. Or take an engagement picture of the 2 of you on at beach at sunset or in a park. There are plenty of examples on TPF to give you some great ideas. (3) Replace "Photoshop Modifed" with something more catchy like "Digital Art". Everyone knows you used Photoshop, but what you are selling is a type of artistry. (4) Your contact us is an email hyperlink. I would change that to a page that also gives a person a phone number and an email address. They actually might want to talk to you then and there and that could be the difference between getting the job and not getting the job. (6) I would put some sort of border around your sample pictures to make them look more like how they will look in people's homes, etc. Some simple borders can add alot of pizzazz (spelling?) to your samples.

I'm done babbling. Hope this helps.

[Laura Minks]

My husband and I have a web design business, so hopefully I can be of service. I agree with the poster who said stick with white, or a light background, and others have made great suggestions. If you're doing weddings, you'll want a softer appearance, and I would suggest changing the font in your banner and having your content text be a bit smaller. I would also consider having a picture of a bride, or something of that nature on your home page, as that will be the first impression of your web site.

Also, (and this could be just a firefox issue) when viewing the verticle sample images, the option to close it does not display, and it does not allow you to scroll down. So, you have to hit the back button and go back into samples.

[CybrStudd]

Laura,

The close button is probably a resolution issue...I have a very high resolution monitor, and I haven't really tested it out on lower resolutions. What resolution were you running, so I can give it a shot. I may just have to resize the full size images to get them a little smaller to fix it.

Just for some quick stats,

71% of visitors this month use IE, 19% use FF, and the rest are others like Safari, Netscape, etc.
94% have screen resolution of 1024x768 or larger the other 6% are 800x600


Thanks,

[Laura Minks]

I'm at 1280x800 and use FF.

[CybrStudd]

Ok, we decided we like the black instead of white (black just seems classier or cleaner to me). So I got rid of the white header with the rose and instead went with something simple and clean. Also adjusted some colors, put up a basic collage for now on the homepage with an image map to link to their respective samples (will do a better job later), and have a seperate contact page and about us page (which will be changed more later).

Let me know what you think now.

Thanks again!

[epoh]

Looks better. I'd get rid of that blue border. Inside the image tag, put border="0".

[Clayton Wallace]

Ok, here are a few of my thoughts:

1. The color scheme leaves much to be desired. It seems more like you are afraid of color. http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html

You can be classy and clean without being black. I like black too, but not for families and weddings (usually). Color conveys emotion, and you are using it ineffectively right now. By the way, you have a blue box around the photos on the homepage.

2. Many of the photos need to be culled out. Direct flash and so-so composition/exposure aren't what you want to show. There are some nice images in there, but they are being dragged down by the mediocre ones.

3. The gallery display (ajax) is incredibly annoying. I looked at that too when I was rebuilding my site, but nixed it as the navigation actually moves each time you click on an image. Great idea idea in theory, but annoying...like when people use flash just to use flash. Also, the bottoms of all your vertical photos are cut off on 1024x768.

4. In general you need to align everything. Read the "Non-Designers Design Book" by Robin Williams. It will do wonders to your layout.

5. I'm not sure what your girlfriend does, exactly. There are only prices and info for weddings, but there are all sorts of unrelated samples. The site lacks focus. I get the feeling she told you to stick all those catagories on there because she has a few nice photos in those catagories. I might be reaching here, but it seems she might be trying to compensate for the lack of quality in portraits/weddings by adding some pretty flowers/abstract etx.

6. You need a great deal more search engine-friendly content (good text).

Sorry if this comes off harsh. I'm trying to help.

There are so many people posting critique requests that seem to not bother to read previous posts or do their homework to learn some basic design. This may be the last one of these I do.

Clayton

[ndsimm]

Originally Posted by Clayton Wallace

Sorry if this comes off harsh. I'm trying to help.

There are so many people posting critique requests that seem to not bother to read previous posts or do their homework to learn some basic design. This may be the last one of these I do.

Clayton

I think each person (myself included) that posts here for critique may indeed look at other sites, threads, etc...
But each of us sees things differently and we design our sites according to how we imagine it and then ask for critique so we can get that 2nd set of eyes to see what we may miss. While some of us (again - me) do not have the high level of design skills that others have, we do want to improve and therefore, we may make some mistakes that may stand out to the more experienced designer but we won't notice until it is pointed out.
As my business grows, my plan is to get a professional site designed but until then, I have to make do with my own skill set and glean from the experience of others like you.
so my hope is that we continue to let "iron sharpen iron" and help each other improve.
It can indeed get frustrating helping those that know less than we do about something but we all need to remember that we were in the same position at one time....

[Clayton Wallace]

so we can get that 2nd set of eyes to see what we may miss

That is exactly why I've been doing it, to offer that second set. Many others have offered the same. My point was that there are good suggestions (some almost necessary) given at times that seem to be ignored. While there are those looking for feedback and do make changes, there seem to be others looking for affirmation instead of critique.

but until then, I have to make do with my own skill set and glean from the experience of others like you.

Not a problem. No one is expecting professional-level webdesign from photographers. The biggest mistake people make is trying to design behond their means. Keep it simple.

I always try to provide a resource to accomplish the suggestion.

I didn't mean to sound harsh. I just said my actual opinion this time without the nice padding.

[CybrStudd]

Clayton,

As a note to #3, the navigation of the web browser doesn't change with each image, it still stays on the samples page...and if you hit back or forward. Depending on how long ago you looked at doing it, there has been changes to it (this is actually LiteBox not LightBox, but with the newest versions of both, the navigation doesn't change - maybe older ones did). I'm also against using flash because not everyone has it installed to begin with, but very few people have javascript disabled. Plus flash takes longer to download for users that don't have high speed internet. I want the site to be accessible by as many people as possible without having to download flash or anything else if they don't already have it installed. I do need to shrink down our images, I just didn't realize they'd get cut off on 1024x768 because I run all my monitors at either 1280x1024 or 1680x1050.

For #5, there are also prices on the page for portraits, events, prints, and a la carte just by clicking on the sub headings - just like there is for the samples. It's not a lack of quality, but a lack of quantity. We haven't had a lot of business and are trying to really get the business growing now.

We are planning a new color scheme to match the business cards we are having made, but it's still not a light color scheme....it's more of brown shades.

Nathan, I agree with what you said. I checked other photographers sites and saw what they did, and liked the ones with the black/darker color schemes (I think it makes the colors in the photos stand out better personally).

I am a computer programmer, but not a web designer. I've done basic web site design, but I write software for a living - not HTML. So I brushed up on my skills and designed the site the way we thought it looked the best after looking at other sites and getting ideas for ours. I don't believe any website is beyond my means (I just need to research the code and write it), but I want to make something simple and fast to load instead of having flash animations on every page.

I've made some changes already, and like I said we are going to be making more based on suggestions and to coordinate with her business cards so that they have a common scheme.

One thing about putting a lot of text on the website I feel it over crowds the site and most people are going to want to see your work, not some sales pitch. I doubt many people get work from google searches (I may be wrong), because to really get business you have to go to the customer, not wait for them to find you. That's why we are going to start attending bridal shows, we've been to trade shows for portrait work (and gotten work from that), we have an advertisement in one wedding magazine so far, and on several wedding sites. We get most of our work from referrals also, so if someone says we got our photos done with Sweet Memories Photography, and they do a search, in google we're #2 behind one in Maryland so I'm not too worried about our google ranking.

Sorry for rambling,

[Clayton Wallace]

As a note to #3, the navigation of the web browser doesn't change with each image, it still stays on the samples page...and if you hit back or forward. Depending on how long ago you looked at doing it, there has been changes to it (this is actually LiteBox not LightBox, but with the newest versions of both, the navigation doesn't change - maybe older ones did).

My point wasn't that your page navigation changes, but rather the location of the 'next' and 'previous' changes when trying to view enlarged photo samples. Moving navigation (which is what it is) discourages people from staying in your samples area. Plus, the resizing of images is unnecessary movement, another discouragement for long-term and repeat visits. A major downside of the vertical images being cropped off is the only form of instruction (limited as it is) for the viewer is lost as well.

For #5, there are also prices on the page for portraits, events, prints, and a la carte just by clicking on the sub headings -

I missed that until you pointed it out. The point I would still make is...why are 'abstract', 'animals', and 'building' photos on the site? Those photos don't seem to be for sale and it confuses the viewer (who is likely coming for a wedding or portrait photographer).

The blue box being gone now improves the home page.

I doubt many people get work from google searches (I may be wrong)

I do, because I care about certain keywords. So what if I'm number one for "clayton wallace photography". How many people can't find me if they know my name? I care about being found for other keywords (sugar land, photography, weddings, portraits etc....)

We are planning a new color scheme

Let me know if I can help. There are many online resources for developing good color schemes as well.

because I run all my monitors at either 1280x1024 or 1680x1050

As a rule, I always design my sites in the resolutions that the majority of my viewers use. It doesn't make much difference what I see, just what they see. If neither of your monitors will go down to 1024x768, I suggest finding a way to mark off that approximate size on your monitor (maybe a piece of string ). It can be a huge waste of time having to redesign (I know!).

I'm also against using flash

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not against Flash. I chose it over JS and several other options for my current site. 99+% of my visitors have Flash and nearly all my traffic (94+%) have dsl or faster. I'm against cool technologies being used in the wrong way. For example, psd files are great, but not for the web (even if someone came up with a browser plugin that made them show up at all).

I'm not too worried about our google ranking.

That is fine, but your competition is.