Thread: art site - ready or not??

Wonder if anyone would care to have a quick look at my attempt at a web site for my art. richardsmart.com Anny advice re loading time, too many images etc would be welcome.

Thanks

Hello Richart,
I have big problems reading on your site it turned me off quickly (the colors ) and perhaps an end of page for your index would also do well, (centerd) there is some overlaping in your navbars
The rest looks nice

Ditto on the colours. Black is a bit of a downer for this type of site.

FABULOUS!!!! As a fellow artist (though not NEARLY on your level) I think your site does a fantastic job of showcasing your art! It is so difficult to do this on a website because one has to use such tiny thumbnails so the pages load faster! But I think your sizing is great! Your pages did load slowly (i'm on dial up) but there was enough that popped up early that I stayed for the whole show! But if there is any way to speed it up, I think that is very important.

Now, regarding the black....i can see why you chose that color as it really makes your art pop. And the green is a fantastic compliment to all of it. BUT it IS a little hard to read in your text. If you don't want to change the colors, perhaps you could make the text a little larger??? Hmmm..I do not know the answer because I think you were going for a "mood" and changing the colors may be tricky. I really think it is stunning though.

Did you use the picture gallery tool thing in BV for your pages? And did you use an iframe? Was it difficult? The iframe thing has me nervous!! I have to have some similar pages and haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still designing the navbar/buttons! Good job!

Anyway, great job you have done!

No problem with color selection, black can be elegant and ditto IslandCrazy's comment you have used it to match your artwork. The green could use some improvement - no way anyone would be able to read it on a laptop outdoors in bright sunlight.

The NavBar mouseover needs some work, notice the BV logo. Same goes for titles "Home" doesn't cut it with search engines and less on every page.

Your e-mail links seems to work, consider changing from <mailto:rs@richardsmart.com> to rs@richardsamrt.com highlight the text and click on hyperlink in the menu bar, change link to mailto and then add yr e-mail.

Home and Contact Us pages are not centered.

Good luck

great art - i like the black - really makes everything stand out - however....i agree with the green text - it looks good but these old eyes cant read it very well after first few words- maybe just making it bold will help and/or a little larger. good advice about titles for pages - ann
www.movingon1.com

Thanks all of the above! How nice to wake up to so much information and a good cross section too! Definately looks like I will have to work on the text. I have created it on a laptop with 1920 x 1200 screeen resolution which is very small so though it would be more visible on larger resolution bu perhaps its less *****?
Islandlady I did use the picture gallery. tried to keep things simple and spent lots of time fiddleing with the size of image files. I used pixresizer to get the images to around 20 or 30kb for the gallerys.
Regarding the navbar, is there a way to make it a bit wider so the text does not overlap? And what should be done to make 'Home' work for search engines. Can the BV logo be removed somehow?
Thanks everyone.

hi again - about the nav bar - you can make your text smaller but not the bar wider as for the bv logo go to properties>style and check out the buttons on the right - mouse over chose something from there and it will take care of it. have fun asirimarco
www.movingon1.com

Originally Posted by richart

Thanks all of the above! How nice to wake up to so much information and a good cross section too! Definately looks like I will have to work on the text. I have created it on a laptop with 1920 x 1200 screeen resolution which is very small so though it would be more visible on larger resolution bu perhaps its less *****?
Islandlady I did use the picture gallery. tried to keep things simple and spent lots of time fiddleing with the size of image files. I used pixresizer to get the images to around 20 or 30kb for the gallerys.
Regarding the navbar, is there a way to make it a bit wider so the text does not overlap? And what should be done to make 'Home' work for search engines. Can the BV logo be removed somehow?
Thanks everyone.

-The easy part first. Right click on your Navbar, select Style, let the image load, you will see yours and the mouseover, change this to the one you like.
-Yes you can modify (make your own) the Navbar, read this post. http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/gen...=custom+navbar
-For your titles. Use Your Domain; Home or Your Domain; Contact Us, etc.

I liked your art alot! I would maybe lighten the colors up a bit and increase your font size. It's a little hard to read.

I very much like your masonry items.

Good luck!

ThePurpleButterfly

reloaded! I have rejigged things a bit again. the text is one point larger and bold. the green is brighter. Is this any better to read? Earlier I had the chance to view the site on another 'ancient' monitor and expierenced how weak the text was. I am suprised at how much difference ther seems to be from one screen to the next. I suppose one has to cater for the lowest common denominator.
Cheers

So much better, big improvement.
You corrected the e-mail links, don't forget this one: <http://www.hundertwasser.com> page About Artist

Thanks. Reloaded that. Appreciate all those eyes out there!
Question re updating pages or adding/changing images. Is the best/correct method to edit the page locally and reload the whole thing?

rich

much easier to read - maybe sometime when you are looking for something to do (lol )you might want to customize the text color more towards a yellow green to match your buttons. From "architectural" is there a way back to the original site? beside back button -

Not yet. I have designed another site for the architectural link but must wait for the DN to be transferred to BV so I can load it. The colour of the text is too 'lolipop' for me at the moment but at least it seems it can be read. I agree with you r advice on the colour. It's a hassle that custom colours dont seem to remain available once you have closed down BV.
Cheers