website review

[bcmedia]

lol, I'm sorry but you cannot and should not delude yourself by drawing comparisons between a multinational like MSN & your website...You'll be getting delusions of grandeur

The font thing is not a hard and fast rule, and in your case, looks very chaotic.

You need to work on making things look aesthetically pleasing because at present the current site does not show any sense of style or appeal. That's part of your role as a designer, making things look good. I haven't bothered looking at your code, as coding is not my forte, even though I do dabble in it.

If fisicx is saying your coding is bad then I would be thinking I should go back to the drawing board since neither the code nor the graphics work.

[rafhelp]

yim not comparing my site to theirs. Its just that if there are 'rules' or general guidelines to follow when site designing then they would be used by everyone big and small.

for example when driving in your town it wouldnt matter if you drove a ferrari or ford fiesta the rule (limit) of maximum 30MPH applies to both


anyway il see if i cn improve the graphics, i know the code looks messy but it doesnt really matter as the visitors wont be looking at my code. as long as it works i am ok with it.

[bcmedia]

Its just that if there are 'rules' or general guidelines to follow when site designing then they would be used by everyone big and small.

From briefly looking at MSN's site I've noted that they use a variety of styles of the same font, which is completely different to what you have done, which is mix and match. Yes the logos on display may not be the same font consistently, but that's so they have to show the different brands as they are meant to appear. Making a font bold, italic or a different colour is not the same as using a different font.

More importantly, you should be considering why your site is lacking aesthetic appeal instead of looking for other sites to justify why you've done something badly.

[rafhelp]

ok so going on this color themes aspect, i redid the color scheme on one page

what do you think?
http://www.rafnet.co.uk/costs2yellow

-ignore the home button the new image hasnt been uploaded yet

[fisicx]

I can see where the confusion over the dropdowns occured, in your OP you had the old and new mixed up.

However the new site has many of the same issues the old one did:

1. You are still using frames
2. You are using JS navigation.
3. You are using structural tables
4. There is no consistency to your styles
5. You use buttons instead of text links.
6. Scrolling text (marquee).

And the coding is even worse than the old site.

Just because there is a tutorial on using photoshop for the layout doesn't mean it's a good technique. I can show you a whole bunch of articles that demonstrate why this technique is not very effective and usually produces inaccessible websites. THe reccomended method of coding a site is to build a logical structure and then use CSS to configure the layout.

[bcmedia]

Hmmmm, dark yellow is a dodgy colour to use - it has conotations of illness (and wee)!

[tkessex]

That is, without doubt, the most ridiculous thing I have ever read on this forum - and that's saying something.

The fact that the new design looks terrible (it's not remotely colour-specific) aside, should red not be used because it looks like blood, green because it's linked with sea-sickness, or blue because it brings about images of suffocation or hypothermia?

How you survive on nonsense like that is beyond me, bcmedia.

[bcmedia]

Originally Posted by tkessex

That is, without doubt, the most ridiculous thing I have ever read on this forum - and that's saying something.

The fact that the new design looks terrible (it's not remotely colour-specific) aside, should red not be used because it looks like blood, green because it's linked with sea-sickness, or blue because it brings about images of suffocation or hypothermia?

When I looked at the yellow my first thought was thats the same colour as my wee after a night out on the booze.

With regards to colour pyschology, the ideas you cite are pretty ridiculous, its fairly well accepted that blue & green are safe calming colours, red is danger (why else are road signs red). Yellow can also be reflective of danger, hence wasps being bright yellow.

Now thats not to say these colours cannot be used to show other emotions or convey a different presence.

Regardless of what you think, the first thing I thought when I seen the shade of yellow used (or more specifically the hues of yellow) was of illness/puss, which really isn't a good thought to be putting in anyones head. I was admiring a bright yellow porsche yesterday, can't say that put any negative thoughts in my head so it nots the use of colour, just the wrong application of it in this instance!

Just because you don't see it doesn't make it wrong. And if your in any doubt of colour pyschology, go paint your living room black and sit in it for an hour to see how much of a negative effect it has on you!

And its worth pointing out the bad design is partially colour related as the two areas (design & colour) are interlinked.

How you survive on nonsense like that is beyond me, bcmedia.

I don't survive on reviewing websites - I was just giving my opinion.

[bcmedia]

Heres some examples of yellow being used well...note the palletes used & the general upbeat feel created by the use of the various combinations. If anything, if your not good with colour, try emulating some sites that do work and borrow their pallettes. After a while you'll start to appreciate what colours compliment each other and which ones do not.

tutorialblog.org/30-yellow-websites