New website, feeling a bit down

[evansvisualarts]

Gawd, I seem to be working on my web site forever but I do want the critism because I do listen and I do go and make the changes.

At the moment the reviews are coming in spilt (from other design forums too), people either love it or seem to rip it to bits, the latta is always a bit of a downer but I suppose useful.

I am going to make more changes, the main one being that when you click on the two index characters they give more information in plain text about what we offer.

The main criticism is the notepad on the index page (which I continue to alter the most) and the intro to the portfolio page.

I myself like the index pad, my idea was to make it a bit messy looking like a note pad but is it really that dire? Like I say its like marmite, some like it, some hate it.

Ive gotta alter the portfolio intro so the Wabbit doesnt appear click able and perhaps make some of the images on the television links to sub catergories.

This site is bascially going to be used as a portfolio page for when I contact potential cilents and say, hi this is what we offer. Will it make them think, yeah they are bright and colourful and can animate (we mainly make cartoon digital animations for multimedia designers) or 'gawd, this is *@%!"

For those who don't know the site is at www.evansvisualarts.com

Any help appreciated

Best regards

Scott

[b'ini]

I think the note pad is a great idea but I think it competes with great colors and characters you have on the right.

I found it busy. I wanted to interact with the characters but felt I had to read through the stuff on the left. Same thing when I clicked on a link and had the same left/right experiece.

What I'd like (and you could take it or leave it, obviously) is to see one unified page with the colors and character and simply put your navigation some place on the page, whether it's interactive with the characters or on not.

Elements on both sides are good, very good. I'm just not sure they work together.

[phacker]

Don't get discouraged, but yeah the navigation is a mess. Why not let your characters just get on with being charaters and do something fun, and put a regular nav bar up at the top. I don't mind the notepad thing, but I really couldn't get it to do anything as far as navigation. Make it functional and it could work.So your characters on the right just give some information on rollover? You need to rethink them and probably not give them that much focus. The file is too large for what they actually provide.

I guess it does work, sort of. Your portfolio page isn't going to sell much the way it is it needs have more of a focus.
Here's what your portfolio page looks like on Internet Explorer 6. Your thumbs go way outside your notepad nav space and your portfolio as far as I can see doesn't pause so people can get a better look at a specific piece.

http://www.tco.net/~phacker/AWN/portfolio.jpg
Your webart page is much better, but that's not a good title for it. You'll get more traffic and business if you title it something like character and mascot design. Webart doesn't cut it. It makes most people think you design websites. There's a market for mascots and characters, I know they've been my bread and butter for a couple of years now, but the search engines and buyers have to know how to find you.

Hope I haven't been too harsh. You have some skills, you just need a little marketing help.

Here's something for you to think about. Just to illustrate a more uniform concept that maybe you could make work. You could color the 3 buttons on the right.

http://www.tco.net/~phacker/AWN/evans.jpg

Pat

[phacker]

Hey Evan, wish you luck. Remember to stay with your vision, and not try to clone your site after all the others. I personally thought your notepad thing added some individuality to your site. But I don't want to get into a spitting match with Harvey over in the Cafe. He seems to be trying to prove himself right now.

I would recommend that you guys have a little fun with your nav bar. Why just go square and use a common font. Make sure whatever font you use it's easy to read, but have a little fun up at the top that's going to go acrossed all your pages.

Remember most important it's your page.

[bluehickey]

I agree that it doesn't have a flow or direction and that when I get to the main page it's too many visuals without concrete information. I love what phacker has done with his mock up and think that that is a good direction to go.

Don't give up, you'll get there eventually. I'm on my 4th version of my site, and each time the focus is to make it more and more user friendly and quick to navigate. Previous versions of my site had lots of little animated bits that I thought were cool, but utlimately detracted and made people leave the site pretty quick.

[thegreatredhope]

My friend's website recently ran into a very similar situation: Great format and very original, but too crowded and overwhelming to a first-time viewer. You have to look at it from the POV of someone whos never visited before; step out of the micromanagement mindset for a bit.

It can be a big pain, I know. But there's something to be said for simplicity. The simpler, the better.

Here's a good example of ultimate simplicity (and please take this only for website layout advice, the content of the site is irrelevant): www.ready.gov

Look how simple that is.