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vwebworld

posts: 1237

Mar 18, 2007 8:13 AM ET Quote Report Abuse

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I`m still at a loss about what the design SHOULD look like, if not these. I guess I`ll keep mulling it over.

Other people may not design the site the same as you. While feedback is good, it is your site.

It is far easier for people to say what they do not like than offer what they do like.

The critical parts of a web design are that it effectively communicates your message, is user friendly, and is relevant to the viewer`s needs. that can be accomplished with a wide variety of website designs.

A "dated" look is not bad just because it is dated... there are many designs that use dated graphics and fonts as part of their design..and ad program.

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

CampSteve

posts: 1216

Mar 18, 2007 11:31 AM ET Quote Report Abuse

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Here`s the thing about "dated" design and this is something I specialize
in. People hire me as an artist for my emphasis on "retro" style. I`ve put a
lot of thought into this.

There is nothing wrong with a company capitalizing on a dated look.
However, most styles from approximately 2 to about 15 years ago are
simply not cool, no matter what date you look at it from. Generally
speaking, it takes a decade or more for styles to come back in style. And
when styles return, they do so in a fresher, contemporary way. Think
bellbottoms.

Now websites are a little more than a decade old as it is. So when I say
the border of the website looks dated, I don`t necessarily mean it looks
like a website from 1997. But it does look like computer graphics from
1997. Since then, computer graphics have evolved and the internet has
caught up in technology to be able to incorporate it. And as I have
mentioned, design theories for websites are to be considered now, not
just "can it be done". One should indeed think of what a border "means".

Back to dated design. Look at the companies that capitalize on "retro" or
"vintage" in their branding and advertising. A lot of apparel companies
do it like Old Navy, American Eagle Outfitters and Fossil. How about
Coke? They keep their image modern but are always drawing upon their
classic look. Automakers are going retro these days (though the auto
industry is very slow moving in terms of design). And check out product
packaging next time you`re out and you won`t be able to escape the Art
Nouveau influence. This century old style is very in right now.

But tell me if you can find a product that is intentionally branding their
look as the late 1990s? You won`t find it. Dated design indeed is not a
bad thing but choose your era carefully. And I didn`t even get into
whether a retro look has anything to do with your company or not. That`s
another question. For "effective websites", I would say not.

CampSteve

posts: 1216

Mar 18, 2007 8:59 PM ET Quote Report Abuse

Points: 0 Vote

I want to add a few more things.

Danae, I realize the design result of your border is unintentional. I`m not
saying at all that you tried to make it look dated. I know you were doing
the best you can with an idea you had and I applaud you for that. I
encourage you to keep pushing yourself as you learn through this
process. :)

And I took a second look at the widths of the gray inner border on your
site. The left side is definitely narrower than the right, on both Safari and
Firefox on my Mac. Trust me, it is not the "lighting" that shades the
border itself. I`m an artist, I see these things clearly.

Okay, so we know my official suggestion would be to nix the whole
border thing. :) But if you must insist on including a border of any kind
in any part of your site, ever, then here is a tip. It is most pleasing to the
eye to have equal border widths all around. That is your first choice.

If you must vary it, then only add a "weighted bottom". This term taken
from picture framing means a heavier bottom border. You would only do
this on the outermost border if you had several (i.e. the gray and blue on
your site). However, a weighted bottom is usually not recommended
without a visual reason. I work frequently with borders in my poster art
and incorporate these concepts regularly.

Example 1, equal border. I do this most of the time.

Example 2, weighted bottom. The reason for this is the incorporation of
text. See how the top text is not in the border? This is because a
weighted top is visually uncomfortable. Also notice, and it`s hard to tell
in this tiny thumbnail, that the narrower inner border is of equal width all
around.

(It`s not letting me add this second image so you`ll have to cut and paste,
if you are so inclined. Furthermore, it won`t let me post without that
space between the P and G at the end of the link. You will have to
manually delete that space to spell .jpg. Hey SuN, what gives?)
http://campsteve.com/posterstudio/Images/Nederland1.thumb.jp g

Well, I just thought I would pass all this along.

- Your friendly, neighborhood border control officer.

nhgnikole

posts: 2660

Mar 20, 2007 2:15 AM ET Quote Report Abuse

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I think SUN was sensing those pics were small enough to make my brain hurt so it was trying to interrupt you.

Danae

posts: 37

Mar 27, 2007 11:38 PM ET Quote Report Abuse

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Steve--again, thank you for your detailed comments. I haven`t made any changes to my site design yet because I have several potential clients wanting me to get design ideas for them, and I`m making them a priority. (Trying to find someone with a more artistic eye to come up with designs, also, but so far not much luck.) Just wanted to let you know I`m not ignoring you.

Roland--thank you for your encouragement.

Nikole--I looked at the Wikipedia article on XHTML, because I haven`t heard much about it from other people, and I found out why I haven`t heard much about it. According to WikiP, it`s not much different from HTML 4.0--just a couple of rules like making all tags lowercase and closing all tags. Also, they said that most browsers aren`t set up to render XHTML in any special way, so they treat it as HTML. AND the people in charge of such things are apparently working on XHTML 2.0, which will be radically different, and will replace the current XHTML. So, I`m thinking, what`s the point of using it? What`s better about that than valid HTML 4? If you have some insight, I`d be interested to hear it.

When you talked about it a few posts back, it sounded like it was some exalted thing, but I don`t see it.

-------------------------

EFFECTIVE WEBSITES
when results matter

www.effective-websites.com

nhgnikole

posts: 2660

Mar 28, 2007 5:09 AM ET Quote Report Abuse

Points: 0 Vote

I`m totally copying and pasting here, but the basic answer is this:
1 ) Standards-based design saves money.
2) You can change and upgrade faster when you use XHTML and CSS.
3) You`re forced to write actual good code, not the slop that HTML 4.0 allows for.

Yes, it`s HTML. It`s between XML and HTML. It`s the best of both worlds. And no, it`s not going to be `radically different` any time soon ... they will both have the same semantics.

So here`s my grand paste:

Why XHTML?

We have reached a point where many pages on the WWW contain "bad" HTML.

The following HTML code will work fine if you view it in a browser, even if it does not follow the HTML rules:

<html>
<head>
<title>This is bad HTML</title>
<body>
<h1>Bad HTML
</body>

XML is a markup language where everything has to be marked up correctly, which results in "well-formed" documents.

XML was designed to describe data and HTML was designed to display data.

Today`s market consists of different browser technologies, some browsers run Internet on computers, and some browsers run Internet on mobile phones and hand helds. The last-mentioned do not have the resources or power to interpret a "bad" markup language.

Therefore - by combining HTML and XML, and their strengths, we got a markup language that is useful now and in the future - XHTML.

XHTML pages can be read by all XML enabled devices AND while waiting for the rest of the world to upgrade to XML supported browsers, XHTML gives you the opportunity to write "well-formed" documents now, that work in all browsers and that are backward browser compatible !!!

Danae

posts: 37

Apr 04, 2007 1:22 PM ET Quote Report Abuse

Points: 0 Vote

Nikole, that`s cool. I don`t mean to be argumentative (maybe I am anyway), but I guess what I specifically want to know is, do you see a great advantage between using validated HTML 4.0 and XHTML. I mean, that little "slop" example you pasted wouldn`t validate in the W3C tool, would it? I see the point of using valid code. I just am not sure that one needs to insist on XHTML.

-------------------------

EFFECTIVE WEBSITES
when results matter

www.effective-websites.com

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