Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi everyone, I would like to first thank everyone in offering a critique of my site.

Essentially, from seeing the page you`ll gather that I am a freelance designer, doing graphic and apparel design for the most part. This is an essential marketing tool that I send to my clients and although I`m not confined to any one industry, I prefer to keep things open as I enjoy working with clients from all sorts of industries.

The purpose is to inform targeted and perhaps would-be clients of my services and a display of my experience and a portfolio of my work. I`ve refined the site numerous times, and my goal is to provide as much information to my visitors as quickly as possible.

From this post I hope to get some feedback on perhaps my writing technique (to inform and retain interest), and overall usability of the website. There isn`t a whole lot of writing to begin with, but I still feel that it would be necessary for myself to receive a critique from the people whom I would be possibly working for.

Enough writing now, below is the link, and I hope to hear from you all soon.

Thank you.

Sincerely,


Jonathan L.

Li Design Studio

The main page, to me, is pretty bland. The colors, the small text, the image ..... nothing jumps out and says anything exciting or does anything to keep my attention. To be blunt .... it`s boring for someone doing visual design. You should have no problem creating something colorful and interesting to grab attention; isn`t that what you advertise that you do?

Under "Packaging", same thing. A picture and some brief small text. There`s nothing to tell me to click the images to see more of them ( which I accidentally figured out; don`t depend on accidents to help people along ). Personally, I`d want to see more of them when I first get here, not "accidentally" discover there are more. At the very least, let us know to click the image for more pictures.

Same thing with "Identity", and the other pages. There`s no information or encouragement for a user to do anything, or learn anything about you, or create excitement or interest. You`re really just giving the feeling of "OK, here`s some stuff".

Even if you don`t have a large customer base to show off your past work, put together some sample stuff, things you are capable of doing. Show off your creativity and what is possible and convince me that you have vision to fulfill my needs. Even though I can see what you have done for others, what`s more important, as a potential customer, is what you can do for me.

Walk me through the process, how you work, how you work with me, and more importantly, why you are the designer I should choose to work with.





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

M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

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

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

OK, there is a note to click images .... didn`t see it before.


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

M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

Hi guys,

Thanks for the feedback so far, it`s very much appreciated! I will make note of the suggestions so far and start figuring out some other solutions. As for the image not being explicitly clickable, that has been something I`ve been struggling with, and as of yet I`ve not figured out a definitive non-destructive method to visually indicate that it is a clickable area.

I hope to hear from more people if it`s possible! Am I doing anything right? Or should I just go back to the drawing board?

Thanks again.

The positives are that you are keeping things simple; consistent easy to follow navigation, the pages aren`t so "busy" that they are overwhelming the viewer with imagery and information, and pages load rather quickly.

It`s a balancing act you need to do between too little and too much, bland and over the top, simple and complex. etc.

Look at your portfolio; bring that creativity, that use of color, that "This is what I can do" attitude into your own site.



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

M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

Hi Jonathan,
What bothered me in your site is:

A, your front page. You`re so gifted in designs (from what I`ve seen in your other pages) you should come up with something interesting and eye-catching for your main picture, or your logo.

B, in any of the other pages, while you give excellent examples, you should (in my opinion) give it a proper heading.
For instance, in the identity page, think about placing an imagine that will be self explanatory but not an example. This will give the page a much more professional look. I do like what you did with the lifestyle first picture, that is a perfect example.

It looks like you do some very awesome work, you`re indeed very gifted. Keep it up

Jmes 



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

My LookupPage

Hi there. I looked at the site and agree with others above that it`s too sparse.

One thing you could do is instead of having "click here to scroll..." in text, why not just have visual buttons?

A more important aspect is to tell "the story" behind each of your examples.

Finally, you should enter the viewer into your site by making the main image on the home page a clickable link....to something. You choose, but at least get them into the rest of your tabs through a click on that image.

Overall, there`s not much color. Some might argue that it`s the minimalist approach, but I believe there`s too much white and too much space to qualify for an artistic approach to the use of empty space. It comes across as just...."I dunno what to do with all this extra space so I`m leaving it there."

So for example, I clicked your "Identity" tab. I get a logo for Ontario Science Centre. Then I see a generic "Corporate Identity/Branding." Below that I see a list of names. That`s it. Nothing to even explain what I`m looking at.

You could have something along the lines of:

It`s not a lot of text, but it at least explains why I`m looking at a logo.

wow, I really do appreciate these comments so far! I must admit, when it comes to web design, I don`t know what happens? I think I get so caught up in the back end of things I`d rather just keep things nice and simple overall so as to not detract from the work I`m trying to present.

I wouldn`t argue either that the site itself is on the simple side, and possibly bare. I will have to try and incorporate the styles that I`ve pulled together in my work towards the website itself, but as you can see I`m finding it difficult to find that balance.

With respect to an explanation of the work, I will definitely take your advice CraigL and add a little romance copy to the gallery and inform the user of what is being presented.

Thank you.

With such great responses and enthusiasm in helping this poor soul (such as I), I quickly recouped and revamped the site overnight.

If you could revisit it and just quickly dip in and out of it, while leaving a note to provide some feedback I would very much appreciate it!

LI Design Studio

Thank you!