First off, I love CSS-Tricks! Thanks Chris! Hope your move to Chicago works out (I'm out in Aurora, btw). Anyway, I've kinda settled on a redesign for my website: http://www.racinewebworks.com/ee_static I know, it looks a little bland and predictable, but I make no pretense of being a designer. My question is, does it work? Does it get the point across? Or ... does it totally suck? I welcome all constructive feedback. Thnx.
I think the line-height on the picture on the home page could be a little tighter, but overall I don't think there's much I can complain about the site.
How are you finding Expression Engine? I tried to get into it once but couldn't quite wrap my head around some of the naming schemes that they were using. It's tough when you learn one CMS and then try another who does things completely differently.
Thnx guys! I really appreciate professionals weighing in, it means I'm not out in left field.
I must say that it takes patience to learn ExpressionEngine - I've got a local version of my website redesign working at about 95% in EE so far, and I've only been able to mess with it here and there, nights and weekends, etc. Yes, the terminology is wonky, but it just takes time to wrap your mind around templates, weblogs, and EE tags. If you're serious about learning EE, I highly recommend Ryan Irelan's screencasts http://www.pragprog.com/screencasts/v-riexp/building-a-dynamic-website-with-expressionengine.
Your site looks pretty good. Minimalistic sites have their own beauty :) It communicates the message properly and looks very professional too. Though here are some of the points which I thought I could mention:
[list] 1.You can increase the height of the search bar cause its hiding the magnifying glass icon. Condition, if it is one. All I can see is just a circle.
2.The text in the Grey box could have even spacing both at the bottom and at the top? At the moment the text is closer to the base and has a good enough space after the top edge.
3.You could really improve your footer a bit more. [/list:u]
All in all good work with less time spent on designing the site. When I started to redesign my site, I spent more hours in designing it than enjoy coding it :(
<-- Hey Guys, This post got posted two times for some reason :| Please delete this one :) -->
Your site looks pretty good. Minimalistic sites have their own beauty :) It communicates the message properly and looks very professional too. Though here are some of the points which I thought I could mention:
[list] 1.You can increase the height of the search bar cause its hiding the magnifying glass icon. Condition, if it is one. All I can see is just a circle.
2.The text in the Grey box could have even spacing both at the bottom and at the top? At the moment the text is closer to the base and has a good enough space after the top edge.
3.You could really improve your footer a bit more. [/list:u]
All in all good work with less time spent on designing the site. When I started to redesign my site, I spent more hours in designing it than enjoy coding it :(
Yeah, that's because of the background image icons for those headers. I didn't know if it was worth it to tweak everywhere or just stick with the default CSS framework. I'll add that to the footer and header colors for later improvement. Sharp eye - thnx!
First off, I love CSS-Tricks! Thanks Chris! Hope your move to Chicago works out (I'm out in Aurora, btw). Anyway, I've kinda settled on a redesign for my website: http://www.racinewebworks.com/ee_static I know, it looks a little bland and predictable, but I make no pretense of being a designer. My question is, does it work? Does it get the point across? Or ... does it totally suck? I welcome all constructive feedback. Thnx.
it actually works pretty well for me.
I would suggest to make out your section titles (eg.my services,featured work) from the sub-section (eg.Design) maybe by choosing some grey colors for the latest.
Also maybe I would align "latest blog entries" with "my services" and choose a similar grey color for the article entries. I would make the "read more" link closer to the entry introduction to have something more compact
Finally I would add like 5px of padding-top for the footer, especially for the "© 2009 jesse racine"
But that's an interesting layout and the points above are my personal opinion. Overall, nice clean job :)
I like it tbh, you say what you are about and deliver that. I think the only thing I really dislike is the colour of the footer. Simple - I like it :)
How are you finding Expression Engine? I tried to get into it once but couldn't quite wrap my head around some of the naming schemes that they were using. It's tough when you learn one CMS and then try another who does things completely differently.
I must say that it takes patience to learn ExpressionEngine - I've got a local version of my website redesign working at about 95% in EE so far, and I've only been able to mess with it here and there, nights and weekends, etc. Yes, the terminology is wonky, but it just takes time to wrap your mind around templates, weblogs, and EE tags. If you're serious about learning EE, I highly recommend Ryan Irelan's screencasts http://www.pragprog.com/screencasts/v-riexp/building-a-dynamic-website-with-expressionengine.
Again, thnx for the feedback. Cheers!
[list]
1.You can increase the height of the search bar cause its hiding the magnifying glass icon. Condition, if it is one. All I can see is just a circle.
2.The text in the Grey box could have even spacing both at the bottom and at the top? At the moment the text is closer to the base and has a good enough space after the top edge.
3.You could really improve your footer a bit more.
[/list:u]
All in all good work with less time spent on designing the site. When I started to redesign my site, I spent more hours in designing it than enjoy coding it :(
P.S.: Your daughter is super cute :D
Your site looks pretty good. Minimalistic sites have their own beauty :) It communicates the message properly and looks very professional too. Though here are some of the points which I thought I could mention:
[list]
1.You can increase the height of the search bar cause its hiding the magnifying glass icon. Condition, if it is one. All I can see is just a circle.
2.The text in the Grey box could have even spacing both at the bottom and at the top? At the moment the text is closer to the base and has a good enough space after the top edge.
3.You could really improve your footer a bit more.
[/list:u]
All in all good work with less time spent on designing the site. When I started to redesign my site, I spent more hours in designing it than enjoy coding it :(
P.S.: Your daughter is super cute :D
Firefox:
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5714/screencaptureay.png