Honest Design and Coding Critiques

[BlueIceDJ]

Hi,
I’m fairly new into the world of web design and development and was wondering if I could get some design critiques on my main website. It’s a responsive design that should work in all browsers at any size as well as on mobile devices. I read that this would be a good place to get feedback.

davidjkayser.com

Thanks for your help!
-David

[iizag]

I love it , I am very new to this so I have no critiques but great job it is a great looking site

[Junni]

nice job done, but
1: Change 3 images which are you lined up in 3 sections,
2: not giving so much professional look
3:Contact form is not as good as your site is.
4: give some padding to your form inputs and also work on fonts , along with your SUBMIT button give some styling to it

[BlueIceDJ]

@ian.izaguirre001 – Thanks for compliment!

@Junaid_Farooq – Do you mean to change the icons on the beautiful design, creative ideas, and responsive?
What is it that makes it seem ‘unprofessional’?
Thanks for the tips with the form page – that section has been bothering me.

@JoshWhite – I designed the icons myself so any advice on to why they’re clunky or what I could change to make them appear less so? Maybe shrink them in size? Lose the circle part and just use the inside pictures?
Also, what browser are you using? I know Firefox was displaying my fonts differently. Also are you seeing the blurred opaque background the text sits on top of? Just wondering because I added that for readability and am wondering if it’s just a bug you’re getting or if it’s extra hard to read. This also may be harder to read if you are getting a thinner font than what I’m seeing on most browsers.
Thanks for the strategy tip. I think I agree with you and will rework the section to not include photography.

Did anyone notice the click events when you click the icons and thoughts on that?

Anyway, thanks for the advice so far!

[BlueIceDJ]

^Tried figuring out how to tag multiple people then tried to delete the comment which resulted in my tagging my own empty comment for inappropriate content. Sorry about that. Any idea how to delete? Or could a moderator delete this comment and that one?

[fobsternd]

I’d unpin the banner and make it scroll with the rest of the page.

[TheTechBox]

Have to agree with some of the other replies, on a smaller screen that pinned header takes up a lot of space at the top of the page.

Another point to make is that there seems to be some slight formatting issues with the columns on the front page (Chrome, Windows 8): screenshot

The contact form looks very rushed, you have a great site and then there is that contact form…

Other than that I really like it, the icons are pretty neat!

[owlinargyle]

I think the problem with the icons/glyphs and why they look “clunky” to others is that they are not as clean and crisp as we’ve become accustomed to seeing on other sites. The edges are very pixelated and some lines look hand drawn. If I had to guess I’d say you created them by drawing with the mouse in Photoshop, possibly Flash.

Most designers make their icon/glyphs using tools in Illustrator to create Vector images.

Also, there is a slight “jumping” in the animated gear GIF, before the onclick, which means there’s something wrong with the frames in the animated gif.

Just my two cents. =)

[BlueIceDJ]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I’ve updated my site to address some of the issues that have been brought up. Changes include –

All graphics have been redesigned in vector format (they really do look a lot better! Never not using vector again)

The fixed header now shrinks down to just the basics on scroll

On iPhone the header is no longer fixed and is now a select option box

The gears gif has been updated – it is now symmetrical and has more frames

The contact section has been updated and simplified to a better look

The wording in the different sections has been updated/changed

The larger header font is now different – I think it compliments the body font better

Some changes to the way the mobile site works

The form now brings you back to the same position after sending it (to give a sent or error message)

Let me know what you all think about the updates! Thanks again for the idea, I think the site is looking better.

[cwork]

Overall, I like it. Very cool color mesh going on there.

The fonts do not look good on Chrome, kind of jaggy, but clear on Firefox.

[MattF]

Great layout. Clean. A couple of things though imo only is the boxes like in the first section under the icons, maybe have them all be equal heights. Just use a simple jquery equal heights script. Maybe it is just me too, but on a layout like those boxes, I like them as equal heights even though the content might not all be as long.

The second thing is going responsive, your navigation goes through one of the icons and makes it very hard to see and looks messy. Should have the icons be bumped below still when the nav wraps like that.

Great over all site though.

[BlueIceDJ]

@MattF Thanks for catching that. The whole site is responsive but I had recently made a change to fix an error in firefox that seemed to have bumped down the nav at a certain width – it should be good across all devices/browsers sizes now.

I have tried making the height the same on all the boxes but it made the site feel too symmetrical – and somehow made me feel a little trapped (like if wearing a mitten instead of gloves if that makes any since). I can see wanting to make them even but to me I just don’t like the look. I ask around to see what other people think about making the height even though to see if it’s just me- thanks for the suggestion.

@cwork what OS are you running and what version of Chrome is it? I tried on Chrome version 30 on Mac running Mountain Lion (and now Mavericks) and it seems just as smooth as Firefox and Safari. Maybe they use different font types on a different version of Chrome? Also which font is jaggy? The smaller body font or the larger header font? Thanks for the info!

[BlueIceDJ]

@Joe_Temp Is there anything in particular you would suggest I do differently? What don’t you like about the logo and what could I do to make it better? Thanks for the advice.

[BlueIceDJ]

@Ed The logo I have right now is a redesign I’m working on per the advice of Joe_Temp – my original logo is here Your text to link here…

I’m not sure which I like best but I think the new one fits the sites theme a little better. As for the ‘thin’ font that is only on firefox because for some reason Firefox renders the font differently. I really hated the thick font it used and actually like the contrast but as you so to each his own.
Anyway, any ideas on the new logo design vs. the old would be helpful

[BlueIceDJ]

@Joe_Temp – you were right about dropping the J – helped make it look nicer (also added a “leg” to the d). I added some social media icons on the right of the header to which I think fills out the page a bit more.

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