Need Opinions for Mock Up Site’s

[cpj238]

Hey guys, huge fan of CSS-Tricks, this is my first post here.

I work as a Graphic / Web Designer for a company called InterCoastal Net Designs and I was looking for some feedback positive or negative to become better at what I do.

After meeting with clients on what they would like for their site (ie: colors, size, images, navigation) I create their mock ups, sometimes not my favorite works come from this.

Please follow me on twitter for all of my latest doing’s at work: https://twitter.com/TheCSSGuru

I have several sub-domains of my "tester/mock up" sites, and will post them here for review. Most recent on the chopping block is:

Island Breeze: (mock up of home page and testimonials)
http://cjohnson8.icnd.net/islandbreeze/

The main image area is going to be a Jquery Fade rotation, they wanted very little text on the home page. It’s not a fixed site, though it may appear that way in the mock up, lol. The video will lightbox (colorbox) eventually. I really want to get this one client approved so I can code it. So far is one of my favorites….maybe because I had to stare at those 3 for so long, haha.

Let me know your thoughts, and I will definitely be a returning poster :)

~ Chris

[AshtonSanders]

Hey Chris,

I like the design a lot. Very aesthetic, great colors.

I don’t know if it’s just because of the test image, but that large pic is pretty pixely.

I like your testimonial layout and bubbles.

Great work.

[cpj238]

Thanks for the response!

Yeah the big image is a scan from a magazine, one of those printer/scanner deals, so its not the best quality, haha.

The testimonials page will be fun to code, the client will have 10-15 of them with real customer pictures.

I’ll post the new url when this thing hits the coding stage, then the real fun / tearing my code apart will happen, haha!

~ Chris

[tomwalters5678]

I really like the site, great colours and layout, if I were to change one thing it would be the box at the top that contains the email address sign-up form, I would make the two bottom corners rounded to just make the design smoother.

-Tom

[TheDoc]

I find the striped background to be very distracting, I’d simply go with a solid color.

[Luminated]

"TheDoc" wrote:

I find the striped background to be very distracting, I’d simply go with a solid color.

Totally agreed…even a gradient would be better, but the high contrasts of that background makes me feel like it’s a magic eye trick or something. Other than that, looks sharp.

[AshtonSanders]

"Luminated" wrote:

"TheDoc" wrote:

I find the striped background to be very distracting, I’d simply go with a solid color.

Totally agreed…even a gradient would be better, but the high contrasts of that background makes me feel like it’s a magic eye trick or something. Other than that, looks sharp.

I disagree. I thought it was unique and not that distracting at all. I guess it would be worse on large monitors, but at 1440 wide, I love it.

[TheDoc]

Unique perhaps, but incredibly intruding. Stripes can stay, so long as it’s not overpowering like that.

[cpj238]

Woot, thanks for the comments!

The stripes are a big part of their branding for Island Breeze, every customer receives a shopping bag that is white and green stripes (scanned for color and width) and if the customer comes back with the bag, they get 20% off.

So making it work, I tried my best, lol, still quite a process here at ICND where I work, so this one hasn’t been sent for approval yet, but damn it, it needs to be, because I want to start coding it! :)

I usually only mock up the home page and an interior page, so I think that’s all I will have for this project until its coded, and when I start that I will definitely post the url here :)

~ Chris

[cpj238]

Started coding this project:

http://cjohnson10.icnd.net/

The main image is going to be flash now, instead of jquery, the client paid for flash, bah, but oh well. I have the image there as a place holder for now.

I don’t have IE7, so if you see something in there, let me know ;) I can however test in FF, Safari, and IE6.

~ Chris

[cpj238]

I have just finished coding 90% of the pages, wanted to get your guys opinion, a lot of the text and images are still stock / lorem, waiting on clients content. Thoughts?

http://cjohnson10.icnd.net/

Project is – Island Breeze

~ Chris

[Luminated]

Looks great in IE8 here (Vista, running 1440).

I understand needing to keep the stripes for branding purposes. Can you possibly lighten the stripes a bit/make them more opaque?

Otherwise, sharp, clean, effective, fun and overall solid design…great job!

[cpj238]

Thanks for the reply, and the look into IE8 for me :) Glad it looks ok there too, lol.

Yeah, the green stripes are a bit dark for my tastes, being that everything else is dark, but that is the color of their bag and all.

Ill show you what their current "hidden" site looks like, haha, they have a "under construction" on the index, but the rest of the site is there, here is the link: http://www.inttek.net/~dnorris/islandbr … lcome.html

As you can see, they really wanted an "image" change, most of their inventory has shifted to prom dresses and such for the younger crowd. BTW did you watch their commercial? haha, that song is ridiculous…haha

I will post most sites in new posts as soon as I can. I am working on a cool one called "Destination Agent" that uses a style switcher to swap 2 layouts and 5 color schemes between them, but more on that later ;)

~ Chris

[friendofpugs]

Loud, flashy site – nice work. Can’t say I’m a fan of the Nav color states – I would prefer that the "home" state be a different color than the hover state, but that’s just me. I find the dotted lines on "Brands" distracting. Also not a fan of the repeating logo treatment on the Testimonials section – too busy, but these are minor quibbles. This website is almost too slick for their brand!

[cpj238]

Hey thanks for the reply friendofpugs, I removed the dotted lines on brands, which I had originally, the dots helped to separate them a bit more, but looking at it without the dots, it looks just fine, I think i’ll keep it that way.

The repeating logo is a filler for content that wont be in that area, so its a point of interest, trying to be like clothing patterns ect. Idea from the client, LOL

Quote:

This website is almost too slick for their brand!

AAAAhahahahaha, that is awesome, I read that and busted a gut, and thank you =P

~ Chris

[Author]

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