Re: Thoughts on design and copy

[croydon86]

@CrocoDillon I would definitely lose the dashed border now that you have gone with a lighter background in the footer for 3 reasons…

1) As @chrisburton previously mentioned, this is not needed for separation, the shaded background already does that.

2) It attracts too much attention. Visual design elements should be ‘invisible’ (not obvious, communicating only to the subconscious!)

3) It looks like you tried to do a stitched effect…. with flat design, which of course is contradictory. This stitching effect has no place anywhere other than a skeuomorphic style of design. Of course this may not have been your intention to create this stitched effect, but that is how I feel when I see it.

Here is a quick edit I did in the browser of how I feel the footer can be improved. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/94593656/Screen%20Shot%202013-04-21%20at%2014.13.23.png

The header is lost currently. While the footer has emphasis, the header does not, which is not good as this element is crucial. I previously mentioned what I feel can improve it.

I’ve never been a fan of ubuntu as a body font although I feel it works quite well here as a display font, although @chrisburton seems better suited to advise on this, and also depends on what you are trying to convey.

Lastly, not a fan of the desktop icon, personally prefered the previous but this is just my opinion.

Above all, for a non-designer, you are doing a good job ;).

@chrisburton You give sound advice but one thing I disagree with you on is making the text black as opposed to #333. I feel the current shade works fine whereas absolute black is too strong for a site that does not mirror the same amount of contrast elsewhere, not to mention more painful on the eye, again ubuntu as body text doesn’t help either!