Website Design / Feedback Please

[mwdewitt]

I am designing a website for a graphic novel, here. I would like to know your opinion. I feel like from the title image to the end of “The Graphic Novel” section it is nice and spaced out, but the character illustrations and descriptions are too cramped. Also, I do not have images of the locations right now, but do you think it needs images? The “Thank You” section will be populated with the people who have donated money to the Kickstarter project. I then have a single pixel line that fades to both edges (is there a way to do this with HTML or CSS?). After that, I have the Facebook “Like” button for those who would like to keep up to date on what is happening with the graphic novel. I want to make this the best that it can be. Please share your opinion, but be creative. Do not just say you do not like it without explaining yourself. Thank you!

Edit: Also, yes, I realize the character images are all the same image. They are just place-holders for now.

[yashrg]

Could you have the text be dynamic so when you mouseover a certain character, the text area changes to only show information about that particular character? This way you take some of the clutter out and add some interactivity.

[mwdewitt]

If you know of a good tutorial on how to do that, I would be more than happy to go that route.

[yashrg]

@amyth91 that is really cool.

[cizmic]

I would take out the green. Green is the easiest way to cause eye strain on people viewing your site on a CRS.

[mwdewitt]

@amyth91: Thank you! That is the general idea, but how do I do it with text, instead of an image? Also, I am not using unordered lists. Sorry, I am pretty new to web programming, so sometimes people have to spell it out for me. Thank you in advance for any future tips!

@cizmic: Are you talking about the background to the website? Green is actually a very unobtrusive color when it comes to color theory. And the green in the background is rather mild, striped, and with noise added to make it look more like wall paper. Now, if you mean the green in the character images, that is supposed to be rather obnoxious. The whole color scheme for “Feel Good Candy” is like that. But the character image is purely a space filler until I have three more illustrations for the various characters.

Edit #1: By the way, what is a CRS?

Edit #2: I changed the background, @cizmic. Hopefully, you approve. It is a tiled wood texture that I stole off of Kickstarter one day. I made the image black and white for my purposes. I have started another thread about how to possibly stagger the background image so that it is not so apparent that it is a tiled image.

[mwdewitt]

Okay, I did a quick mock-up of what I am sort of envisioning from what @yashrg suggested, here. This would happen on roll-over of the image. A text bubble would slide out from underneath the image or it can be to the side of the image. That way, there would just be the images, and then when you roll-over the image, the white text slides out to give the specifics about that particular character. Does that make sense? If you know how I can achieve this effect, I would greatly appreciate it if you could show me how.

Also, what do you think of the new background? My only complaint is that it seems to take a while to load.

[booruguru]

Why are you using serif fonts for your body text? It doesn’t really seem to jive with the funky graphics and text related to your book. I think a font like Helvetica would look much nicer and it would be much easier to read. Serif text is fine for your excerpt at the top of the page and maybe some of your headings like technique, art style name, age, etc. Feel free to mix it up a bit, but definitely cut back on the “Times New Roman.”

By the way, are you in love your logo, “Minster Tweed”, because I think you could spruce it up a bit. I look at it and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel. Other than that, nice work.

[mwdewitt]

I agree with you on the font. I currently have it set to:

body {

font-size: 16px;

font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;

}

I guess I could use the “font” tag and change it up a bit in particular areas. The font I would really like to use is Bryant Pro. It goes nicely with Baruta Black, which is what the font is for the “Feel Good Candy” logo. But most people do not have Bryant Pro. You have to buy it and, rightly so, because it is a nice font.

My “Minter Tweed” logo is simply just done with the font Dalliance. I originally got the concept from Marion Peck’s website. The nice thing about using Dalliance on Marion Peck’s website is that no letter is repeated in her name and also the “P” in her last name looks absolutely amazing (which is just the default capital “P” in Daliance). I hate that the letter “E” is repeated three times in “Minter Tweed.” It makes it very obvious that it is simply just a font, rather than an actual logo.

If you have any suggestions on how I could get Bryant Pro to be recognized on all browsers and computers, please feel free to fill me in. Also, any suggestions on how to change the “Minter Tweed” logo to make it look a little more individualized would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your comment. It was very helpful.

[mwdewitt]

I think I know what I am going to do. I am going to make a completely separate CSS stylesheet for the “Feel Good Candy” page, here. The only problem is: I do not know how to do this. I know how to make a new CSS stylesheet in WordPress, but how do I make the “Feel Good Candy” page recognize it? Any and all help with this will be greatly appreciated. This way, I can control every aspect of the “Feel Good Candy” page from the header image to the footer!

[mwdewitt]

Okay, I did not want to bump this thread until I had the “Feel Good Candy” page somewhat done, here. So, what do you think? And any help with how I should present the characters would be muchly appreciated. Also, under “The Graphic Novel,” the last little bit of text explaining that the image to the left is computer generated should be flush with the rest of the text on the right. How do I get it to do that? Thanks!

[cizmic]

@mwdewitt: CRT – old monitors that have a vacuum screen. such colors are really amplified on those things.

[MBM]

That black and blue dotted background is horrendous and who thought the cover design for the Feel Good Candy novel was a good idea? I know this has nothing to do with you but just saying!

If you’re going to have navigation at the bottom of a page (gloom) then make sure visitors don’t have to scroll to see it otherwise they’ll miss it.

[kwagz]

That is the problem with the web today… dude, i will tell you the truth. Your site is ugly. Also run it through a reader (jaws?) Your bg will leave you liable for lawsuits from the seizures that it is going to cause. seriously, look at other sites then look at your…
not to be an arse, but come on.
…and i guess l—-l that is nine inches

[chrisburton]

@kwagz That was incredibly professional and not to mention the truly inspiring criticism you gave there was impeccable.

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