Website feedback: criticisms and comments

[Deflect]

Hi-

I’m in the process of making a website for robotics club at my local high school (in preparation for the start of school this fall). It’s not finished, but I think the design at least is pretty stable.
http://spartabots.co.cc

I was hoping to have some criticism and comments about the design. In particular, I’d like to have some feedback on what I could do to extend and improve the website — as of now, I keep getting this vague sense that the website is unprofessional or incomplete in some way. Frankly, I’m pretty dissatisfied with the website: I feel like I’m over-using cheap gimmicks like rounded corners and transparency to make an effect, and I really need to do something with the background.

Given that school is about to start in a few weeks, I don’t think I do a complete rewrite in time, plus I’m not exactly the most creative person on earth. A complete restructuring is probably unrealistic, but I do feel the site needs non-superficial changes, but I’m at a loss as to what I can do next, besides tweaking the CSS a bit more and refining/adding more content. Suggestions?

[OniLinkCR]

Dude, site won’t load.

[sabrinagelbart]

I like it! It’s cute, and I think the nav is pretty neat. Some tips:

1. the background is nice but it’s a bit pixelated. Try redoing it in illustrator (just copy over it with the pen tool).
2. Try making the heading background a light grey instead of full white
3. Try making the heading text huge, like 7 em, and then alight the subheading up a bit

[fjorko]

Hi There

Your Showcase menu submenu’s all return a 404 error ( page not found )… perhaps because you are not finished ?

[Deflect]

@stevencrader: Thanks!

@OniLinkCR: Sorry, it’s my webhost — they have some issues with stability from time to time, but it should be fine now (I hope?)

@sabrinagelbart: Thanks! I only have GIMP, and couldn’t figure out how to make things crisper (a classmate drew the image, not me), so I went in the opposite direction and made it more pastel-y and blurry. What do you think? Also, I made the heading text bigger, but 7em turned out to be way too big.
(For reference, http://spartabots.co.cc/graphics/gears_background_1.jpg changed to http://spartabots.co.cc/graphics/gears_background_pastel.jpg)

@fjorko: Yeah, it’s not finished. On a slightly related note, can anybody recommend a good Javascript-based gallery for photos, ideally one which can interface with flickr?

[fjorko]

I like fancybox..but doubt it has flickr support…

[Mcneri]

I visited the site now and was greeted with a full page ad the the web host told me the site was being updated or something like that. Your host seems to be Heliohost or so. Will check back when it is online. This is a screenshot of what I saw when I visited.

[snillor]

I’d like to see it, but (as someone above also experienced), it won’t load for me.

[Deflect]

Sorry. Heliohost isn’t the most stable of hosts — it crashes or glitches like that from time to time.

It should be up now?

[stevendeeds]

add in css

body {overflow-x: hidden; }

I’m getting a horizontal scroll bar..

[Author]

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