Your opinion on my latest site design

[vespershine]

I am working on my own website I always have a hard time with writing the content and how to market myself.

I am not sure if including pricing info on my site is a good idea.

Whats your opinion?
Web design and development by Kelvin Schmidt is my site.

[NancyCarter]

Hi Kevin

Most don't recommend publishing rates. There are all kinds of reasons for this - they easy enough to look up. I much prefer to have the opportuntiy to educate and inform and provide project-specific quote. The projects acquired this way usually are smother, with great results. Those who've hired me based on my rates (especially if I lowered them) are usually demanding, the projects drag on, and the outcomes are mediocre. Some here at DC who are more business savvy than I can be more elequent on the topic...

There are aspects of your site I enjoy... Is that your child? Cute!

I suggest that you think about updating your design - I know it's soo hard to get around to your own. I don't like to criticize or be negative, but it's my feeling that your site is a little outdated and might not send the right message to your potential clients.

Here is a site that is modern and engaging using a similar color palette as yours. It effectively employs variance in scale, too, making it visually interesting with minimal graphics. Blog Action Day 08 I like the return to white bg at the bottom of the page making the site less dark overall. Nice that it appeals to those who prefer darker sites and those who don't.

Scale is something I have to edit my own work for constantly. I have a rediculous tendancy to make everyting the same size. You can cover for less copy by changing the scaling of some texts ... and you also engage the viewer'e eye by drawing attention to places of interest.

"DOMINANCE
Dominance gives interest, counteracting confusion and monotony. Dominance can be applied to one or more of the elements to give emphasis"


I HIGHLY recommend using screen captures or interesting crops of your website samples instead of just links. Please them further up too. People love to see things. Less clicking is also preferrable. Remember that potential clients look at your site as a sample of what they will be getting.

(I noticed that your copyright was 2004.)

I hope I have helped and not offended.

[vespershine]

Thanks Nancy, that is exactly the type of feedback I was looking for. I will take your advice and remove the pricing information from my site. I totally see what you mean about using varying font sizes, again thanks. Oh yeah that's my son in the pics.

[vespershine]

Well I took the feed back Nancy gave and have a whole new design and a header that incorporates Jparallax jquery plug-in.

I still have more to do but wanted to share this with you people.

Cheers

[NancyCarter]

Much more modern and appealing! Good job.

[inntoon]

The classic mistake designers make on their sites is to TALK about design. It's kind of like making music with sign language.

The actual work is buried in your site behind a lot of text that (trust me) nobody will read.

You don't need to explain all your services. The kinds of clients worth dealing already know what designers do and if you're like most designers, if there's something you can't do personally, you'll sub it out to someone who can do the technical wiring under your design work.

You miss out on a chance to do something very cool with the parallax effect. Instead of the "mirrors in an elevator" effect where you repeat the same image, perhaps you could create a "design landscape" where sky, mountains, trees and foreground all live on different layers and create a metaphor for the depth of your work. Regardless of what you do with it, I don't think your site should feature an "effects demonstration" as something more important than your actual design capabilities.

I suspect if you dumped your home page and swapped in your graphic design page, you could communicate much more effectively what you can do without saying a word. It's clean and answers every question a customer might ask. Show, don't tell.

Cheers,

[jones8]

Originally Posted by inntoon

The classic mistake designers make on their sites is to TALK about design. It's kind of like making music with sign language.

The actual work is buried in your site behind a lot of text that (trust me) nobody will read.

You don't need to explain all your services. The kinds of clients worth dealing already know what designers do and if you're like most designers, if there's something you can't do personally, you'll sub it out to someone who can do the technical wiring under your design work.

You miss out on a chance to do something very cool with the parallax effect. Instead of the "mirrors in an elevator" effect where you repeat the same image, perhaps you could create a "design landscape" where sky, mountains, trees and foreground all live on different layers and create a metaphor for the depth of your work. Regardless of what you do with it, I don't think your site should feature an "effects demonstration" as something more important than your actual design capabilities.

I suspect if you dumped your home page and swapped in your graphic design page, you could communicate much more effectively what you can do without saying a word. It's clean and answers every question a customer might ask. Show, don't tell.

Cheers,

Right on. Someone that understands that our portfolios are for our clients and that most don't visit to read about the product, they want to see the product. Personally, I like to keep things simple for my own site, that way, all of the stuff you want the visitor/potential client to focus on stands out such as previous work you've done and the minimal text you do need.