Web Design Tests

[VorteX]

Recently I started getting into web site design again, using Photoshop for graphics and XHTML / CSS / Javascript for scripting stuff. Anyway, I was stumped as to what to design, and then I thought I'd go with a mock ACW homepage design.

I know there are some good Photoshop people here, as the banners / posters / sigs are really nice. I admit I'm no Photoshop wiz, however I have been exposed to it for a while so I know my way around.

Anyway, here is an image of it (of course nothing works):

www.geocities.com/gotejjeken/layout.jpg

[Commissioner Zero]

I like it, just not the chain thing so much.


*Glares over at Jake sitting idly, eating his Cheetos*

Why can't you do that?

[Jake]

I cant do that because I dont have photoshop.

EDIT: Cheetos are gross.

[Latino]

the chain seems more ECWish and I think there's too much free space between all the little content boxes. If you want to get some nice creative ideas on site designs check out www.csszengarden.com/. It's got some great stiuff.

[VorteX]

Well I took the chains off of the thing and stretched the news content box over a little since, as Latino said, it did have a rather large gap there. Anyway, I put a black background on it, and overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Also, thanks for the link, some of those pages over there are pretty interesting.

[Jack Jefferson]

Tbh I don't really like it.

- The gradient on the bar is too inconsistent and makes it look cheap.
- I'm not a fan of everything being in italics.
- The "ACW" looks isolated.
- The font for "News", "Omega Effect III Card" and "Predictions" is way too big.
- The font in general is way too big.
- "June PPV" looks squashed and, harsh as it may be to say, this gives a very amateurish feel to it.
- And...finally, it's way too grey! The lack of colour makes it look extremely boring.

So...yeah, sorry.

[VorteX]

Thanks for the feedback, I'm going to try and go through it point by point:

- The gradient on the bar is too inconsistent and makes it look cheap.

Which bar do you mean? If it's the three big ones, that's not a gradient, it's just a solid gray color brushed over with the burn / dodge tools and has a filter used on it. If you mean the little ones, I'll agree here they don't exactly fit together flawlessly, and I'm not exactly sure what I did to make them look that way =p.

- I'm not a fan of everything being in italics.

I changed this. At first I thought it was neat, but then after going through it a second time, noted that it really was obtrusive.

- The "ACW" looks isolated.

I knew this one would come up, due to the ACW logo being in a banner area. I guess a banner could be crafted to fit that area, which would probably make the logo look less out of place.

- The font for "News", "Omega Effect III Card" and "Predictions" is way too big.

It sure was, I changed this also.

- The font in general is way too big.

Changed this too, scaled the font down by a little. This way the text in the card box actually lines up now. Although the text would be controlled by the user's preferences, heck with a little Javascript one could have multiple styles. I just went with a basic Arial here, due to trying to stay away from potential font conflicts (even though this isn't a website, I still like to design with that in mind).

- "June PPV" looks squashed and, harsh as it may be to say, this gives a very amateurish feel to it.

I have no idea why that looked the way it did. I just got rid of it and re-did it, looks fine to me now.

- And...finally, it's way too grey! The lack of colour makes it look extremely boring.

Any suggestions as to how to add color to this? I went with a straight gray for ease, but it probably can be seen as bland.

Thanks again for the feedback here. In all honesty I am an amateur at this =p, I've never really taken any classes in graphics design, and if you think this is bad you don't want to see my early work XD.

[Jack Jefferson]

One thing I would suggest for injecting more colour would be to possibly make greater use of the colour red. I just don't like the feeling that I've lost the contrast on my monitor while I'm viewing it.