Qwortex.com - Web Layout

[Max]

Well, I have no idea where my previous thread went, or why it has been removed, but I am assuming it was removed because I presented a very, very bare web template. Well, after a few more days of work I have finally put together a near-finished version of my website template. It is temporarily located at qwortex.com - Qwortex Inc. but in a few weeks I'm hoping to move it over to http://www.qwortex.com

I made this template in the gimp, and used NVU/Text Editor to code it. If and when your done looking at the layout, if you can, please rate my site out of 10 and give me feedback. Positive and negative reviews are welcome.

So far, I have actually only had one person say that the template was "not-so-good". His explanation: gimp sucks. I don't look for responses like that, give better reasons when it comes to negative feedback. I will be frequently updating the template at least once a day for the next few days.

Cheers,
Max

[zumojuice]

Mmmmm I like the blue and the overall feel of what you've got here. There are a few points I would address though:

1> Your logo This is cleanr enough, though being blue, it may be lost. The Q is not the most defined either so I'd suggest either adapting it on the logo or choosing another typeface. I'd move it in from the side as it is a little close to that edge. You want this to punch out.

2 > Buttons Being in the same typeface and size as your logo can be confusing. Your best bet is to reduce this buttons down a little and maybe add a dividing device between the banner and the navigation.. Since that top bar is doing it anyway, maybe darken the gradient along the bottom and move your navigation down a bit, and reduce by a few pts in size.

3> Content news areas... I just think more could be done with these, a little hierachy with your type? you have 3 main parts, title, sub info and the post its self, so why not make that clear? You may find that the blue there may need to be tamed down by play with it and see.

Overall a good start. I think you may need another tone though, maybe a black or grey or something (depending on what you want to say with the site) - could even be an orange or a red....

Hope this helps...

[Max]

About the logo: I couldn't agree more. It does seem a little too clustered, and the "text" is too small. It has to stand out. That I will change very soon.

The buttons, yes. They need to differ from the logo. Thanks for pointing that out. I also need to divide each button as well as the logo from the buttons. I will do that soon.

And the content/news area: It does seem a little too bright, and I can do a little more with this area. Perhaps it's a better idea to merge both "posts" together, to make it look better in a sense.

Thank you for taking the time to review my layout, your recommendation for a variety of colours such as orange and red will be taken into account. I think I may choose an orange colour for the background or something, maybe have diagonal lines going across the background, too.

Again, thank you so much for helping out.

Cheers,
Max

[zumojuice]

Be careful with an orange or a red - I'd use for highlight and detail only. A complimenting dark blue might also work well to had some constrast.

[tommylogic]

This site still doesn't validate.. even as HTML 4.01

I would re-write this in XHTML if I were you.. use CSS to style it and lose the tables.
Your top navigation, although visually appealing, should also be more accessible. Using images for text is just bad... search engines will never find it.

[zumojuice]

The answer is to blend you 'image based text' to a minimum - enough to style but not enough to prevent the site being accessible. Since if we only used web fonts, the internet would be very boring indeed.

[tommylogic]

Well, I wasn't going to get into the "how to" on that.. but there isn't a lick of CSS in this entire site. If there were, it could be done quite easily; hence the need to drop the tables and gain some style.