rip my site a new one plz!

[rossable]

justROSS.com :: HOME

ignore the text and focus on placement and style please.
i'm really not wanting to promote myself yet.

the site is about 1/4 of where i want it as far as content goes.
i'm looking to put my portfolio, blog, sketches, etc. there and figure now is a good time to make sure the general idea is solid rather than having to redo it all later.

i'm playing with the idea of making each page unique with different css styling but am unsure of the congruency issues this will pose to the site as a whole.

for an example of on of the other proposed layouts follow this link.

justROSS.com

i would use this style more for sketches than business related pages.

[Toon]

The first link is the best but there's still alot of scrolling to do to get anywhere

[rossable]

is scrolling generally frowned on?
i've never considered vertical scrolling as a bad thing... i do know to keep the most important things "above the fold" though.
i was trying to focus on the typography and may have overlooked some general layout like length.

hmmm, something to consider for sure!

[james]

On the first one, I think there are too many styles of type - its quite hard to make out the visual hierarchy on the page? The second one is a good start as well, only the background image makes some of the text very difficult to read, so you probably should try it spaced out a bit more.

[PR Design]

Pretty much the same as Toon and James. I have to say though, from the forum index the title of this post looks a bit suspect lol.

[rossable]

the background image on the second one is a known problem... i'm thinking of putting a background color on the content box. that second one is about as rough-draft as i will ever show anyone so i'm deffinietly aware of it's problems.

the first one is the one that i need some input on. my orriginal draft for that one was toally balck and white graphics of tire marks and other very urban symbolisms. it had good intrest but didnt complement the content at all. this version conplements the content well... but as you noticed almost blends in to the point of making the content hard to read.

i kinda like the multiple font styles in concept, but deffinetly need to find the balance in it for it to really work for me. for only having two images on both those pages though i think that the visual intrest and textual information is very well balanced.

i really want to incorperate the title font face (ramstein.ttf) in the rest of the page for the title sections. i am unwilling however to use .svg/flash font replacement to get the effect. i plan on looking into embeded fonts and other alternatives with the new Oreily book on the subject but havn't gotten the book yet. the problem i'm running into is that i want to keep these pages really clean while still very visually interesting. that ballance is really delicate and i cant quite perfect on it yet.

anything you see that's bad please tell me right away. any suggestions you have please let me know and i will give them consideration. i really need feed back on this for what works and what doesnt.... so yes. i want you to tare this thing appart and build a new one.

[james]

well some of the most important elements in putting something together that looks professional are clarity and consistency. Seriously mate, if you limit yourself to two or three faces, you'll be surprised at how much better your page will look.

Why do you need to embed the font, rather than create an image instead?

[rossable]

Originally Posted by james

well some of the most important elements in putting something together that looks professional are clarity and consistency. Seriously mate, if you limit yourself to two or three faces, you'll be surprised at how much better your page will look.

it is only two fonts... just utilizing bold and italics to visually divide hierarchy.
i only used Arial Black for titles and Arial regular, bold, and italics for everything else.

Why do you need to embed the font, rather than create an image instead?

i'm vehemently opposed to using graphics for text because of file size and load time reasons. if i can avoid it then i will take that rout, otherwise i figure that even though i would like to have it there... it's not a necessity.
also not every browser or user can view images so if you rely on images for your titles or body copy then what happens to usability and accessibility for those users?
usability issues are the same reason that i never willingly use JavaScript.

[james]

not images for body copy, thats a bit excessive! I mean for titles - i'm no web expert, but can't you use alt tags on the title graphics to describe what they can't see?

I'm not being pedantic but there is also the Just Ross. Com font and the serifed face as well

[rossable]

that's assuming that all my images are in <img />.
not so! all my images are in the CSS as backgrounds. so far you cannot use the alt attribute on divs.
heavy image usage also hurts SEO even with alt attribute utilization. more images = less text = less relevance = bad. i use CSS for all my borders and colors and all... images are used in the backgrounds for interest sake but otherwise i shun them from that site... i'm going for clean and free. not cluttered and boxed.
it's mostly a personal choice for this site. when it comes to clients and money... totally different game!
there are methods to my madness! BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!