Quote mistrust:

---

At the moment it's got a long way to go - nowhere near finished - tweaking it forever more. I'm adding more stuff all the time.

---

That's the way of the world for web sites.

They are never ever "finished"...

Ian G

--------------------
SOS Gear Videos now screening on www.SoundOnSound.tv
SOS Podcasts

Mistrust,

I would drop the opening screen and go straight to your Home page personally.

BTW good to see a non-laptop computer (Mac G4) being used live on-stage for a gig in one of those photos!

Mac G4 on stage

Ian G

PS: did it behave itself or were there any problems?

--------------------
SOS Gear Videos now screening on www.SoundOnSound.tv
SOS Podcasts

Looks as if it's taking a break from playing the guitar.

/coat

Here's my rap/hip-hop oriented site. This is my first "real" site design. Was fun and challenging.

www.futurehot.com

--------------------
FutureHot Productions.Hot Hip-Hop/Rap beats.

The Jiggers Ceilidh Band

New Website about to be launched:
Big day Music: professional Musicians for the perfect Scottish Wedding

And also another site about to be launched for my studio/music, but all I have is a picture at the moment...
jpg draft of www,beatcave,co,uk website new look

I also did this one:
The New Scottish Choir and Orchestra

but it's being taken over by a proper web-team soon, as I've not had the time to maintain/finish it...

Any opinions on my sites (especially bigdaymusic one) are always welcomed. I'm not a pro designer, just do it as a hobby.

g

--------------------
Ceilidh Band Scotland
Wedding Music Scotland

I looked at the bigday music one.
It was tidy and neat, but i thought the design a bit dull considering the exciting subject you have on offer (music/musicians).

For example, instead of a monochrome musical score as the pic on the left, how about colour pics of musicians at work in evening dress, kilts or whatever. the pic could change from page to page thus adding some colour and interest.

Neeldess to say there wasn't much content & none of the band links works, but i assume that's a work in progress?

Basic design OK, but make it more interesting, you are trying to sell something after all.

BTW I'm certainly no expert either, just a bloke who dabbles, so take my advice accordingly.

Thanks Glyn. All comments are useful. Finding the right image is a difficult business! The links will be up and running soon too, and I see what you mean about the excitement factor: it would benefit from being a little more exciting!

g

--------------------
Ceilidh Band Scotland
Wedding Music Scotland

Well, Old Man - New Musician, here goes :-

http://www.databloem.com/0_DTS.htm

http://www.soundclick.com/dreamingtheseed


Love on your souls-Deek

The Urban Myth Club

http://www.urbanmythclub.com

We're selling tracks direct from the site and it's working!

Hope you enjoy the music.

Dez

--------------------
Recording Artist (urbanmythclub.com), Founder TRL Music, Music Life Coach (musiclifecoach.com).
New Course: The 7 Secrets to Success in Music

Another one...

Its my first effort at a site so be gentle.
You'll need 'flash' and a good fast connection for this one, or a lot of patience!

Not finished yet of course, and it works best in Internet explorer. Not sure about other browsers.

Comments welcome. Good or bad.

Paul.

www.idlehands.info

--------------------
"don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all the heavenly glory..."

Edited by Mr Smith (17/11/04 08:50 AM)

Mr.Smith, i think you did a really good job with that site. Neat and tidy. I couldn't seem to get the biogs up, don't know if they're not finished yet? But most of the other stuff appeared for me. Like to see 'news' on the front page, that's good.

Don't like the pointless opening flash thing (not just your site but in general), but then i never do, i mean whats the point, apart to show cleverness, if i want a movie I'll watch a DVD right?

I would have said the site was excellent, that is if I hadn't visited the one in Rob's other thread, which is just outstandingly brilliant in my opinion - check it out.

Yeah, I saw that after posting this. (Head held low in shame)
Very, VERY good site.

Thanks for the comments.

Biogs are unfinished as yet, I'm not sure which angle to approach them from.

The pointless bit at the start is supposed to have some music playing and is kinda like a front cover. Presentation purposes, but yeah I suppose fundamently it serves no purpose.

anyway, thanks again

Paul.

--------------------
"don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all the heavenly glory..."

Quote Mr Smith:

---

Biogs are unfinished as yet, I'm not sure which angle to approach them from.

---

I know what you mean, it's a difficult trick to get the biog right without sounding too pretentious, but also to make it interesting, especialy when you're talking about yourself!

Quote Sean Monkey:

---

www.thewisemonkeys.com

Loads of info and I think it works quite well, but by god do we need a designer!!!

---

The Wise Monkeys

Cheeky sod!!! I designed our site. And I did it all with raw HTML in "notepad". And it took me ages. Wait till I see you at the next rehearsal!

I know, I was there, remember?

Anyway, I meant no disrespect to your coding prowess, which is undoubtedly impressive. But it does look a bit stark.

Here is mine.

--------------------
www.descentintomadness.com

here's my site

www.mattsearles.com

its in progress but I am building it myself... always searching for feed back I might add

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My artist website is [url] www.mattsearles.com [/url] My new podcast on the business side of culture creation can be found at www.asymmetricbizcult.com

I really don't like the blue text on a blue background for the links etc, that's a no-no in my view. Makes it difficult to read, especialy for old timers like me.
I would switch it to white on blue or something, make it as easy as possible for the visitor to see the info.

--------------------

http://www.bunshop.org.uk/

I havent updated it in ages.Im no web eggspert so have to rely on my web-pixie.

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The Photographers

yeah.. good point actually.. my index page is the only page where I have the blue on blue background.. I put those links up as short cuts to deeper places in my site.. the idea being that they should be for people who have been to my site before and don't want to have to go through a lot pages to get some place.. The idea was that the 'sound artist' and 'web design' links where really the main front doors...

anyway.. I'm not really happy with the index page.. I was thinking I might do something like make so that when the index page opens it would automatically go to a specific dimension so that links on the sides could have the proper kind of visual relationship to the center image.. and the buttons below the main image would be immediately visible.. but I just haven't gotten around to it yet... on top of that I've been thinking about throwing out the index page as it stands and finishing a Flash splash page that I have in the pipe line.. but even in that scenario the current page would be the non-flash index page

But yeah.. I should definitely change the link colors.

The blue back ground color is a kind of branding idea... To be associated with the sky or water.. and I have a few flash sections to the site in the pipe line that ought to reinforce this idea a bit more..

It should be mentioned that there are sections in the site where the reading is even harder to read then on the Index page!!!

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My artist website is [url] www.mattsearles.com [/url] My new podcast on the business side of culture creation can be found at www.asymmetricbizcult.com

Ours is quite basic, its just a front for our Music links...............


"FACTOR-X-MUSIC"

--------------------
SYSTEM-X BAND PAGE SYSTEM-X @ factorXmusic

CARLOsPRESENTS

I love the C64 and music. I also love Rob C. So iwanted to make some music but have it on a site that looks good.

My only problem is that the songs have to be downloaded before you can hear them.


I need to work out how to do streaming.

--------------------
My Jukebocks

Edited by www.carlospresents.co.uk (19/12/04 06:00 PM)

Carlos, Looking good. Sorry if the FTP has been a bit unrelible lately. I've been re-jigging things here.

Flash is one way of streaming, or you cud use the M3U trick. Where you just have the person download the playlist, and then there player streams the track from the server...

Best Wishes, and Happy Christmas, Laurence

--------------------
P.I.G.L.E.T - where is polly?

Quote GlynB:

---

I looked at the bigday music one.
It was tidy and neat, but i thought the design a bit dull considering the exciting subject you have on offer (music/musicians).

For example, instead of a monochrome musical score as the pic on the left, how about colour pics of musicians at work in evening dress, kilts or whatever. the pic could change from page to page thus adding some colour and interest.

Neeldess to say there wasn't much content & none of the band links works, but i assume that's a work in progress?

Basic design OK, but make it more interesting, you are trying to sell something after all.

BTW I'm certainly no expert either, just a bloke who dabbles, so take my advice accordingly.

---

Hi Glyn (et al). Bigday music site now revamped:
www.bigdaymusic.net/bigdaymusic

let me know what you think now!
g

--------------------
Ceilidh Band Scotland
Wedding Music Scotland

I've also updated (but not finished) my studio holding page found here
g

--------------------
Ceilidh Band Scotland
Wedding Music Scotland

Quote *gregster*:

---

Quote GlynB:

---

I looked at the bigday music one.
It was tidy and neat, but i thought the design a bit dull considering the exciting subject you have on offer (music/musicians).

For example, instead of a monochrome musical score as the pic on the left, how about colour pics of musicians at work in evening dress, kilts or whatever. the pic could change from page to page thus adding some colour and interest.

Neeldess to say there wasn't much content & none of the band links works, but i assume that's a work in progress?

Basic design OK, but make it more interesting, you are trying to sell something after all.

BTW I'm certainly no expert either, just a bloke who dabbles, so take my advice accordingly.

---

Hi Glyn (et al). Bigday music site now revamped:
www.bigdaymusic.net/bigdaymusic

let me know what you think now!
g

---

What I think now?

It's really good! All the links I checked worked. the site design is more colourful and bright. Gives feeling of confidence - these poeople are trustworty, they won't screw up my wedding!

Would like to see some photos added of musicians in action at events you have organised. But if you are just starting out that will be difficult I suppose? Certainly when you've got a few under your belt add a photos section of succesful events you've done, pics of brides and pipers in full regalia, a caelie band in action, that type of thing.

Good luck.

My main site is...
www.msweb.co.uk

But I'm working on...
www.msweb.co.uk/site2
any ideas on this intial design would be apperciated...

--------------------
P.I.G.L.E.T - where is polly?

www.famolly.com

best viewed on a computer

Giant With Laser...

The design of the main site looks drab to my eyes. Music is EXCITING, but your site design doesn't convey that, it's very business-like, l8ike a site would be that sold office stationary for example! It looks like the Microsoft MSN site, maybe because of the colour scheme and the blue banner along the top?

Having said that, it is tidy and professional looking, if that's what you're after.

The new site doesn't have enough content to pass comment on, but again you seem to be opting for an unispiring design choice.

Sorry if that disapoints, I know how much work will have gone into this, so it hurts when its criticised, but i think you need to liven it up.

Edited by GlynB (30/12/04 11:43 AM)

Quote Giant with Laser Eyes:

---

www.msweb.co.uk/site2
any ideas on this intial design would be apperciated...

---

I get some weird layout stuff when loading this page in IE6.0 - I'd post a jpg up, but I can't remember the ftp details of my free space

Other than that, just to re-iterate what Glen has said, it looks a bit 'corporate' (friendly, fluffy corporate, but still corporate) at the moment.

FMH

Quote xFasterMikeyH:

---

Quote Giant with Laser Eyes:

---

www.msweb.co.uk/site2
any ideas on this intial design would be apperciated...

---

I get some weird layout stuff when loading this page in IE6.0 - I'd post a jpg up, but I can't remember the ftp details of my free space

Other than that, just to re-iterate what Glen has said, it looks a bit 'corporate' (friendly, fluffy corporate, but still corporate) at the moment.

FMH

---

Yea, sombody mentioned that... But I can't get it to do it myself. It must be error in the CSS coding. I will look tonight...

If you need some free space, feel free to signup with msweb.co.uk
(see link in my sig)

Laurence

--------------------
P.I.G.L.E.T - where is polly?

hi famolly. my first impression was that it had a nice graphic: draw that yourself? second impression was that the site wasn't taking itself too seriously (which is fine)
3rd was a real annoyance: the lack of a BACK button (except via rightclick). That is a real pet hate of many browsers: back is the most-used function in a browser: don't make it difficult to get at!
g

--------------------
Ceilidh Band Scotland
Wedding Music Scotland

hi gregster,

yup, i did the picture. what do you mean by "the site wasn't taking itself too seriously"?
last, i didnt think a back button was required as theres links at the bottom that take you back.

cheers for your response

ben

Good graphics Ben... just good. And how many web pages do I see in a day? Far too many... so you must be OK.

--------------------
www.bemuso.com

GlenB,

I did have this idea, but I think its bordering on the edge of taking the piss!
http://msweb.dynalias.com/site2design/2logo.jpg
http://msweb.dynalias.com/site2design/3logo.jpg
But I agree the other site, lacks interest and focus...

Maybe add a cuckoo! hehe, no i'm joking really!

I love the FaMolly site, I wish I could do graphics like that. Its really nice... Not to keen on times new roman font, but apart from that its lush!
Laurence

--------------------
P.I.G.L.E.T - where is polly?

Edited by Giant with Laser Eyes (30/12/04 11:10 PM)

Laurence, I didn't realise that your site was a corporate site, my comments on it were about it being a 'music' site (I thought that 'projects' related to whatever music you're working on and 'studio' would be pictures of your studio). Bearing that in mind, might be as well to ignore my pearls of wisdom.

I guess the main thing for you to think about it is who you're selling to. I personally like the cuckoo thing, but if I were looking for someone to make me a business website that would probably put me off.

Sorry to have confused things further!

FMH

Quote xFasterMikeyH:

---

Laurence, I didn't realise that your site was a corporate site, my comments on it were about it being a 'music' site (I thought that 'projects' related to whatever music you're working on and 'studio' would be pictures of your studio). Bearing that in mind, might be as well to ignore my pearls of wisdom.

I guess the main thing for you to think about it is who you're selling to. I personally like the cuckoo thing, but if I were looking for someone to make me a business website that would probably put me off.

Sorry to have confused things further!

FMH

---

Yes, me too, I assumed it was a music site. If you're a design consultancy or whatever then I guess the layout is OK, but surely if you're into design you should be coming up with something novel or unusual?

I rather like the 'bird' examples of pages for a design company, it shows an example of... er.. design!

The design question really comes down to how people use your site and what your message is. Unless you need to impress people in some way or hit them with a strong message it's difficult to spice up the design without getting contrived or distracting. On a music site you do need a focussed image and holistic feel, but for a general utility or information site sometimes bland is the right thing... as long as you spell out what's going on.

Broadly speaking, don't spend time on design that doesn't serve any purpose... but you need to make that call yourself. Second opinions are always useful.

One thing I'd take from the feedback on Laurence's main site is that the purpose and message could be stronger on page one. Will people think: what is MSWeb? What do they do?

--------------------
www.bemuso.com

One thing I've realised about my web-browsing is that I don't like, or usually don't read the nav buttons, especially if there are too many or it's not obvious what they take me to straight away.

Buttons that say "about" are a bit cryptic, for example.
My tip to designers would be to make your nav buttons totally transparent to the eye. Try using 2-3 words if it clarifies exactly what it is the target page is. Deciphering buttons is NOT something people can be bothered doing a lot of the time.

Also, remember that your first page is your first impression: the customer is not interested in you, he's interested in HIMSELF. Reel him in by simply offering the benefits HE could be experiencing were he to use your service/product, then he'll give you more of his time.
g

--------------------
Ceilidh Band Scotland
Wedding Music Scotland

The Urban Myth Club

http://www.urbanmythclub.com

Like this site alot, very clean and polished, good content and I also like the music samples.

Darryl
www.glideascope.com