[ayman_mastermind]

Hello everyone, I have just started my journey into the world of freelance web development and I have got my first freelance project! I have done lots of websites and web apps before but they were all either contributions to communities or just for fun. I have client who wants a complete website for his business. The business provides services for college teachers(books, drafting services, videos etc...).

I have started designing the site and what I have so far is just the home page as the other pages are not ready yet. What I wish from you is to check out the design and tell me what you think. I have hosted the site temporarily on a free sub domain service here is the site: http://www.educationalt.net16.net/ just for testing and observation purposes and I will be setting up the real domain soon.

The client demanded that the site should be simple to use, and have a simple look and that it should convey the message and purpose of the business directly from the home page. That is exactly what I have done, especially in terms of the simple images, and effective introduction(I hope so).

What I am not very sure about in my design is the Grey area at the top in which I included the brief intro, I thought I should give it a different style in order to grab attention(please tell me if that is a good idea or should the text in it be the same as the one below it).

Any critique, advice, report, rating, ideas and personal opinion is welcome and I will be more than happy to hear(if you can test the website on google chrome it would be great to hear how it looks), I need some feedback about the design before I continue further development. Thank you very much in advance, have a good day

This post has been edited by ayman_mastermind: 09 September 2009 - 11:31 AM

[Core]

Overall it looks nice, but here are some ideas you might want to think about:

1. There is plenty of space left unused in the menu bar. In my opinion that doesn't look very professional. Either add more items to fill the blank space or think of another navigation type (ex. sidebar).

2. The logo is not really suitable in my opninion. White on green & black looks a bit confusing. Think Web 2.0! There are plenty of tutorials on great logo designs. Just remember to adapt it to the theme.

3. The inside bottom links (the rectangles) are not centered. Also, maybe those should go before the text?

Besides that, it is clean and simple. Good job!

Tested on Internet Explorer 8.

[ayman_mastermind]

Quote

Overall it looks nice, but here are some ideas you might want to think about:

1. There is plenty of space left unused in the menu bar. In my opinion that doesn't look very professional. Either add more items to fill the blank space or think of another navigation type (ex. sidebar).

2. The logo is not really suitable in my opninion. White on green & black looks a bit confusing. Think Web 2.0! There are plenty of tutorials on great logo designs. Just remember to adapt it to the theme.

3. The inside bottom links (the rectangles) are not centered. Also, maybe those should go before the text?

Besides that, it is clean and simple. Good job!

Tested on Internet Explorer 8.

First of all thank you very much for telling me what you think about the site,

concerning point #1: you are right about the space that grabbed my attention, I am thinking of adding a search bar in the space that is left do you think it would be a good idea?

#2: I will be creating a professional logo for the site but I thought a simple title with an LCD font could do the job :\

#3 thanks for grabbing my attention to this, I thought I already centered them, but they do appear un-centered, I will recheck my code and see what's wrong.

Thanks for your input Core

More suggestions, ideas, critique, advice, feedback and report from you guys is welcome thanks in advance

[gabehabe]

It gets the gabehabe thumb of approval. Nice work.

[SixOfEleven]

I was just viewing this with Firefox 3.5.2 and it is looking good. The color scheme works nice. It is not hard on the eyes. The font size looks good, not hard to read. The rollover on the nav bar works well. The drop down menus look good. The theme is pretty consistent.

[ayman_mastermind]

Thanks for your reviews everyone, I just started working on all the other pages and I have taken your comments and advice into consideration. Ocne everything is complete I will post an update. thanks

[markhazlett9]

Nice Aymen.... couple of things... the pictures near the bottom of the homepage aren't centered in safari 4.0... also.. i relaly enjoy your JQuery menu's however you may want to include a .stop() clause before you more onto the next element. If you move your move over the menu's really fast they seem to overlap.

Nice work!

Cheers

[ayman_mastermind]

Quote

Nice Aymen.... couple of things... the pictures near the bottom of the homepage aren't centered in safari 4.0... also.. i relaly enjoy your JQuery menu's however you may want to include a .stop() clause before you more onto the next element. If you move your move over the menu's really fast they seem to overlap.

Nice work!

Cheers

Alright will do, thanks for tips Mark