Please harshly critique my new website

[benjid]

I just put a redesign of my website up:

www.benjamindell.com (http://www.benjamindell.com)

Please let me know what you think. Be honest. Be brutal. I can handle it.

I decided to shy away from flash (as not everyone is flash compatible). I am still working out some small bugs.

Also please let me know which photos are weak and should be removed. Thanks!

[bluedna]

I really like the wedding shots, very nice and tasteful. Really like the PP work you've done as well, cant wait till I can be able to translate what i want to do in my head onto photoshop. I'm sorry if these comments arent as brutal as you expected :)

[harroz]

all good benjid. The images look fine, i didn't go over the whole lot, but fashion and portrait are good journalism style shots. love the old guy on the street, haha, awesome.

[Picture North Carolina]

You wanted honesty:

- I am not a graphic designer in the sense that I am good with color schemes, but my first impression upon viewing the main page was that the light blue and dark brown clash - they just don't seem to work together.

- The biggest criticism I have is your galleries. No thumbnails. Many people will not take the time to click thru dozens of photos. It's frustrating to some not to be able to choose what they want to see. And what if the images that you like best (and placed at the beginning of the slideshow) are not the favorite of a particular person viewing your samples? They may go away before they encounter an image they like and that sells your services. My preference when going to a site like yours is to be presented with a group of thumbnails so that I can choose what I wish to view - something that triggers my interest, not yours. And if you do add thumbnails, make them decent sized if you can. The tiny little thumbnails some people use are useless as are those that only show a small part of the entire image.

Just my thoughts. Hope it helps.

[elysium]

I like the layout and colours.

Now the only things I would say is ditch the news section or create a link for it. Looks lost or out of place at the bottom.

The tip is handy for navigating pictures but I would give users the option of navigating with a mouse since when going through a portfolio, I hate having to use a keyboard for pg up or pg down, enter or left/right. EDIT : Wait I see it now. Sorry. :lol:

Reisize the pictures via Photoshop since they look really pixelated when viewing the thumbnails via the script.

Apart from that, its a nice simple yet light design and think it works really well. The images really compliment the site so very well done over all.

[rselinger]

100% agree that the pictures need to be resized in photoshop. Some of the ones in your last section look really jaggedy, and I'm sure based off the other stuff, that is not how it actually looks.

[divinemethod]

make the thumbnails fit in one line... instead of 3 at the top and 2 below it.

the blue is too pale for the brown... either darken the brown more or punch up the blue... thats my personal preference.

I feel like the top space is just wasted why not do this


LOGO HERE | thumbnail category 1 | 2| 3| etc. (all in the blue section) so it would be a better use of the space...

Now for the good parts : your images are beautiful, if only they didnt resize with so much jaggies.

I love the lightbox idea...and having ur blog incorporated into one page.

[710 Studio]

The only nitpick I have is that the navigation bar is a few pixels longer than the box containing your news area. It throws the symetrical look off.

I am viewing it in IE7 at a screen resolution of 1440x900, if that helps.

Other than that, looks fine to me!

[Jamesino]

While a Lightbox-esque approach is certainly attractive, more functionality can be derived if thumbnails were used instead. You can create a page with thumbnails and allow each thumbnail to pop-up the larger-res image in the lightbox window.

[david.p.livingston]

I agree on the colors, Great choice with a blue and brown however either darken the brown or make the blue a bit more vibrant, as they look slightly off to my eyes. I would darken the brown personally which would in turn make the galleries more pronounced.

I think your galleries are very well done, and the ease of use was actually very good. Navigating from photo to photo, and from set to set was very easy, and not annoying like some sites.

A few things though, your fashion section pops up when you hover your mouse over it, unlike the rest which darken. I like this in a way, but it also makes me want to look at that first, and makes it seem much more important than the rest. If you want that, then by all means keep it, but in my opinion it should be a bit more subtle. As it is now, it jumps in front of another gallery.

And also, there is very little separation between your front page "objects" (hard to put into words) but I would like to see the bottom section ( about me, clients, news, etc.) be more separated from the above galleries. Maybe with a black border, or some type of drop shadow to give the page some depth.

I don't have any web design experience, but I hope this helps some. I think its a good setup, and will be really nice once its tweaked a bit.

David

I veiwed it on Firefox, and my screen resolution is 1280x800. I didn't notice any jagged lines, the pictures were beautiful on my screen??

[benjid]

ahh I didn't test it on windows before I launched. I am working on fixing the code now. Too bad I suck at coding.

I am also working on fixing the jaggies. I will see what I can do.

Thanks for all the help guys. Really means a lot!

[Junior's G7]

I happen to disagree with some here about the colors - I love the blue and brown together. I think it works perfectly. EDIT: after my second viewing, I think you could take the brown up just a bit lighter.

I would remove the News section from the front page, though - it clashes dimensionally, proportionately, stylistically, and in just about every other way. Have a link to it on the front page, but don't display it there.

I agree that an option for thumbnails is essential. You can make it a link, rather than having to use it, but give viewers that option.

The only other thing I would recommend from the few minutes I spent there would be to somehow fix the position of the >> buttons we use to advance to the next photograph. It would be less distracting if you could click on the same spot on each page, rather than having to chase the moving button to advance slides.

Great stuff there, though! Looking good.

[DozerLYP]

the only thing I didn't like, is the way your gallery display the pictures and the fact they are different size, made me look for the arrow that keep moving places with the images.

[Alorien]

Only thing that I really didnt like was the light blue on the brown,


I think the blue takes attention away from your photos since it jumps out from the brown.


(edit: Blue and brown are my two favorite colors together, you should see how I had my bedroom room designed <3 )

[avantreverse]

I like the clean design but I think the color needs a little tweaking.

[SF Lights]

I suggest making the top part of the main page into some kind of splash page, something that has the galleries option, and then a link to the main page (the blue section). Those two sections clash a lot, so you should either try to redesign your menu system or make them into two seperate templates.

[Balliolman]

The wedding section is too dark. The side by side shots conflict.

[ThomGascoigne]

Ok

Takes too long to load.
I dont like the heading at the top " Benjamin Dell Photography with number and email " First 5 photos all good but dont like Fashion much.
Brown with blue works well.
I dont like the colour of your first name though that is a bit out of place.
I would use the same brown as "dell"
About me, Client login, blog etc should be below news and above your copyright.
I don't like how the news section is white.
Portrait photo is taking way to long to load and I don't like how it loads onto a new page. However once loaded it's not going to badly. Have you thought about giving the option of having thumbnails as-well? Can be useful when someone is in a hurry. Or they have a slow internet connection.
I'm finding it a painful process to look through all your photos, Dont get me wrong I like your shots. Just not the way they are displayed.


I think you should have the first photo shown as the link picture.

All in all pretty nice job but yeah I think the biggest thing is the lack of thumbnails. I know it's more arty farty and nice to have them load like they are but being inpatient is a big thing when looking for a photography online.

[400dabuser]

I liked it, apart from the fact, that loading some pictures took a while to come up