Pet Photography Website -- Your Critiques Wanted!

[Adam Jones]

http://www.anthonyhelton.com

Hey all,

This has been a side project several months in the making. Please let me know what you think -- good or bad! While the site is live, I haven't begun marketing yet, so nothing is sacred!

One quick note: the image in the "About" section is a placeholder that will be replaced with one of my dog and I.

Thanks for all your thoughts and time -- I really appreciate it!

[chrispychicken]

Nice site, much better than lots I've looked at. You could pretty easily improve the HTML gallery to more or less mimic the flash gallery with some newer CSS features. I'd also suggest wrapping the thumbnails in anchor tags, as right now there's no visual feedback to indicate that clicking on the thumbnails will actually change the photo. Also, not sure what size the images are, but they're loading very slowly for me (in the HTML gallery).

[Mike]

HTML gallery loaded very quickly for me. Agree about the anchor tags though.

Lovely site and even lovelier photos

[Roostonmylens]

Oh wow! Never really seen a pet photog website, but this one is brilliant!

Only suggestion I can make is perhaps try a different font other thank Arial (I think) for your menu titles.

Very nice And Love the photography too.

[tman2782]

Nice design, simple layout, easy navigation.

My only pet peeve would be the fixed width. The fixed width is too big and at my work PC with a 1280x1024 your site throws me a scroll bar for width.

Another issue I had was your blog link opens in the same window and is a whole different standalone website it would seem, so you have duplicate content which I'm sure would not only be a pain to keep updated but also a mess waiting to happen (especially when you're talking important specifics like prices).

I'd keep one main site with all your details and use the other strictly as a blog with any other links leading back to your main site. This way opening in the same window wouldn't matter and the blog would seem 'integrated'. (But I'd theme it to match your site)

[Hikin Mike]

Not everybody has a large/wide monitor. I had to scroll to see your whole site. Kind of annoying, really.

[Adam Jones]

Originally Posted by chrispychicken

Nice site, much better than lots I've looked at. You could pretty easily improve the HTML gallery to more or less mimic the flash gallery with some newer CSS features. I'd also suggest wrapping the thumbnails in anchor tags, as right now there's no visual feedback to indicate that clicking on the thumbnails will actually change the photo. Also, not sure what size the images are, but they're loading very slowly for me (in the HTML gallery).

First off, thanks for taking the time to look and comment! I'll have to look into those CSS features you mentioned. Anywhere you can point me to to get started? I wrote the thumbnail gallery code awhile ago so I can't remember exactly the reasoning why, but I think was having issues with the anchor tags. I agree with the sentiment though and will look into that again. As for the images, they're a bit on the large side -- approximately 350kb. I'd like to bring down the size, but I'm very leery of compression artifacting. I'm probably going to reduce the size a bit. Slow loading is the kiss of death!

Originally Posted by Mike

HTML gallery loaded very quickly for me. Agree about the anchor tags though.

Lovely site and even lovelier photos

Duly noted. Thanks, Mike!

Originally Posted by Roostonmylens

Oh wow! Never really seen a pet photog website, but this one is brilliant!

Only suggestion I can make is perhaps try a different font other thank Arial (I think) for your menu titles.

Very nice And Love the photography too.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by tman2782

Nice design, simple layout, easy navigation.

My only pet peeve would be the fixed width. The fixed width is too big and at my work PC with a 1280x1024 your site throws me a scroll bar for width.

Another issue I had was your blog link opens in the same window and is a whole different standalone website it would seem, so you have duplicate content which I'm sure would not only be a pain to keep updated but also a mess waiting to happen (especially when you're talking important specifics like prices).

I'd keep one main site with all your details and use the other strictly as a blog with any other links leading back to your main site. This way opening in the same window wouldn't matter and the blog would seem 'integrated'. (But I'd theme it to match your site)

I've been meaning to have the blog open in a new tab. *Adds to to-do list*. Thank you!

Originally Posted by Hikin Mike

Not everybody has a large/wide monitor. I had to scroll to see your whole site. Kind of annoying, really.

Come on Mike, it's 2011! (joking, obviously) This has been a sticky subject since I started working on the site. I think you and tman are completely correct, though -- I need to be able to dynamically resize the site based on the browser window size. Previously I just wanted to get the thing up and running...now that that's done, I'll work on scaling. (I started today, in fact)

Thanks again, everyone! I really appreciate it.

[Hikin Mike]

It would be an "easy" fix. I would shrink your logo and put it on your header, to the left of your nav stuff. That would free up some extra room. Then remove the fix width stuff and make it 'auto'.

FWIW, my monitor 1024 x 768 and computer are nearly 10 years old. Unfortunately I can't afford to upgrade.

[tman2782]

Anthony, as a fix for the widths, be sure to use percentage values in your widths, then use max and min-width properties to keep it from shrinking or expansing too much.

Try some of the available grid layouts or make your own simple one, this works really well.

[cacawcacaw]

"Lastly, I will do my absolute best to bring you fantastic images of you and your pet that you will always cherish!"

That sells it for me - great copy!

I don't know why but I always (this is the second time I've looked at your site) want to click on Live, Laugh, and Fetch and see where it will bring me. Big disappointment that there's nothing there.

Don't make me choose between an HTML gallery and a Flash gallery! I've been using personal computers for over thirty years and I still wonder what I'll miss out on by choosing one over the other. Less experienced computer users will be dumbfounded at the choice. If you need to make a distinction, it should be automated.

[Adam Jones]

Back from the dead! Just a quick update that I finally got around to implementing some of the suggestions made in this thread, and I'm very happy to have done so! Thanks, everyone!

http://www.anthonyhelton.com

[cacawcacaw]

I still like your images! But, I still want to click on "Live. Laugh. Fetch."

The galleries seem to take a while to load but the photos are worth the wait. And, saying "Investment" instead of "Prices" - well that's just nails-on-a-chalkboard to me. I've sat through too many sales pitches in my lifetime to appreciate the cleverness.

Fantastic photos.

[Adam Jones]

Originally Posted by cacawcacaw

I still like your images! But, I still want to click on "Live. Laugh. Fetch."

The galleries seem to take a while to load but the photos are worth the wait. And, saying "Investment" instead of "Prices" - well that's just nails-on-a-chalkboard to me. I've sat through too many sales pitches in my lifetime to appreciate the cleverness.

Fantastic photos.

I had forgotten all about your comment on wanting to click the tagline, didn't re-read it until updating the thread. I think it's a fun idea, and I may do something with it in the future. I tried to downscale the images, but they're still a decent size -- ~200kb each. I'll definitely keep that in mind and will re-evaluate whether I need to make them smaller. Thanks also on the investment vs "pricing" comment...something else to keep in mind.

As always, thanks so much for taking the time to comment! I really appreciate it.

[skooba]

Love it, everything loaded very quickly for me. Using Firefox on a macbook pro, 1280x800

[tstevely]

Gorgeous!!!!