self built website critique

Hi everyone,

By no means am I a web designer, for a little while I've known how to make websites in photoshop then slice them up. Super easy, but takes to long to load, so over the past two days I've been learning to make them with .css, I've always had trouble with the layout (not so much the rest of .css stuff).

It would be super awesome if everyone could tell me what they think, keep in mind I want to do commercial work, but with youth culture themed. I do events to, mostly live music. I didn't know any flash either but I learnt how to do the thing on my index page just for it.

There are a couple things I'm specifically interested in hearing about which is no link to home page and the navigation. Do you like or dislike the positioning? And finally how you feel about the horizontal scrolling portfolio and how I've broken up the two sections.

TLDR; I spend a couple days learning .css, it would be cool if you could tell me what you think. Particularly regarding the way I've designed the navigation and the fact there's no home page link.

Well, we need a link of SOME kind to locate it!

Haha wow, that's so bad of me. My bad!
http://www.callumbrigh​t.com/

Pretty good! Fix your spelling errors first - infront isn't one word, it's 2, and it's learned, not learnt (no such word). I like your quick image shifts on your first page and the slider works OK too! On your "Folio" image page, on my screen (in Firefox), I had to scroll down to get to your horizontal slider - if you shrink thinks up vertically a bit it'd all fit on one screen.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a terrible speller. I bet there will even be plenty of mistakes in this message! But I do try haha. I think I need to start copy/pasting my web stuff into word to spell check first.. Thank you very much for pointing that out.

May I ask what your screen resolution is? I think from memory anything bigger than 1024x786 (if that's what it is, just going off memory) should be a no vertical scroll situation. Is that what you're reffering to, the whole site you need to scroll down to be able to use the horizontal scroll bar?

Thanks again for the solid feedback.

My screen is set at 1280x800. (Maybe it's my problem, not yours??). And yes, that's what I meant, I had to scroll down on your Folio page to get to the slider. Actually, the images on all screens extend down below the bottom edge of my screen, but there's nothing there anyway so nothing to scroll down for. Although there IS a scroll bar there in case I have to do so.

Ah I see, I think I know what it might be. You probably have more stuff in your internet browser header thing. Because I tested with my browser and anything larger than 1024x786 was fine. I'll deffintely have to think about making it smaller, I kinda like the bigish images but I don't want scrolling :P

CallumPhoto wrote in post #11462004
Hi everyone,

By no means am I a web designer, for a little while I've known how to make websites in photoshop then slice them up. Super easy, but takes to long to load, so over the past two days I've been learning to make them with .css, I've always had trouble with the layout (not so much the rest of .css stuff).

CSS doesn't have a dot in front of it

Personally I find it awkward not having a link to the home page. If its so unimportant that you don't want to link to it, why have it in the first place? Also, the same photos from the home page appear in your (rather brief) portfolio. So I'd figure a way to make your portfolio into our home page, and get rid of your current home page.

The navigation otherwise works fine for me.

Become friendly with the validator at http://validator.w3.or​g/ it will help you spot errors in your html and css.

Dave

Your background image says "Wedding Photography" to me, definitely not 'Youth Culture' or 'Music + Events'. I'm also not a fan of the horizontal scrolling. You might read my SEO for the Photographer in my sig.

tracknut wrote in post #11462850
CSS doesn't have a dot in front of it

Personally I find it awkward not having a link to the home page. If its so unimportant that you don't want to link to it, why have it in the first place? Also, the same photos from the home page appear in your (rather brief) portfolio. So I'd figure a way to make your portfolio into our home page, and get rid of your current home page.

...

Become friendly with the validator at http://validator.w3.or​g/ it will help you spot errors in your html and css.

Dave

Yeah I think I'm going to add a home page link, I think it feels wrong to. It's also and oppotunity to put my name in my website, maybe it would be more memorable that.

I didn't think photos from my home page being in my portfolio would be an issue? Plenty of photographers do it, but I guess they all have much larger folios across more catagories.

I'll check out validator

Thank you heaps!

Hikin Mike wrote in post #11464407
Your background image says "Wedding Photography" to me, definitely not 'Youth Culture' or 'Music + Events'. I'm also not a fan of the horizontal scrolling. You might read my SEO for the Photographer in my sig.

Fair call on the background, originally when designing the site I was trying to get away from it but I found solid colours as backgrounds didnt look as good as I had hoped. Do you have any suggestions or examples, I'm deffintely going to look into a new background.

Thanks Mike.

I prefer solid colors myself so it doesn't compete with the pictures. Black is always a good choice, as well as white or gray.

I had another go at solid colours, what do you all think of this?
http://www.callumbrigh​t.com/

What message is my website sending to everyone? I'm curious to know what I'm saying with it.
As it's probably not exactly what I'm trying to say.

The site is messaging:
You don't offer any services.
You've never had any paid gigs
You're young

Nothing wrong with those if that's your intent for the site.

If you want to offer (say) portrait services you would need to build a portfolio of pics that are examples that, and show and tell me on your site why I should consider hiring you.

Frugal wrote in post #11474367
The site is messaging:
You don't offer any services.
You've never had any paid gigs
You're young

Nothing wrong with those if that's your intent for the site.

If you want to offer (say) portrait services you would need to build a portfolio of pics that are examples that, and show and tell me on your site why I should consider hiring you.

I'm 18 so saying I'm young is no lie, I don't know if I should try to mask this or not? I've only just started to get paying gigs, done 3 got one more to do soon but I was actually trying to make it sound like I'm more professional than I am haha.

Thanks for your view on it, do you have any suggestions to appear more professional? To help I want to do commercial photography specifically in my style, well what I've delevoped of it so far. Which is more youth culture sorta stuff, there is a market for it. And probably events stuff too, are those two not compatible? I don't wanna sound like the photographer who does sports, weddings, maternity, dog portraiture, passport photos, commercial, functions, ect haha.

It's good for your website to be business-like and professional. I think that you're probably under-selling yourself on your site. Just be clear with clients what your experience level is when you accept a job.

I see youth culture as your style and your target market but not what you actually sell. So think what people may want to buy from you. Pictures of themselves with a youth culture style. Youth culture art. Pictures of events with a youth culture style. etc.... whatever it is and list those services on your site.

Add several pics of each service that you're offering.

Google youth culture art and get some ideas of what others are offering

Also add some information about you - things that will make young people want to do business with you. Right now you are "faceless" on your site.

The web is full of sites that have just a portfolio and contact info. Don't be another one if you want to be in business and make money.

HTH