for the contest Web design for Washers, Inc.
Submitted design #21
based on a 960 grid system (12 rows). 2 Column layout. great for subpages to.
Looking forword for some C&C
Whoops @ large black gap at the bottom, it shouldn't be in there. Sorry about that.
V1: Thank you very much for your design! Unfortunately, I'm having problems getting the large .png to display on my compuer. I'll have to try again from home. Stupid Windows machine, I miss my Mac.
I'll be giving you comments based on what I can see from the pop-up, but I'll try and give you more details when I get home.
#21: I really can't see much in the pop-up, but what I can tell is that the login box can go away. Since we haven't completed that part of the website yet, I would rather have a link to it for now. Also, the search box is VERY prominent on the page. I would just have an unobtrusive text input box that says "Search" in it somewhere in the header or menu.
The badge (Web 2.0 type) can go away, but we might bring it back with something more related to our business. Our name and logo are not very well represented on the design. It's tough to identify us from a brief glance. Let's try to incorporate that into the design.
Also, we repair and maintain the machines, so let's try and incorporate the mouse (animal research) and the wrench or water in some way.
Those should be enough to start, but I need to take a closer look at your design when I get home. I will probably have more comments for you later!
We look forward to your revisions!
Submitted design #47
There where some problems with full previews, because one of the static servers of 99 designs was down.
Based on your comments I have some improvements. Hopefully they are goin in the right direction.
Deleted the login, and moved it to the menu. And placed a small search box behind the menu.
Also deleted the badge, this can be replaced maby with a nice service icon or something like that.
"Our name and logo are not very well represented on the design. It's tough to identify us from a brief glance."
In what ways are u thinking about that. The name of the company present allot in the content, and i thought the main focus of the website was to show what services u where offering, so i placed allot (more) attention on that now. After all its the services that the people are interested in, not the brand. (dont get me wrong here, im just trying the explain it a bit)
"Also, we repair and maintain the machines, so let's try and incorporate the mouse (animal research) and the wrench or water in some way."
Included water drops in the design, the header was great place to incorperate it. I have placed the mouse near the services and it's looking at it ^_^ and as u might notice i have included the holy wrench :P.
If im going in to the right direction, please do tell so. I know my design is different compared to others. But i hope u like it allot more with these improvements.
V1,
Your design is definitely different than the mainstream type designs here! And we very much appreciate that someone is willing to go a different direction! (Just between you and me, my wife likes the darker designs anyway...)
I really like your menu bar. It's simple and VERY attractive! The only comment that I would say is that I have to LOOK at your menu bar to see what tab I'm on. Let's try making the active tab a color (green or blue with the white text still with the arrow) so I just have to GLANCE at it.
Also can we list our actual services in the box? They are listed in the brief. I'd like to see how they fit. Make them links too.
That text that starts with "Providing high-end..." Let's make that a little easier to read. Let's either make it bold or increase the text size (or both). The bubbles look great, but make the text a little hard to read. Some of the other designers used water that looked like a level in a glass. That might work well with your design near the menu bar.. almost like the design was filling up! That would make the text easier to read in #47.
What are the Service 1 & Service 2 placeholders for? Is that clickable? What was your intention with that. The text in the box, can we have one picture on one side and another pictur on the other. Let's also stick a header statement on those paragraphs in design #47.
I like the dark part of the design and understand the idea of having the contrasting white, but when you do the redesign, could I see an all dark design. The box in the lower right still allows separation, but it might look REALLY nice in all dark colors with the white/blue text.
I would like to see two versions one just like #47 and another all dark with the revisions included (both including the revisions)
#47 is still a four star design! We really like it and it's very close to our first five star design! We look forward to seeing your revisions! We're very impressed with your design skills and look forward to seeing more!!
I have add the services to the list. Also gave the last item a hover preview.
Made the current position allot more noticable, It really stands out more now. Nice green :)
I have been searching for a replacement image, but im currently unable to find a GOOD and suitable image, Ill be browsing around some more stocksites tomorrow searching for a glass like image. In the meanwhile, i have made the text bold, and add a little dark blue glow around the text to make it stand out more.
About services 1 & 2, I was thinking them as a little tab menu, allowing users to switch between 2 dif content. I'm an Ajax developer my self (Adobe Spry Community Expert to be exact) So This would be easly coded with my knowledge. So yes they are clickable.
I have changed the 2 text to why washers inc and services information. I have put the 2 images on both sides of the design, initially i had them both on a side, and content in the middle, but this made the text long and narrow and had a negative effect on it.
Submitted design #67
revisions normal
Submitted design #68
dark version
Ok, I like the darker version. I think that it flows better than the high contrast white. What do you think? I'm going to eliminate #67 as a result.
We really like the design, but I'm still struggling with the layout. This design graphically is near the top, but layout wise, we need to figure out a better way to do it.
What can we do with AJAX? I'm not really familiar with it. Are you able to creat tabs for all of our services? It might look cool if we had headings for all of our services where the "Why Washer's Inc." is now and moved the "Why Washers Inc." up to where the services are, or make it a second entry in the introduction area.
I need some help on the organization and what AJAX can do. Please PM me with some suggestions. If we can nail this organization issue, we're going to have one of the top two designs!
I need your suggestions!
I have PM'd u about ajax, i can show u some examples of my ajax coding if u want ofcourse. I am able to create it code it all.
When im not doing freelance work, i'm buzy with managing and developing my boss his website (www.hotels.nl) I created the search page, wich will allow users to reduce the size of the results dynamicly based on ajax filters options. This is all done with out having to reload the page. With the new system im currently developing there will be a speed incresement of 20%. But aside of that,
As i prev. said, I'm also an Adobe Community for Spry. This is an ajax framework created by adobe dreamweaver team.
about the framework: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/
little preview: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/home.html
demo's : http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/demos/
*quote box of the hompage is done great*
And the suggestion about swapping the services with why washers inc is a great idea, i will change that asap. This will improve it allot. And it would still have the 2 colum layout that can be applied to sub-pages as well.
Submitted design #88
I tryed to use a vertical tab system instead of horizontal. The problem was that the service's where to long, so u had to little space for content.
So i was forced to create a hoziontal tab system. An accordion would be to an option to, but i think this turned out rather nice for the front page.
Submitted design #111
Small changes to the tabbed menu, Removed some clutter, and i thought if we put it all in the tabs, there would not be any use for a service page =/
Submitted design #116
Drop down? Just some idea's let me know what u think of them. I do like the black with blue roll overs.
Submitted design #117
Sorry about the Entry spamming, but in previouse comments, u wanted to make it look like a half filled glass. So i went working on this idea bit when i found a good stock image.
This is the result. I actually like it.. allot.
So do I... so do I... Right now I'm debating this one very hard... stay tuned... ;o)
=D, i allready made some small changes to the water, i made it a bit darker blue, so it matches more with the blue it self. Ill submit one with black drop down to. and ill try to fix the header a bit more.
Submitted design #129
With the last small changes, colors and a bit better placement of elements.
One last thing, I wish allot of luck with picking out your design. It must be rather hard with so much submissions.
May the best man win, If u have any comments, feel free to ask. Thanks for all the feed back :) I think this would be my final design.
Best of luck to U and your crew and your wife who links dark designs ;) *hint* :P