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Eric Rose
30-Apr-2007, 15:01
thoughtful suggestions are appreciated. still some formating to do and loads of images to upload, but the sucker is running at least.

Thanks,

Eric

www.ericrose.com

Marko
30-Apr-2007, 15:08
Eric,

I do have a few remarks, if you don't mind:

1. Gray text on purple background is not very readable. I suspect many people will have problems with that combination.

2. Your menu is really small. You may want to consider making it a bit more prominent. It is also almost impossible to read the words until you mouseover because of the same color combination as above.

3. Why use frames? They make proper bookmarking, navigation and printing a nightmare and they do not provide any benefit in return.

My criticism stops there - I really like your images. :)

photographs42
30-Apr-2007, 15:17
1. Opening screen, it isn’t obvious where to start.
2. Bio: I think it is odd that this is written in third person. If you wrote it, why not use first person?
3. Landscape Gallery: Two of the five aren’t landscapes??
4. The gray text on the purple background is a little hard for me to read.

It’s a good start. The comments above are just first blush reactions. Please take them for what they are.
Keep up the good work.
Jerome

Ken Lee
30-Apr-2007, 15:42
To be more specific about frames. Let's say you want to bookmark a particular image that you like. How can we do it on the current site ? Every page is loaded with the same URL.

Nowadays, the average monitor resolution is 1024x768 or more. Perhaps you have yours set to a lower setting, so things look fairly readable. Graphics professionals and photographers tend to have good equipment, so things will look really small on their nice high-res monitors. (Alas, one of the problems with current internet standards, there is no way to fully control the appearance of such things.)

Also, some of your content runs to the extreme left and right of each page. You might want to introduce some margins. For a good example, see this forum: the left and right sides are always empty. Your bio page doesn't suffer from this, but your workshops and contact pages do.

Your menu items (home, bio, contact, etc) "bounce" up and down from page to page, depending on how much text is on a given page. You might want to "anchor" them to the top or side, so that they stay put, while the rest of the page changes. It makes things easier to find, and lets the mind focus more on your real content.

I like the indigo color, but perhaps a less saturated version, a bit darker, would be more readable. It's elegant, but if you want the letters to look like silver, they need to be the lighter shade, while the indigo becomes the darker shade. That will make the silver look more... silvery.

Keep goin', the style and the feel is definitely there, and it's very tasteful. You just need to remove the small distractions.

You should also put your photo on your site. It's easy to see that you are a warm person from your photo, and it adds good vibes.

Scott Knowles
30-Apr-2007, 16:44
Ok, since you ask, my $.02.

I would eliminate the frames and go with tables throughout the Website, and consider using css for all the pages to make it easier to design and update (I only saw them on the galleries).

I would enlarge the navigation and anchor it in one location throughout all the pages. People tend to want to see them in the same area on Web pages once they see where they are. And the galleries don't have them except home or the back button.

I would use the white letters on purple instead of gray on purple. The gray almost disappers to make reading hard.

Is the explanation necessary with the photo galleries? Why not make it a link on the specific gallery page where people can read if interested.

Some links, such as "stock", isn't hyperlinked, and some, such as "bio", is broken on some Webpages.

I would make the biography personal and first person. It's your Website and photos, say that. And consider some explanation about your equipment capturing the images. Some just like to know.

Aside from that? Well, good luck. I like the images, especially Coos Bay since I used to stop there on the road with the USGS.

Chris Strobel
30-Apr-2007, 17:01
Eric, not a criticism, just a heads up.I notice in your b&w section under still lifes, the 3rd image on the right I can see where you burned in the darker flowers on the black background.This is on my somewhat calibrated artisan crt.Otherwise nice image.

matthew blais
30-Apr-2007, 21:48
Color chices are subjective, so I won't comment there. The images are most important, and you have very nice ones, so the only thing I would do is maybe combine the commentary when you click on a gallery is to go straight to thumbnails with the commentary on the side. Save a page and a step for viewers.

Get people to the images as quick as possible.

Good luck,
Matt

Eric James
30-Apr-2007, 22:16
...maybe combine the commentary when you click on a gallery is to go straight to thumbnails with the commentary on the side. Save a page and a step for viewers.

Get people to the images as quick as possible.

Good luck,
Matt

I agree.

I like the color scheme but the font size combined with the lack of contrast makes surfing a challenge. I would encourage you to: 1) increase the font size on the page links, 2) lighten the grey (or change the grey to white and change the mouse over to grey), and 3) darken the lavender and cornflower blue.

Things like home page links on the home page serve no real purpose, other than to frustrate the surfer. And one more constructive point: Your photos are great, but it's hard to tell from the homepage layout. I would encourage you to make a bolder statement up front to entice your visitors to explore.

It's certainly a great start and the images are very nice!

I'd like to know why Ken (and perhaps others) likes more space on the left.

Marko
30-Apr-2007, 22:22
I'd like to know why Ken (and perhaps others) likes more space on the left.

It's called "white space" and it helps both lead the eye while reading along the line of text AND stop it when it reaches the end. It also helps define and separate blocks of content. Many designers consider it one of the most important design elements.

Eric James
30-Apr-2007, 22:28
It's called "white space" and it helps both lead the eye while reading along the line of text AND stop it when it reaches the end. It also helps define and separate blocks of content. Many designers consider it one of the most important design elements.

Thank you Marko.

Have I totally screwed up my site by positioning images in the upper left? In the way-to-distant future I hope to have detailed captions on the right of the photos, so the positioning was intended to be more balance, eventually.

I just reread Ken's comment - perhaps he was referring to text content - I can see this.

Marko
30-Apr-2007, 22:37
Have I totally screwed up my site by positioning images in the upper left? In the way-to-distance future I hope to have detailed captions on the right of the photos, so the positioning was intended to be more balance, eventually.

I just reread Ken's comment - perhaps he was referring to text content - I can see this.

What Ken is referring to is not leaving almost any margin or padding at the left or right, with text flowing to and from the very edge of the window.

I think you have enough space there and the idea about detailed captions on the right sounds good to me, as long as the resulting block of text is visually smaller and lighter than the image itself.

Eric James
30-Apr-2007, 22:42
Thanks again good sir!

Now back to Eric R's page:)

www.ericrose.com

Marko
1-May-2007, 08:53
All of this chatter is applicable to Eric's page too! :)

Robert Hughes
1-May-2007, 10:33
A couple comments on links in your gallery:

- clicking on "Fine Art Black & White" turns up a 404 error,
- clicking on "Stock" does nothing,
- clicking on "Underwater" turns up another 404 error.

You might want to check your links. But the site looks fine, I can read it without problem.

Greg Miller
1-May-2007, 11:30
I agree with the suggestion to make the images available without going to the text page first. People will be on your site to view images. Don't make it hard to do that. While the text may be interesting, it is not my primary interest.

I also really hate the double chevron as the link to the images. I did not even notice it until I searched for a while. And it's placement below the nav links did not help either. You may want to consider something more obvious, like a button that says "images".

Eric Rose
5-May-2007, 10:30
Well I think I have fixed most of the issues. My target market is not my fellow photographers but collectors and galleries so that might have shifted my thoughts on a few of the comments.

I do appreciate all your input. This website is a transitional one as I move to my final site that I hope to have up and running within the next several months.