I am building a new site for a client and need your help to make it looks less straight-lined/boxy.
I am already making the header graphic full page width for 1024res but need ideas on colours. Those here are from their present-day site but, I want to convey more of a feeling for their premises. So I need a combination of colours which say high-quality, bright, airy, spacious, contemporary.
I was thinking of a few but, when put together they don't 'say' those keywords.
Bazz
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"The day you stop learning is the day you become obsolete"! - my late Dad.
too much bright and sharp colour for my taste, if you're going to be showing a lot of full colour pics like that, I'd want to keep the rest of the site muted and sober, and try and keep the pictures either seperated or montaged together and retouched to have the same sorts of hues, brightnesses, contrast
less is more I guess
as for boxy and straight lines, I see what you worrying about, I don't have a design bone inmy body but some strong and clean text should help to draw the eye away form the lines and boxes, again more sober colours that go together will stop it the different parts of the page jumping out from each other, a few sites that show symapthetic pallettes of web friendly colours I think
I see what you mean about blending the colours more. They are a bit stark. I guess I'll put togather the new header and see what colours are in it, so that I can use simlilar ones in the page.
Bazz
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"The day you stop learning is the day you become obsolete"! - my late Dad.
1) the header should extend the entire width of the site.
A good solution for this is to create a simple background image that can be set as the cells background (repeated), then place your header on top of it. This will remove the grey backing to the right of the header.
2) there are too many pastels on the site. A good website should only use 3 colours max. Then different shades of those colours for mouse over effects or background matting.
One suggestion i would have it pulling a scheme from your header image.
I've noticed you like blue, so a sugestion of te colour scheme would be:
#4FCBD6, #9FAFFF, and #FFFFE5.
That would be two similar blues with the pale yellow.
3) I would get rid of the purple backing on the menu, also set the border width of the menu items to '1px' (it appears like you've done that, but because cells touch the borders get doubled between menu items.
see how after the first cell you leave out the top border, this will ensure all menu items will have the same border thickness for top,left,bottom,right
4) The 'Welcome' messages acrossed the top of the page look too much like links. Two possible solutions for this would be:
i) change the layout of that cell such that they do not resemble links (maybe by adding a marquee effect).
ii) Actually make them links, pointing to your home page. this will be easy to understand as Welcome would signify 'Home' to the user after first view of the page.
5) the dynamic menu items (with sub menus) do not go away imidiatly after i mouse off them, this is not a huge issue but a little annoying (IMHO)
6) the dynamic menu items overlap the main section, this is only a problem because the main sections bg colour and the menu cell borders are the same colour. Again, i'm just nit picking here but it's a little annoying to me.
7) the menu 'hugs' the left side of the page, this is not wrong. but it does look a little funny to me.
maybe just rmeoving the left side border would work.... making the menu appear as if it is comming from the left side, not hugging it.
all this is just personal opinion. Please feel free not to listen to any of it as we all have our personal preferences when it comes to design.
other than the points listed above, good looking layout.
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public string ConjunctionJunction(string words, string phrases, string clauses)
{
return (String)(words + phrases + clauses);
}
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specifically, I have wondered about so many colors and so I am focussing on the menu just now.
The menu does need cosmetic work done. I have considered removing the background color but it breaks the menu into two sections. I can;t think of a way around so help with that would be very good.
I have a new schemme off line so I'll put it up so we can both be looking at the same hash
Bazz
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