A website critique please!

Matt-P

Matt-P

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Matt
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I've been updating my website over the last couple of months, more as a hobby and learning exercise, and I've got to the point where I'm happy with it. It's only been my perspective up to here though so I would really appreciate any constructive comments or suggestions from a wider audience as to what works and what doesn't.

The site's here at Matt Perrins Photography.

The current purpose of the site is simply an online presence to show family and friends my recent photos, though if my photography ever became good enough in the future it may be the foundation for a few image sales.

Let me know what you think :)
 
Matt-P said:
I've been updating my website over the last couple of months, more as a hobby and learning exercise, and I've got to the point where I'm happy with it. It's only been my perspective up to here though so I would really appreciate any constructive comments or suggestions from a wider audience as to what works and what doesn't.

The site's here at Matt Perrins Photography.

The current purpose of the site is simply an online presence to show family and friends my recent photos, though if my photography ever became good enough in the future it may be the foundation for a few image sales.

Let me know what you think :)
Click to expand...


Not bad.

I feel the heading text could be improved with a heavier font, as it currently looks very pixelated.

Personally I'm not a fan of boxed layouts and that grey background looks a bit dated.

The opening text "
Welcome to Matt Perrins Photography

Hello and welcome to my photography website, I hope you take the time to look around and see some photos that you like. The gallery pages feature the very best of my photographs grouped into the main themes of my photography, Animal Photos, Landscape Photos and Everything Else! The Blog pages are more recent postings of news, photo trips and random thoughts that may prove of interest.

All the photos are regularly updated, and new galleries will appear as I photographs new subjects and locations, so please feel free to visit often to see new work."


Is full of stuff that's pretty much a given, but I aprecciate it's for family and sometimes they need a lot more guidance than the general internet audience.
 
Thanks Ben, some good points. Will have a look at the heading, funny how you don't spot this stuff until someone points it out, then it's all you can notice! There are a few background options in the theme I may explore as well.

Thanks again:thumbs:
 
Spotted a couple of typos on the home page:

Nikon 70-200 and TC20 Teleconvertor

I’ve been looking for a while to get a bit more reach since moving to full frame as comapred to […]
Click to expand...

Text/background contrast does not meet accessibility standards.
 
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Thanks Craig - I can't replicate that one so will have to do a bit of digging

Thanks Jez - Typos amended and currently looking into accessibility standards
 
Hi Matt,

I think the site overall is great.

My first impression was that the loading time was a bit long.

I love the full width image slider at the top

I love your choice of Museo for the font selection for your logo (I used Museo for one of my own brands a while ago and absolutely love it)

I love how you have a simple text introduction that tells people who you are and what you do

Galleries and recent posts on the home page are great. However when I try to click on the photo of the gallery to go to that specific gallery, I can't just click on the image or the word, I have to click on the little link icon in the middle - I would probably change it so that you can click anywhere on the image to take you to that gallery.

I really like on the galleries page how the different aspect ratio photos are arrange and how they all line up. Very cool, haven't seen that before.

All in all, great site.
 
Thanks Luke for taking the time to post such detailed comments, I'm glad you like the site. I changed the homepage around in light of Ben's comments and ended up liking the new version best, so thanks Ben.

I do agree about the loading times, I'm still experimenting to find the right balance of JPG quality vs speed.

I'll also have a look at the links - now you point it out it would be easier.

Thanks again
 
First impressions is I really like it, the design is very professional and well finished. It runs fast on my computer at home (although it's 60Mb Cable) and the pagination is tight.

My only negative, and it's purely a personal point of view, is the borders around the photographs. I'm not quite sure what it is but something doesn't seem right about them, they can look good on some photos but not on others. Perhaps it's because it's a bevel type border and both the smaller images and larger ones are using the same framing dimensions? Would love to see what it would look like with a small subtle solid border with no shadow :)

Loving the big cat photos, some really good stuff in there!
 
I like that site the way it flows and look is this a theme for wordpress as i think i looked at this theme the other day ?
 
Thanks Gman and Joe.

I'll have a look at the borders and try a few alternatives. It's great to get feedback like that, and the rest on this thread, the site's moved on a lot to the how it was when I posted at the top of this thread and it's all the better for it.

The theme I'm using is called Avada from Themeforest, then I've added a few plugins to get the look I wanted, mainly NextGen to run the galleries and Justified Image Grid to present them.
 
Responsive too which is fantastic.

I really like the look and feel of the site. It's professional, and more importantly, modern.

Have you used html5 and css3?
 
Wordpress :)
 
I like it Matt :).

If I had to criticize on something it would be that perhaps there's a bit too much content on the front page.

Well done :).
 
Thanks for the feedback Barry, Jackie and John :thumbs:

Dale's right - all done in Wordpress with theme and a few plugins. I've tried a quick change to the homepage to reduce the size of the articles - I think the portrait imagaes were making for a long page (now I've just got to get the thumbnail cropping sorted....:))

[And as an added bonus it gave me an increase in page load speed - Thanks!]
 
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