re vamp of web site

Sorry but it looks a bit amateurish. The plain grey background and text style seem rather basic.

Considering the templates that are free to use available on the net you could have something a lot better.
 
It is too wide for my 13" laptop screen on Chrome, I have to scroll, never good. That aside, as the previous poster, I am afraid it just looks way too dated and old fashioned to be attractive. The thumbnails in the galleries are too small, can barely see them.
Sorry Chaz, really not for me. Maybe you should look at using something like wordpress or joomla to create something more modern and attractive to your viewers.
 
Yv said:
It is too wide for my 13" laptop screen on Chrome, I have to scroll, never good. That aside, as the previous poster, I am afraid it just looks way too dated and old fashioned to be attractive. The thumbnails in the galleries are too small, can barely see them.
Sorry Chaz, really not for me. Maybe you should look at using something like wordpress or joomla to create something more modern and attractive to your viewers.
Click to expand...

Agree with all of this. I have just started using redframe and very happy with that.
 
Karl12347 said:
Sorry but it looks a bit amateurish. The plain grey background and text style seem rather basic.

Considering the templates that are free to use available on the net you could have something a lot better.
Click to expand...

to me template are like everyone else it like photographers using plugins and just one click done job to me it shows also some site are much too busy full of slow to load flash I seen some that I have left before it opened.. was looking for a clean cut look that you can see what you need fast.
 
Yv said:
It is too wide for my 13" laptop screen on Chrome, I have to scroll, never good. That aside, as the previous poster, I am afraid it just looks way too dated and old fashioned to be attractive. The thumbnails in the galleries are too small, can barely see them.
Sorry Chaz, really not for me. Maybe you should look at using something like wordpress or joomla to create something more modern and attractive to your viewers.
Click to expand...

True I not like to scroll I was having issues about the size and thought it was fixed as I can see it on my phone and laptop (15.5ins) with chrome OK and the size is done by % not pix Its hard to tell making your site on a 24ins screen.
will look at it more thanks
 
Chaz Photos said:
to me template are like everyone else it like photographers using plugins and just one click done job to me it shows also some site are much too busy full of slow to load flash I seen some that I have left before it opened.. was looking for a clean cut look that you can see what you need fast.
Click to expand...

You don't need to use a template to produce something. I have to concur with whats said before. It looks like its 15 years old.
 
It doesn't work on an iPad. You're using Flash to generate the galleries.
 
Hi. I agree with the above, as its too wide for my work monitor. Did you do this in Frontpage? If so, there are much better ways of doing this, and lots of free templates about. Avoid flash for the reasons above.
 
Chaz Photos said:
to me template are like everyone else it like photographers using plugins and just one click done job to me it shows also some site are much too busy full of slow to load flash I seen some that I have left before it opened.. was looking for a clean cut look that you can see what you need fast.
Click to expand...

Chaz, even a standard template you can still tweak to make it more personalised and less like everyone elses. With modern additions and pluggins you can have clean, 'flashy looking' galleries without actually using Flash, which as mentioned, is not friendly on some devices and is not googles friend a lot of the time either. The same modern templates will often include functionality that will automatically adjust he width to fit all size screens/browsers and even mobile phones in some cases, which saves you having to mess around with it.
 
Doesn't fit on my 17.5" (diagonal) monitor.

Using IE.
 
Chaz, I think you are using software to create your site that is vastly out of date. Your galleries are coded as 'frames' which have been out of date for years.

<html>

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
<title>Galleries</title>
</head>

<frameset framespacing="0" border="0" frameborder="0" rows="*,81%,8%">
<frame name="top" scrolling="no" noresize target="middle" src="Gallery'stopframe.htm">
<frame name="middle" target="_self" scrolling="yes" src="Gallerymidframe.htm">
<frame name="bottom" marginheight="1" scrolling="auto" src="footer.htm" target="_self">
<noframes>
<body topmargin="10">

<p>This page uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them.</p>

</body>
</noframes>
</frameset>

</html>
Click to expand...
 
I dont like it.

It does look like it was built by a child with no design skills. For example look at this page

http://www.chazphotographics.co.uk/galleryframe1.htm

you've got black text with a black drop shadow on grey background for the title. This is just ignoring all the rules of good web design. It's the exact example of how not to show a title. The only way you could have made it worse was to cover it with a black box.

You need more contrast, even changing the text to white with the drop shadow closer to the tet would look better - although still very poor.

I would say, as harsh as it sounds, you don't have the design skills to create a website from scratch. There's nothing wrong with that, lots of people don't. Instead of reinventing the wheel, find a template that you like and buy it.
 
Screen res wise on my 13" Macbook it sits perfectly, however as others have commented style wise I'm afraid it doesn't sit comfortably with me.

I think some of the sage advice offered by others should be considered. It's looks very dated already, and some of the technology you have employed is not particularly cutting edge, or very friendly to some of the ways people may access your site today.

I would certainly consider other methods, such as a good HTML theme or Wordpress theme in your circumstances.
 
I agree with a lot of the critique, it is very basic BUT still, its a clean design and if thats what the OP is after then it does the job. Perhaps changing the grey background would help a little though.
 
Photodiva said:
Chaz, I think you are using software to create your site that is vastly out of date. Your galleries are coded as 'frames' which have been out of date for years.
Click to expand...

Galleries have been made with CS6 yes in a frame so I can have navigation as well.
I did have white background to start with but was told gray would look better.
I like a clean page where anyone looking can see what they want right away and not see 100's of words, a Photo is more then 100 words, is how I see it.

I note many of you have cookies yet do not tell anyone coming to the site, do you know it law in EU to advise anyone looking at your web pages?

As for templates I think as soon as I see a web which has use ones it shows as you get all the content in the middle and do not take advantage of the whole screen..
 
Nod said:
Doesn't fit on my 17.5" (diagonal) monitor.

Using IE.
Click to expand...
I am guess its not a wide screen... it fit all my screens apart from my 19ins one I have my tools on It works on My phone my tablet my laptop. So I wonder what % it not work on
 
Chaz Photos said:
I am guess its not a wide screen... it fit all my screens apart from my 19ins one I have my tools on It works on My phone my tablet my laptop. So I wonder what % it not work on
Click to expand...

The only question that's left:

Why did you ask for critique?

Everyone has told you (some bluntly - some less so) that the site looks like something from the 90's. And all you've done is tell them they're wrong.

If you want to 'plough your own furrow' and do it all your way, then fine - it's noone else's business. But if that's the case, why ask what others think of it?:thinking:
 
No matter what you personally like there is no excuse for the galleries title
 
Chaz Photos said:
I like a clean page where anyone looking can see what they want right away and not see 100's of words, a Photo is more then 100 words, is how I see it.

I note many of you have cookies yet do not tell anyone coming to the site, do you know it law in EU to advise anyone looking at your web pages?
Click to expand...


Search engines would regard a photo as a lot less then 100 words though.

As for the cookies thing http://m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/26/cookies-law-changed-implied-consent
 
Chaz Photos said:
Galleries have been made with CS6 yes in a frame so I can have navigation as well.
I did have white background to start with but was told gray would look better.
I like a clean page where anyone looking can see what they want right away and not see 100's of words, a Photo is more then 100 words, is how I see it.

I note many of you have cookies yet do not tell anyone coming to the site, do you know it law in EU to advise anyone looking at your web pages?

As for templates I think as soon as I see a web which has use ones it shows as you get all the content in the middle and do not take advantage of the whole screen..
Click to expand...


Great in theory, but if you want people to actually find the site, useless. Search engines use words to find and rank websites and you have denied your site that by using flash and pictures pictures that have no words embedded, nothing a search engine can read. Combine this with a general lack of any kind of written content on other pages and your site is pretty much invisible/insignificant to search engines.


Chaz, you have asked for opinions and whilst you might disagree with what has been said, we are saying it to try and help you improve the site and what your visitors see, as well as increase how many visitors you actually get.

In reference to templates, there are plenty, especially html ones, that use the full page width, you don't have to have a centralised one, though there are reasons why they work well.
 
I use one of those templates which bother you so much. But the upside is - you're not my customer - I never built it for you.

Every customer that books me says it was the best looking site they saw, and what's even better? The horrible template made it easy for me to get to page 1 of google searches for my first choice search term.

OTOH, the people who'll like your site best? Your competition! Because, not only does it look like something from Frontpage 97, Google will be ignoring it anyway, so all the local customers looking for a photographer will never know what you could have done for them. They'll go straight for your competitors.

But as I said before, you're free to ignore all this advice (from people with successful websites), Unique is good right?:thumbs:.
 
I think, as has been said, most of our comments are falling on deaf ears. Shame. However, I can't leave this chap to his own without saying "don't use centre aligned text". Have it your own way, but "don't use centre aligned text".
Ta ta
 
I'm struggling to think of a time when chaz asked for advice and actually listened, not sure why we are surprised he has ignored the advice here
 
i think most has been covered other than different fonts pretty much on each page, make it consistant.

and why navigate your potential customer away from your site to flickr when you have a gallery page..
 
You absolute biggest issue is flash for the galleries, if your content isn't accessible to everyone you are instantly losing customers. From experience I know a lot of my clients use ipads, none of them would see your work.
 
A little better but still plenty of room for improvement.

Style your fonts, they just look so dated and plain at the moment.

Change the text on the home page "Our printed images are full quality photographs." to "For our prints we use the full resolution images"

Having the text as images is a big no these days, also you haven't included any meta data so search engines will simply skip your site as it won't be able to know what the site is for, or crawl the text to store in the search database.

There's a space in the link to Flickr at the bottom, also my should be with a capital "My".

On the bio page, the text looks shoddy as it doesn't all fit on one line. It's also got capital letters where there shouldn't be any and missing full stops. If you are going to use text in images, at least make it fit so it looks presentable.

Make the navigation Menu the same for all pages, and highlight the page the user is on rather than remove the page the user is on from the menu.
 
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