I Must Be Crazy But A Critique

The font at the top of the Preview page is really hard to read. I'd switch to the font you've used in the main body of most of the site.

They've done studies where Ariel is actually the easiest on the eyes to read, so many websites use that. Its boring, but might want to consider it.

I agree with Heather. The script font is hard to read. I also noticed that some things on the page are not lining up right and are overlapping other elements. Not sure if that was a deliberate design choice, or just how it looks in Safari as opposed to your browser. But I do like the clean, minimal feel. Your artwork stands out nicely on the pages.

Same here in Firefox elements aren't lining up with the text underneath. Also on the http://www.valarieart.com/preview.html page the shopping button link is linking back to the preview page and not to your shopping cart.

Thank you Heather...I wondered about that...I actually like the Ariel and did think it might be boring...maybe boring is sometimes a good thing. That's an easy fix...Thank you!!!

yeah the font is hard to read. also the page is narrow on my screen, i have a wide screen and a fixed format is in the way. i think there are too many red and pinks my eyes don't want to settle on anything. contact the artist shouldn't longer than the rest, it's out of place. use a normal font for the whole thing, even reading about is hard to do. each description showing prices should be in list form, people tend to not read paragraphs, they skim.

each of those items should be linked to a location. cards, phones etc. your preview page has art large enough to print. the brown one anyway. each of those should link to the image being sold. the preview page is kind of chaotic, i think colors that go together should be chosen. maybe from dull to bright.

you have a string of words on the preview page - i have no idea what those are.

except for the about page, you have very little content. google needs content or it will plug you in the back. the page has to be interesting and people have to want to stick around on the page. it's hard to tell at a glance what this site is really about.


on the home page you have a list of items to buy, with shop in the center of the list its in the blue box. you tell us to read more, i thought it was going to go into how you made them. but instead it drops me off in the about page. also the about page should be about you the artist - not the things you sell, that should be in a more obvious box.

---Mike Savad

Also I would just have it say Home and Contact because the way you have it now it is causing those cells of the table to stick down past the other ones.

Hi Val,

All of the type needs to be reworked.

Greetings Val, overall the design and layout are excellent. Without question you do need to make the subtitles a couple of point size larger, at present they are too small go larger... I had also thought is it possible to take that white background and change to black, your work would even stand out 100 percent more so. Also, on the preview page as April and Heather mentioned do not use script for the description you want that type not script, it would remain consistent with all other areas where you use type.....If you do not change the background from white to black, then change the shade of grey to a darker grey......you did a sensational job, Bravo!

Beautiful concept and design.....an award winner!!!!!


Val, on my new HP wide screen, high definition everything seems great, nothing wrong at all, but what I have noticed you are using some sort of pale light blue, it blends into the white screen....

And change the wording worked to (designed) or (created) or (applied) the word worked seems off, designed or created may fit in as well.

Having done layout and design for many years for various newspapers I just went back and noticed you need to scoot up the name of the individual titles across the first row, there is a tad too much space.. If you see the positioning of the description now it appears those titles belong to the artwork below...I am referring to the top row of art and sub titles. which is below is more closer to the second row of images......scoot the tiles up a bit....

April and Jeffery thank you! I can fix the link...Things shouldn't be over lapping so I am going to have do something about that.

April there is nothing overlapping here, as I mentioned I am on a HP wide screen, high definition, its a user problem with their settings on their computers not your layout dimensions.... I have been viewig at 100 percent, and the dimensions are perfect.

I'm not one to say a word about your design - except it looks good - I've not been able to gin one up for myself with several attempts. So, my comment deals with wording about what folks will expect. You use this in your opening statement about what someone coming to your site should expect: "

"The pieces you will see here are worked in digital paint, photography . . . " JMHO - but - "pieces" are what's left after you drop a glass - and I think we are expecting to see art or artwork - therefore - rd says, I'd change pieces to either "my art", "art", or "artwork".

Mike, thank you! I have a lot of fixing to do!

Kelly thank you am working on that now...that is by far the easiest fix.

Michael Thank you...I totally forgot about the background!!! I guess the weird blue is just the host site's lack of color. Designed...my new word.


Thank you guys so much...wish I could stay up all night and rework it but sleep is calling me...have early work tomorrow :(

Roy Thank You! I seem to be having trouble calling myself an artist or my work art ...lol silly I guess...I need to fix that too!

Val, the overall design in my eyes is an award winter, the changes or fixes are minor, minor. I did forget I was outside the coffee shop all day, and my screen may be set at its highest level.....I will let you know..

note, exactly as I thought, my scree brightness was set max because I was outdoors, since this is a brand new HP I will check an see I am sure it has an auto control to adjust density....or brightness....the blue which I thought was a faint blue is that powder blue.....minor details.

Michael you are right about the blue...now I that look - it is just weird looking. I like a black background I will fool around with that.

Yikes...I have to get up at 4:30! Tomorrow afternoon I will start on all these changes. Thank you so much for all the great suggestions...you guys are awesome!!!

Have a great weekend. Sensational website!!!!!

Hi Val,

Working with type is an incredible talent, and no easy fix! You have some very generous artists here willing to guide you. Listen to them about the details. You already made some improvements but you need much more in that direction. Just know that working with fonts, kerning, size and placement is a very big deal. Pay special attention to it! Good Luck! :-)

Kelly Thank you...it is very hard...you are right! And kerning...I don't even know what that is!

I am definitely paying attention and I can't tell you all how much I appreciate your help and guidance. If it weren't for all of you generous artists I would have given up long ago.

I had to log back on because I keep wondering...Here's the question...if they stick the crappy website to the back...can you redeem yourself by making improvements? Or do you think you are forever doomed to stay at the back?

Now I'm really getting some sleep!

Hi Val. Technically, everything looks okay in IE11.

My issue, such as it is, is that the layout and graphics look a bit dated, like something out of a 1990s brochure.

@Michael, just because things aren't overlapping on your computer and your browser doesn't mean it will look the same on everyone's computer and everyone's browser. That's why it's so important to test your website on every browser you can to make sure it's consistent. One small mistake in the code may not register at all on one browser, but it could make the entire thing unreadable on another, and buyers aren't going to go to the trouble to fire up another browser to view the content; they'll just move on. So it was wise of Val to ask for critiques since we all have different setups and can give her insight into things that she might not be able to see on her end.

@Val, there was a brief period of time when I was fresh out of design school that I used to design websites for clients because I thought that was just something that graphic designers were supposed to be able to do. And I tried and tried to learn how to code, and I would stare at the pages and pages of computer gobbledegook without the slightest hint of comprehension, and I felt like such a fraud because I was charging people for a service that took me waaaay longer than it should have to produce, and a good portion of the reason why was that darn process of optimizing the site for all those different browsers. When internet on mobile devices came on the scene, I finally threw in the towel on web design and decided to leave it to the professionals, but I admire your tenacity and willingness to listen to sound counsel on this process. If I had done that, I could have saved myself two years of code-induced migraines. Now Weebly is my friend. ;)

Val,

I am going off the beaten track for a moment here.

Talking about the "some recent art" for a moment (I am paraphrasing your title)

If you had a wall in a gallery would you put four pictures in a row and four pictures in a row underneath them?

By this I mean is there any more creative way to put some pictures on a wall?

Food for thought. How you hang a picture matters greatly.

Dave

PS, I am thinking of using Blue Host and Weebly as well. I am not a coder. I have academically coded
in five languages, I hate it. I can do it, I test well for such jobs. April do any of the Weebly themes allow for
more complex and interesting layouts as ways of "hanging your art works"?

I agree with others, a critique by more than one person is wise and will cause you less pain in the long run! I like the simplicity of the layout. I would change the background, although a subtle texture print I think it fights with your art, I would go with a solid color.

I noticed in your bio (?) you use the word "work, worked" three or four times, maybe incorporate "The abstracts are worked the same and are mostly bright and bold and tend to have a musical theme." into one of the previous sentences.

For the wording on the discount code I think you mean to use the word "accept" instead of "except" although I don't think I would use the phrase "please accept this code..." it sounds like you are begging your visitors to buy your art.

@David, Weebly allows you to drag and drop elements into the page grid, but it's up to you to get creative with the placement. A staggered look can easily be achieved with a little pre-game work in Photoshop. I made the link images below the slideshow on my home page that way - http://aprilmoen.com

Murray, April, David, Suzanne, Thank you! I am off to my regular 9 to 5 now and will soak up everything when I can get back to it, but I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your insight. Your guidance and expertise is so helpful to me...after awhile the whole thing just starts looking a mess and I can't see why!

Hope everyone has a great day!

I agree that the script font is difficult to read and seems somewhat out of place with the overal design. I would use a San serif font like Ariel.

I also think the home page looks a little busy.

On my phone the site is not responsive, meaning it doesn't scale to all devices. This is important nowadays as half of your viewers are viewing from tablets, phones. Is their a mobile or responsive feature that needs to be turned on?

Val, this is about fonts. On most any type of design work you should not use more than 2 to 3 types of fonts, and its always better to use the same font with variations. So with Arial, you can use many different variations of Arial to make it blend but stand out. Even capitalization of certain things as well. I like the Helvetica family myself.
Lots of times when designing and new at it, you can turn your finished page upside-down and see if it flows and looks right. Sometimes you can see a lot of problems in design that way that will stand out, because your not actually reading it but just looking at how it all flows together.
Best

April,

I like your site. Have you had a good bit of luck with OArtTee? What is your review of the site?

I looked at a thread from four months ago over here on FAA, the jury was still out for most folks.

How would you rate the commissions? Or more specifically what are the commissions?

I looked at the Alexa.com ratings, but they were around 190000. The basic stats for the site were extremely good,
bounce time, page views, time on site.

Dave

@Professor April, thank you for the computer 101 lesson, or observation, I sure appreciate that. I have to run to the store and buy a few apples.....

@Val, I bet you can not wait to get off work, I just had the best laugh out loud at the coffee shop. Everyone came running over to see what was so funny and I told them Val one of the Fine Art America members her title of the discussion and it brought back a great memory my mother use to tell me....I would talk to her at times and say ma, I must be "crazy" and she would reply "only a doctor can tell you, you are crazy" lol. I hope you had a great day at work!

typos galore...
Artist Digital Images, Art Prints, Products, Item Design and Color Favorites. Favorite New Designer Cell Phone covers fir IPhone and Galaxy too! For purchase of Original or Custom Image Creation contact Val Arie, featured artist directly.

Every word shouldn't be capitalized, actually makes it harder to read... use commas and for, not fir.

Separate your paragraphs on the about page too.

@ Heather... that's what I get for relying on spell check! Thank you...so much work I have to do...thank you, I had totally forgotten about the actual words.

@Michael...that's funny...your mom was a wise woman :) Yeah I am anxious to get back at it with all this new insight!

@ Kevin...that is a great tip! We do it with art so why not for a web page? I think I'll stick with the Arial and play around with that...probably goes best with my art anyway.

@ Loretta...I knew that was going to be a problem! I'm probably going to have to upgrade the whole thing so it configures properly on all devices...I'm working on a desktop monitor and hadn't considered how it would look on anything else. I guess I'll try to get it right here first and then deal with the other.

@Murray...I don't want it to look dated...but haven't a clue what a more modern, updated look is...that will be the hardest part!

@Mike...first thing I'm going to do is fix that chaotic page...you are right...it is!!! Thank you!

Thank you all so much...I'm going to see what I can do to improve upon this. I just hope I don't become compelled to delete everything and start over...I'm real good at that :)

Hi, Val -- congratulations on getting your new website out there! When I was working on mine, earlier this year, I gleaned a ton about what visitors respond to by watching all the reviews in this thread:

http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1822130

Seriously, some of these reviewers mentioned things that had never crossed my mind. For instance, I was surprised to learn that, after the home page, many viewers went directly to the 'About' page. The stats on my own site have proven that to be true. That convinced me to add more 'about' info -- which is visited regularly. I always check the 'About / Bio / Profile' pages on any artist's site; who knew viewers would do the same?

I've learned a few more things from reading this thread. Thanks, all!

Best of luck, Val! :-)

Hi Wendy, Thank you! For sure I will bookmark that one!

It sure is a lot of work...I knew it would be but didn't even imagine the extent of it. And the glitches Oh My...I can seldom offer advice but one thing I learned is keep saving everything you do! It seems in these web builders if you do something it doesn't like the page just refreshes itself and if you haven't saved it...Gone!

@ All, want to thank everybody...this is such a learning experience for me! I have publish my new revised version and it is better, thank you all, not maybe great but I can see definite improvement. http://www.valarieart.com/

I think I will retitle this thread to Website Building maybe others can benefit from it.

Val, congrats wowzzzzzzzzzzzzzza, I know all to well, about after making the changes to make sure you update or as you mention its gone. Also, did you give the name of the web builder which one did you use? I spent nearly a year thousands and thousands of hours designing mine only to find out, the version I used would not allow me to post links such as Fine Art America or any others. The domain I did register but it sure was a low blow to find out I would have to start all over from scratch using another program. It sits there and as yourself I will be going back in to make revision with more recent photos..... Thanks so much for sharing this forum and asking for input.
Cheers, Michael Hoard

Hi Michael, That's horrible. Starting over stinks. I didn't start over but wiped out a bunch of stuff. I'm using Go Daddy for no particular reason...only that it seemed like you didn't have to have a lot of code writing skills. So far I haven't had trouble with links. Seems like web builder for dummies in some ways....except there are no instructions! It would probably be a lot easier if I just used a template they offered but I chose not to for some stupid reason. The main problem I have encountered is configuration for all devices. Thing looks narrow on a wide screen but won't fit smaller stuff either. And then the problem the others saw on different browsers of over lapping stuff. Think that's an upgrade... but then there is something I call a block for mobile device viewing.. that I can't figure out at all. When I get further along in the process I may call their tech support with a list. I'll probably pay the extra ten bucks a month and let them fix it for all devices...IDK.