Heres my website if anyone has anything constructive crititcally to say about layout or the content let me know, i really want an appealing look that represents my style but at the same time is easy to navigate and intuative. The reasone i ask is because ive reached that point where i have enough new work to make a new website(again) i personally dont have massive webdesign experience and my perspective on my own site is obviously biased, photoshop is it better that psp?? i pspro right now but i intent to upgrade to photoshop when i get my new comp. i heard that the brushes are much better. http://www.thedumpvalve.netfirms.com (anonymous you some kinda genius) Peace DodgeR [edited by - thedodger on December 13, 2002 6:05:23 PM] [edited by - thedodger on December 13, 2002 6:06:13 PM]

Kind of hard to to criticize your site with no url...

heh, funny you ask, I am a genius...

I like the layout of the site. Pretty easy to navigate and the arrangement of the thumbnails is nice and simple. I even like the choices for the color. Although the details of your about page is lacking details.. hehe.

thanks for the comments anonymous - that was a statement by the way i made.

No one got anything constructive to add cmon you can all do better than that ??

Ok, here it is, but you asked for it.

HOME page
Spelling error
copywrite should be copyright


NEWS page
Throw all the text through a spelling and grammar check, because there are way too many errors to list.

Avoid hip lingo like “And yeh im kinda” If you want to use the hip lingo then follow hip lingo rules and write it as such “And yeah, I’m kinda’…” Professionally you should try to avoid writing like you would speak. I know, I hate following the rules too, and for the most part I glance over spelling error (frankly, because I make a lot of them myself). Unfortunately, the ones we are trying to impress are tight wad language buffs who love nothing more than to point out our little errors. I mean our whole language rules are based on errors our forefathers made in the first place… opps I almost started ranting.

Anyway,
Capitalize your “i”

The http://www.thedumpvalve.netfirms.com/conceptone.htm link has too many pictures for a dialup modem. Consider using thumbnails as you do in the Sketchbook section


CONCEPTS page
The bottom white blocks take you to dead links. If there aren’t any images to link to then take the links out.


SKETCHBOOK page
Nothing wrong


ABOUT page
Capitalize the words England, more and all your “i”.
Put a comma between work and which “…it is to design work, which has a cool…”

This would be a great place to put a cover letter and or resume.


LINKS page
All links work. Consider putting more links in that correspond to what you do. When you get a bunch then you can categorize them.

A note on links. A link will take the user away from your website. They most likely will not return. What you want to do is get people to come to your website and never leave (kinda like the Hotel California muahahahaha).


OVERALL
I didn’t see a huge difference between concept and sketchbook. Maybe you can combine all your images on a thumbnail page, with one link (perhaps call it GALLERY). Lots of links on the front page may look like you have a lot of content, but when you actually look into your site you realize it’s stretched thinly over the site.

I really liked what you did with the thumbnails. I’m a big fan of the crop the image rather than shrink it. And like the previous poster, your site was easy to navigate and very straightforward.

Art critique
Awesome. Very reminiscing of the Sandman series. I also like how you don’t title them. I hate titles as they inhibit the audience from coming up with there own idea of what they are looking at. That said, I know many people who don’t look at art if it is untitled (which is why everyone of my pieces has a title on it for the gallery’s sake).

Do MORE!!!!

All in all I’ll give your site an 8 (but I’m not going to tell you the scale I’m using, hahaha). It needs some fine tuning, but it’s a hell of a lot better than some I’ve seen (especially, MY first site).


___________________________
"It has been a very long time since I’ve ceased to be preoccupied with reality."

-Alfred Hitchcock

Little Raven''s Studio

Great crits, good advice cheers, well i might make a few revisions now.

kind of simple if u ask me... Eye candy MAN, where''s da eye candy?

is photoshop better then paint shot pro? well lets see... 2 things must be considered... which photoshop, and what will it be used for? most wacom graphire tablet come with photoshop LE, its a great program for painting and such... and sense its free with the tablet u end up saving some cash.

for general website/ graphic design i''d say that psp is better, its alot simpler, and got some nice features.

However photoshop did not become the industry standered for image editing for nothing, the fool version packs the best/ most features and has the best (my opinion) image quality of any other package...

so in final words... instead of buying photoshop, get a tablet instead (wacom graphire, or evern better an intuos sense it comes with ps elements)

hope this helps

by the way now... its not about how many brashes a software package has but how u use them that counts, if u cant make anything good in paint shop getting a better software package is not going to help u out!!!

Start with changing the name from the dump valve to just the dump. cuz thats what it is.
_______________________________________
EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT

I would like to state that the above comment was a joke and that I do not think your site is a dump, you have good drawings and a unique layout as far as the way to access the pics is concerned.

thank you for your time

[edited by - neurokaotix on December 17, 2002 3:11:20 AM]

well i already have a wacom.:-)

but yeh i take your point about the tools dont make the artist. With brush pressure, a wider variety of brushes with more options it all takes from the strain of the experience allowing that to be used in other areas hopefully to produce a better end product which is my main goal.


thanks for all the comments

peace

DodgeR

well, if you dont mind, ill give you some design crits.

nothing major past what sculder said.

i would put the site somewhere without the damn ads. geocities is good and free, and you can get rid of the ads with
stuck at the end of your files.

make your colors match. the bkg color of your page and that of your pictures dont match. when you save a file, it may distort the color depending on the type...

you might want one bright color to complement everything, id have to try it, but red blue or green would look good.

your home page... i personally dont really care for people who write things like 'dUMPvALVE'... all caps, or no caps. you can change the color of the d and v, but i would tend to make them all the same (Dump Valve, dump valve, DUMP VALVE)

news page. make something stick out (like the dates) you might want a header bar for each day, say, thin, red bkg, white text, plain text with the date. keep your spacing between the days even.

on the concepts page, i like the dark brown lines to break it up. nice. but on the bottom row, get rid of the damn white boxes, or unlink them, or even put little question marks in them or something. but ugly, dubious white boxes with broken links dont appeal.

sketches. good.

about. again, make something stand out. maybe an image at the top of all your pages saying what the page is... also, isnt the about page for details? do you really need to tell me?

links. not bad. maybe play around with a different layout. im not big on a list of centered items, though. you might put them in two columns, left aligned. or, if youre brave, right align one and left align the other. but, two centered columns would look okay, too. again, make the section headers stand out. maybe some simple graphics to break them up.

the home > image at the bottom of your pages - the arrow is too slanted for the text. make the arrow parallel with the E...

now, having been through the site, the red color for your links is good. you might have them change when the mouse hovers (to a lighter red).

i like the site though, despite everything i said. i can be pretty picky.

if you want, you can look at my sites and graphics for ideas...
http://www.rowlettband.org (mainly just the graphics)
http://www.rowlettband.org/jazz/band-jazz.htm
http://home.attbi.com/rhshorns

http://www.geocities.com/dvorakchem

http://www.geocities.com/elementum_game

http://www.geocities.com/wasted_youth (graphics only)
http://www.dragonscoveproductions.tk

-geo



[edited by - redeyegames on December 18, 2002 9:09:22 PM]