Thread: First Timer Here

First, I'd start by picking one color that is pleasing to the eye. Then, visit this color scheme generator to help give you ideas for colors that mix well (you might use these for borders of divs to define a clear separation.

On the contact us page, the table has to go. This is always argued to death, but tables aren't for layout, they are for storing tabular data. Besides, the border around it is just ugly. You'd be better off styling a div (with some span or div tags to layout the actual contact information inside).

The links on the left are big and clunky and overall, boring (and they're not centered ). Definitely stop using frames. I ran the page through the validator at W3C.org and the frames caused 4 different errors.

This page looks like something I did on GeoCities when I was in 7th grade lol. In today's market, you really need to be intuitive. I suggest you browse a few company web sites to get some ideas. Pay attention to fonts, colors, use of images and such. Take a look at templates provided by other designers and the portfolios of other developers.

This is really something that you can't cut corners on and have to make sure it's good, or you won't get/keep any customers.

Good Luck

Okay, I see you have a new color scheme...

Too much black is what I see. Does the company you're doing this for have their own colors? If so, might be what you want to use, or at least a variation of those colors.

Also, you may want to have a solid header. It looks awkward to see so much black and then the yellow logo.

These days, you see a lot of designs that don't take up the whole width of the page. This is particularly good when you don't have much content. It gives it the feel that there is a lot more than there really is and presents it in a way that is easy to follow. As you have it now, there seems to be a lot of empty space.

Again, I suggest you take a look at some other people's work and do a search for free CSS layouts.There's tons of sites that give you valid XHTML and CSS layouts for free. Then you can just customize them to your needs.

What may work for you is if you have a mostly white background and emphasize the color on things like the header across the top (where the logo would go) and for headings of different blocks of content throughout the page.

Alight, it's getting better...that logo needs some work. The gradient looks like you took different slices of shades and pasted them on. The lightning bolts are too bold and overall, too big. The text is too big and bold. You might want to add some white to where the text is, also.

Definitely an improvement over the last design, though

Thanks J!

yeah...was copy/paste -ing to cover up...the text was originally smaller but i thought it looked too small so I made it bigger..heheh...i'll put it back and also make the bolts smaller and see how it improves...i just don't like the menu/link ... i like buttons like the other.

PS: 4got to ask u....how'd u like that url? LOL!

The text might look too small because there is not enough of it. Look at other website and notice the fonts and sizes they use. It makes a big difference. Plus, the layout and general flow of the page affects it. Because you don't have much content, you might want to change it to a more narrow layout.

As for the menu links..yeah, they're boring...but they don't necessarily need to be "buttons"....simply removing the underline and changing the color when the mouse hovers over them might help. If you go with the narrow layout, you might want to have them horizontal just below the logo.