Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

New website up and running.

R

Razeus

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
5,363
2,070
Just wanted to see if I can get a critique of my new website:

http://www.dharrisphotog.com/

It's dedicated to my non-portrait photography. I felt I need to separate the 2 as not to turn off potential clients.

Please give feedback so I can make notes for the next update. I wanted something clean and simple.

Built by Squarespace.
 
Last edited:
It is clean and simple, but with no call to action at all. Without seeing this post here, if I stumbled upon that site - I wouldn't be so sure what I was looking at.
 
For me it's a little too simplistic. Buttons are very small and hard to see, and the left justification of the whole site seems 'off'. Maybe you could space the panels out a little and make the gallery fill the page more? It's a little weird having the two lines of social media buttons too, with only one icon taking up that second row. Perhaps make the buttons larger or squeeze them on to one row? And I agree with what Charlie said in the way that if I were to enter the website without being told what it was about, I'd take a while to understand what the site's aim is. Some sort of branding etc. would 1. bring colour to an otherwise sterile webpage and 2. give the user a way of knowing exactly what you're all about.

/2c
 
Goftrey said:
For me it's a little too simplistic. Buttons are very small and hard to see, and the left justification of the whole site seems 'off'. Maybe you could space the panels out a little and make the gallery fill the page more? It's a little weird having the two lines of social media buttons too, with only one icon taking up that second row. Perhaps make the buttons larger or squeeze them on to one row? And I agree with what Charlie said in the way that if I were to enter the website without being told what it was about, I'd take a while to understand what the site's aim is. Some sort of branding etc. would 1. bring colour to an otherwise sterile webpage and 2. give the user a way of knowing exactly what you're all about.

/2c
Click to expand...

Ya, that one icon hanging on the 2nd row was bothering me too. Fixed.
 
Fast, but kind of a desert feel to it, as in barren. At first I didn't know how to advance the images and found the click to change thing by trial and error. The icons in the lower part of the left side were a bit of a mystery with no roll over tips to identify them and no signature colors. No offense, but I would just mutter "Nothing going on here" and click on.

It needs more information.

Dale
 
Designer Dale said:
Fast, but kind of a desert feel to it, as in barren. At first I didn't know how to advance the images and found the click to change thing by trial and error. The icons in the lower part of the left side were a bit of a mystery with no roll over tips to identify them and no signature colors. No offense, but I would just mutter "Nothing going on here" and click on.

It needs more information.

Dale
Click to expand...

Interesting. The icons change color when you roll over them.

Advancing the images is the same as any other image viewer with arrows right above the image (if as x of y counter), plus, as usual, the left and right keys on the keyboard works just as well. At least that's how I've always browsed other people's websites.

Are you guys Apple people? :eek: j/k

I'll continue to work on it I need to add my email to my About page.
 
Razeus said:
Interesting. The icons change color when you roll over them.

Advancing the images is the same as any other image viewer with arrows right above the image (if as x of y counter), plus, as usual, the left and right keys on the keyboard works just as well. At least that's how I've always browsed other people's websites.

Are you guys Apple people? :eek: j/k

I'll continue to work on it I need to add my email to my About page.
Click to expand...

The icons just turn red. I was referring to signature colors like Facebook logo blue that I could recognize without reading glasses. Same for the advance arrows. I usually see them to the right and left of the image or imbedded in the image itself, but I don't do all that much random web browsing so I don't know what's usual out there.

And I've never been to the Dark Side. Apple investor since 1996. First computer was an LC II

Dale
 
Street photog, eh? Cool. One of my favorites, too. You do very nice work, my friend.
 
Overall, not bad. I like the choice of highlight color.
The left justification of the portrait-held shots is awkward. Perhaps center them to balance.
 
I was a bit surprised by how long it took to load the page, considering the simple layout.

If you run it through Google PageSpeed Insights, you're going to see that the bottleneck are the image assets.

It seems like it's preloading all 20 of the images in the slideshow before rendering the slideshow for viewing, and all of those images can be optimized for file size (strip metadata).
 
Like the simplicity. Like the photos as well.

Have to agree with people in regards to the branding. Need a logo that will identify you. Like the lowercase font. Would be nice if you could be able to enlarge the photos more than currently.

You need rollovers on all your tabs, not just the tab/page you are on. Will be easier for people to recognize them as tabs and that is because you have no borders or shape to indicate that they are tabs. Just remember that all people are not tech savvy.

Overall it looks good though.
 
Razeus said:
Just wanted to see if I can get a critique of my new website:

http://www.dharrisphotog.com/

It's dedicated to my non-portrait photography. I felt I need to separate the 2 as not to turn off potential clients.

Please give feedback so I can make notes for the next update. I wanted something clean and simple.

Built by Squarespace.
Click to expand...

Some beautiful shots. You should use #5 of street scenes i, which is incredible, as a full page frontispiece which could fade into something like what opens now as index page (with #5 probably as #1 in street scenes). I agree with others that site is a tad too minimalistic. Also, layout should be centered.
 
Hi Razeus, Just want to say I like the clean lines of your site. I'd agree with macmesser and say that I think the site would look more professional with a home page with a single picture rather than going straight onto the first set of photos.

As a designer, I'd also suggest making a bit more of your logo and 'apropos of photography' to make it stand out more from the side bar and give you some identity. Also I noticed that at certain window widths the text can get very close to the right hand edge, while at others it's okay.

Please don't see these as criticism, it's a nice site that would be great with just a bit of tweaking.

I was reading the top tips for street photography on your blog and you make some good points. In no. 3 you say "50mm lens tend to give you more context of a scene than a 28mm which gives you more details of your subject." Unless I'm not following you properly, shouldn't this be the other way round?
 
Ish said:
Hi Razeus, Just want to say I like the clean lines of your site. I'd agree with macmesser and say that I think the site would look more professional with a home page with a single picture rather than going straight onto the first set of photos.

As a designer, I'd also suggest making a bit more of your logo and 'apropos of photography' to make it stand out more from the side bar and give you some identity. Also I noticed that at certain window widths the text can get very close to the right hand edge, while at others it's okay.

Please don't see these as criticism, it's a nice site that would be great with just a bit of tweaking.

I was reading the top tips for street photography on your blog and you make some good points. In no. 3 you say "50mm lens tend to give you more context of a scene than a 28mm which gives you more details of your subject." Unless I'm not following you properly, shouldn't this be the other way round?
Click to expand...

Thanks Ish. I'm going through some templates as we speak so hopefully August will have a new style. I really like the style I see when I go to Picturelife.com or Squarespace.com where they hit you with a big image on the front page.

And yes, I mixed up my words so thanks for that!
 
compuwar said:
If you're going to blog, it's better to do more frequent entries (I know because I have the same "started and don't do enough" problem.)

Paul
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm trying to line them up. I want to get 10 written before really going full on. That way I always have a few in the queue as I write the next one. I use Simplenote to keep track of ideas and Ai Writer to write them.
 
Razeus said:
Thanks Ish. I'm going through some templates as we speak so hopefully August will have a new style. I really like the style I see when I go to Picturelife.com or Squarespace.com where they hit you with a big image on the front page.

And yes, I mixed up my words so thanks for that!
Click to expand...

Yes, they do look nice. I prefer the left hand justification of the text on the Picturelife one to the centred text on Squarespace, though it may be tweakable. I think it goes better with the clean lines of your style.
 
To be completely honest, if you're not trying to sell this particular work to a client base, Flickr is probably the best way to display these images. Your website is too clean and simple, it doesn't show off your work in the best way. There's too much white space. With recent Flickr updates, your photographs are at the forefront of your photo stream. They make up all the visible space on the page and it really emphasises your work to anybody looking.

Obviously if your aim is to attract clients to your corporate/portrait work, maybe a full website is more professional.
 
JarScott said:
To be completely honest, if you're not trying to sell this particular work to a client base, Flickr is probably the best way to display these images. Your website is too clean and simple, it doesn't show off your work in the best way. There's too much white space. With recent Flickr updates, your photographs are at the forefront of your photo stream. They make up all the visible space on the page and it really emphasises your work to anybody looking.

Obviously if your aim is to attract clients to your corporate/portrait work, maybe a full website is more professional.
Click to expand...

...Just by looking at my images, I don't think I'm trying to attract corporate or portrait work. It's a portfolio website, not a commercial website.
 
I couldn't find any contact information. Even if it is just a portfolio website, I feel people should have a means to contact you - you never know who is looking and may want to get hold of you for some reason or other. It could lead to a cool project...
 
Padaung said:
I couldn't find any contact information. Even if it is just a portfolio website, I feel people should have a means to contact you - you never know who is looking and may want to get hold of you for some reason or other. It could lead to a cool project...
Click to expand...

Noted. Thank you.
 
Razeus said:
...Just by looking at my images, I don't think I'm trying to attract corporate or portrait work. It's a portfolio website, not a commercial website.
Click to expand...

In which case, Flickr may be where you want to be. You'll be sure to get a bigger audience on Flickr too.
 
JarScott said:
In which case, Flickr may be where you want to be. You'll be sure to get a bigger audience on Flickr too.
Click to expand...

Yet Flickr doesn't let me sort the images in the way I want. Yes, I use Flickr, but the website is meant to be the best of the best. while Flickr gets a little bit of everything. Flickr also has a social network attached it. Flickr is certainly not the best way to show your work so the Photostream is a mess and your "albums" don't get any prominence unless you specifically go there. Flickr is more of a stream of consciousness.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back