Honest comments please

[The Printed Bag Shop]

Im having a new website designed but im not so sure on the colours or the web header.

here is the home page so far
http://www.theprintedbagshop.co.uk/dantest/template2.php

Please could you give me your honest opinions and suggestions.

[BsmyeEnterprises]

First thing I noticed was the navigation - it seems garish and a bit outdated. Definitely change that. Also the background to the navigation doesn't seem right, but maybe if the navigation buttons themselves are different it would work.

Otherwise not too bad, not sure what else to suggest at the moment.

[Burden]

Seems a little bit "Template" if you get what i mean.
Not sure why really.

[The Printed Bag Shop]

Well its the navigation buttons and colour that i cant seem to get right. i suggested thoes buttons but then when i seen them i thought oh no

[Martin P]

Im having a new website designed but im not so sure on the colours or the web header.

here is the home page so far
http://www.theprintedbagshop.co.uk/dantest/template2.php

Please could you give me your honest opinions and suggestions.
Hi Craig, i'm not too sure about the web header colours too
I think a blue and white theme works good, like the old design, (or similar to what you did with NWB) because of your blue bag logo
I don't know who you use for your designs but Greg findley (uses this forum) did a good job of my header, he gave my logo a a reflection effect, something like that might look good on yours (Here (http://www.onesixtyltd.co.uk/web-design.php))
I like the clarity of the navigation though, very easy to use:)

[Marzipan]

Well its the navigation buttons and colour that i cant seem to get right. i suggested thoes buttons but then when i seen them i thought oh no

Perhaps it's the colours that make the buttons feel not quite right? There are too many shades of green going on and it's not even like they complement each other - that turquoisey colour on the newsletter sign up box for example is completely off the scale.

How about using the lighter blue from your logo as the page background for the buttons with the buttons themselves in the darker green of your header (which isn't the same green as they currently are) with the button text in the darker blue from your logo - the black makes them a little "heavy". Or maybe the buttons in the darker blue with white text and save the darker green for highlighting other bits, such as the content title - sorry but that dark olive green is yukky :p

[sm1]

Craig,

Being honest, I don't personally like the buttons... header seems OK, just that the strapline is hard to read under your logo.

As Martin says, the navigation is nice and simple :)

Cheers

[murdoch]

your choice of green colour does not complement your existing blue. Look for a new green for the buttons and header.

[chalkie99]

I think the buttons are a bit dated too and they all seem to be image buttons with no search engine readable text.

The first thing that struck me though was the header image - its for the printed bag company but the image is a plain bag. What about a montage of three or four bags, perhaps overlapping each other slightly, with actual examples of printed designs, just to give a bit more impact of what people are actually buying?

[Justin_B]

Have you got permission to use your customer's logos on the site. Loads of corporates are funny about that sort of thing. I once got a telling off for using Lloyds TSB's logo on my website, even though they were my biggest customer. They aren't the best quality images either, they might not like that.

[Mattonella Tile Studio]

Being honest the header looks like something Microsoft windows would have on a template or desktop background IMO

[maria102]

It hurts your eyes a bit when you open it, plus the buttons are just too big?

[Scott-CopyandDesign]

Yeah those buttons are very 90's looking... Just stick to basic text menu's which helps when it comes to SEO too.

Also that lime green colour is very garish. It'll have to be toned right down to a more duller green.

[Carl-CSNM]

Design is awful and the code uses tables.

Find a new designer. :)

[creospace]

Did you use a professional graphic designer to design this?

If you seriously want to compete in a market where everyone is clambering to get to the top you will have to get serious professional advice abotu your image and use people who will cost a bit to get the right result.

Cutting corners now will cost you dearly in the future.

[Matthew_28]

Okay, I will try some constructive honesty.

The navigation buttons need addressing, they look too template/standardised (capsule?) as already mentioned.

Definately check with your Clients that you have permission to replicate their logo/image on your site, some companies are very strict with this. From my past experience with "Johnson & Johnson" they do not let anyone use their brand to advertise their own services. Some companys such as J&J have strict usage guidelines, pantone colour references, logo sizes/proportion etc.

If you are going to use their logos, try to get the images in a far better resolution. The "Boots" logo appears to be cut off at the top.

I assume that the "Request a Quote" should be a button to click to request a quote which is linked to your email? This doesn't seem to work, unless it is just an image.

There are at least 7-8 different greens which don't really compliment each other well at all, try think of a new colour scheme in-keeping with your corporate colours.

I actually like your logo. Perhaps you could rethink your logo along the lines of having the text "The Printed Bag Shop" on the bag itself, this would do two things, firstly obviously The Printed Bag Shop is your company name, and secondly these words appear printed on the bag itself, kind of ironic but it should work.

Really don't like the navigation buttons (capsule like), I prefer rectangular myself but just my preference. Colour scheme needs a re-work.

Instead of having "We accept these cards" text, how about "We accept the following types of payment" or payment methods. Just not sure on the sound of "We accept these cards". Can you also offer any other methods of payment e.g. paypal?

On the header image, the sales email address could be linked so when someon clicks it they get to send you an email (is convenient for the user as it saves them having to re-type the address into their email client, also mitigates the risk of them entering it incorrectly).

On the header image, "Suppliers of bespoke printed bags" is a little unclear, perhaps you could make this a little clearer without overpowering the logo.

Just my thoughts, just trying to help. If you only agree with a couple of my comments its been worth writing.

Regards

Matt


P.S. Hope you did'nt pay your web designer too much for this, perhaps it was a favour.

[streetslocal]

Ouch......
Them menu buttons look like freebie buttons generated on the freebie sites such as cool text.
I actually prefer your exsisting site compared to this.
if your looking for a new site design drop me a PM and we could discuss some options for you and costings and believe me you will be suprised at costings to improve your site.

[Matthew_28]

If you need any help just give me a shout.

Regards
Matt

[International Business]

looks like a 5 year old designed it 10 years ago, i have experience using fortune3.com ecomerce software, anyonw can use it and it is very cheap, no coding skills needed easy to use.

[Delta-SI]

It looks horrid, please execute the designer... For all our sakes.

[alex-m]

Eww. Time to pay for a good designer.

[Matt1959]

blimey the designer of this site must be squirming by now - the wonders of public forums:);) I think its the age old problem of there being no guarantee that you get a defined quality of job for a price paid, so some people tend to go cheap so as to limit their risk.

[The Printed Bag Shop]

Thanks for all of your comments. Im pleased with the response as the guy i use is a very good web developer but not so hot with the design. If i was to use him for the development of the site would someone be able to do the design ( pretty looking bits)?

[sm1]

Craig - your PM box is going to be full by the end of the evening now :D:p

[Carl-CSNM]

Thanks for all of your comments. Im pleased with the response as the guy i use is a very good web developer but not so hot with the design. If i was to use him for the development of the site would someone be able to do the design ( pretty looking bits)?

Are you sure about that? A good web developer does not use tables for a website....

For graphic design I've recently had some work done by Col at Pixels Ink (http://pixelsink.com/). I was very impressed with what he did and the quick turnaround.

[alex-m]

Carl is right. Tables and inline styling in 2008/9? Really?

[thedesigntailor]

Craig

Give us a shout, www.thedesigntailor.com

Also I hope we have proven our talents to you :)

[The Printed Bag Shop]

Sorry to sound thick but what is tables? and what is wrong with using them?

[adam]

awful colours. Didn't get any further apart from thinking you could do with some more white space around the big text section in the middle.

[thedesigntailor]

It's an outdated programming language is all. CSS is the new standard.

http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/tips/48.htm

[alex-m]

Not thick at all, you shouldn't need to know about them!

Tables are used in HTML to format data into columns and rows. They shouldn't be used to define the layout of a site.

It was acceptable back in the days when all browsers didn't play nice with CSS, but not today (for a web design company).

[sm1]

Sorry to hijack, but is that what DIV tags are for now, instead of tables?

Cheers :)

[alex-m]

Yeah. Tables are still useful though. Personally I don't see a problem using them for signup forms and things like that, although some hard core CSS lovers would disagree.

[creospace]

It's an outdated programming language is all. CSS is the new standard.

Not outdated at all, it's a case of the right tool for the job.

Tabled data - correct
Site layouts - wrong

[thedesigntailor]

Not outdated at all, it's a case of the right tool for the job.

Tabled data - correct
Site layouts - wrong

Thanks Creo, that's what I meant but didn't explain myself well. Nothing wrong with tables in the right context. Dinner for example :p

To the OP - You might think that tables work fine here what's the problem. But you see programmers are a proud people and the good ones constantly keep abreast of the newest and most correct methods and CSS has been around for ages which would indicate that the developer isn't fully in the know and perhaps is just getting by on a little knowledge.

I say this as a designer who can't code but has used many coders in his time. Some brilliant some awful.

[sm1]

Although the site doesn't work in Chrome - it's good to see the colours have changed :) Nice and subtle..

[computaguy]

In my opinion... and I am no expert... the text needs to be the samesize/fontname for the left menu as for the top. However, once you do this I have a feeling tha the content will speak for itself.