Yes, my shameless plug to get people to check out my revamped website/blog.

Juliet Nicole dot com

I ditched the template on my website, moved the blog from its subdomain to the main domain and tweaked a very beautiful wordpress theme to create a one stop shop.

To get some love going I am doing a contest asking what people think. But I do want some cc and honest opinions all around.

I know i've been MIA here lately, but I had good reasons

Thank you all in advance!!!!

Juliet

Took a peek (a quick one), looks good. I'll try to check back later when I have some time.

Hey Juliet,

Just thought I'd give you some thoughts- I like all your art- like the header and logo and the shadowing and all that.

I am not crazy about the little black corners- the reason is you have a lot of organic curves going on- and to me it seems like the corners conflict with them- creating a visual distraction

I also thought the black nav bar at the bottom was a little distracting- does wordpress force you to have that?

Nice work! Looks good

Thanks Ginger.

Joshua, thanks for the input. I'm a little confused by: little black corners vs organic curves

Are you talking about the rounded black corners on the bottom? and the rounded corners at the top, menu bar, and around the image next to each title?

what organic curves do you mean??

I truly want to understand!!

The nav bar at the bottom is not a wordpress thing. I like it. its part of the theme design and I can definitely disable it, but I like not having to scroll to get all the way to the top. and it helps to encourage rss feed subscription too. Maybe I can lighten it up a bit and not have it so dark? what do you think?

Juliet, okay, here's my $0.02, for what it's worth. It's a bit long, so I hope you make it through!

I agree that the nav bar is a bit distracting - I am on a laptop and it just seems to cut through things. It might be better on a larger screen, but I'm not sure. That being said, it could be coming largely from the perspective of the navbar being unique in how it is set up. One thing that *might* work to make it feel a bit less awkward/unusual is to move it to the top of the window. Right now, you have a blue/aqua bar at the top of your page that isn't doing anything. If you could move the nav bar so that it sits at the top of the window, I think visually it wouldn't seem like it's cutting through things. I would also lighten it, as you suggested, even make it that blue color that you already have so that it really feels integrated, and not an afterthought.

I LOVE how the last 6 posts are set up with pictures as the focal point - GREAT idea.

For the Random images at the bottom, can you make them all the same size/shape? It looks a bit unbalanced compared to the left side where the Flickr images are all nice square crops.

I would put a link along your navbar (either the floating one or the one actually on the webpage) that links to the "Client Information" section you have a bit further down the page. You want them to be able to find that information FAST, and with a unique design, you need to put it in their faces, almost.

To the right of the links in the middle section are magnifying glasses with a + sign. The graphic doesn't do anything for me, and I don't think it complements your design. I would ditch it in favor of something else, or altogether.

Investments Page: The first sentence with "Your investment..." seems a bit awkward. I would change it and simply state that wedding packages start at $3,900 and include: *8 hours of wedding day coverage, *Engagement Session, *Your first family heirloom, a Wedding Monograph album, and *other goodies. Identify clearly the things you are including even though you're not being too specific here.

I would also make the next sentence stand out, either by adding some space, color, or otherwise differentiating it. You might change the wording to something like this: 2008 is almost full, and we're already booking for 2009! Contact us today to determine availability and to request a comprehensive information packet. Beyond that, just stay consistent - is it "me" they're contacting, or "us"? (I notice "our" on the contact me page, as well)

Under "Senior Sessions," I would give more information. It seems like the header is there without *any* information.

I think that's all I have for now - sorry it's so long!! Really, overall, I think it looks great, and will certainly be a good way to keep things up to date


[EDIT]
Sorry, a couple more comments - when I go to a post with pictures - any way to go ahead and show at least thumbnails, automatically? Because of the way you have it set up, people will only be loading one post at a time, so I don't think having large images would necessarily be a problem (which you sometimes see on blogs with LOTS and LOTS of images in each post and many posts on the front page). Plus, you have LOTS of great space to show the photos, and then they're so little!

Hey Juliet,

When I say organic I mean the lines flow in a non-mathematical way. This is just a fancy description of design elements like circles and s-curves compared to squares and rectangles. I would refer to the circle as organic because it does not have any hard edges.

A good example is the really nice curve next to the word fresh, the text style of fresh, the rounded shadow above your logo- and the decor element behind your logo. When I look at your site, it seems like the natural thing would be to have all of the corners rounded on all of your objects- which might be what you are going for- but on my screen- the corners have these black little triangles on them.

This is what I am seeing on screen. It has the four black little triangles in the four corners. I was just saying- the little black triangles are a sharp corner to everything- and to me that was a little distracting- I thought it would flow better without them



I hope that makes sense- ultimately its your preference- but that was my two cents. I really like your blue nav bar at the top and how it ties in with your header- I wouldnt lose it no matter what you decide to do with the bottom black nav- the more I play around on your site- the less the black bar bothers me- I do think it could work well if it wasnt black

Hope that helps- I really like your feel of your site though- very cool

Joshua - can you post what browser you're using, and what kind of computer? I'm on Firefox3 on a PC, and I don't see those black corners. It looks like an issue with transparency, as opposed to something intentional.

Kaitlin,

I figured it could be something like that. Stupid browser issues- I am dealing with browser issues as well as I am working on some different sites right now- I am using Safari on a mac. In firefox, I don't see it.

Juliet, Im not sure how the flash files were built or what type of image format are you using to support the transparency- either gif or png probably- On the flash content it seems as if that graphic was imported into flash- in which case it is probably in the same format as the other pics on the site- explaining the black corners. I would probably try to find a fix for this- as safari use is growing- I'm pretty sure all browsers support transparency in png format- and its better for images anyways- Did you make it yourself or have it built?

Kaitlin, THANK YOU! that was wonderful feedback, just what I needed. I made a few changes that you mentioned and will go over everything tomorrow in a more detailed response.

Joshua, I understand what you're seeing now and yes, i think its a Safari thing, but I'll look into it tomorrow and see whats up. I want everything looking the same for everyone. The rotating header is flash, with images loaded via xml. I created it based on a tutorial I found online for flash 8. Its pretty basic as far as action script goes. But basically the movie calls for the image via the xml file that lists each img url individually so I can easily add img urls as I see fit. The rotating header is actually going to change in the next couple of days to a slightly different layout, but there will still be an embeded flash source. whew.. hope that makes sense.

Thanks again!

Alrighty,

I made quite a number of changes. Kaitlin, a lot of what you said made sense and I incorporated most of what you suggested.

Fixed the Random Photo so it looks like the Flickr feed.
Changed the layout slightly under "investments"
got rid of the magnifying glass next to the links
put a link to the client info on the nav bar at the top, which scrolls really nicely down the page now.

I moved the static bar to the top. But when a visitor goes through the archives, in link to go to the next page would be static at the top, so now that the static bar is at the top, the archives page links disappears once you scroll down far enough. I'm working on moving the archive page links to the bottom or lower than the static blue row at the top.. but we'll see.. may have to just keep the static bar at the bottom like it was before.

Joshua, I updated the js file for the rounded corners and that has fixed the black corner issue in Safari v. 3.1.2. Let me know if you still see the black corners though, and I'll research it further.

I would love to find out from an iphone user how the website looks.

Thanks again everyone for looking.. i would love some more feed back!

Juliet, your rotating header image needs a little tweaking. If you watch it closely, some of the images that are supposed to stay the same when the image rotates, shift ever so slightly one pixel down or up... I noticed it right away... Might want to take a look at the original files on that one... particularly the woman in the blue/yellow top, 2nd image from the right.

Yep, Chris, I noticed that too.. Fixing it as I type

Juliet, just thought you'd like to know everything looks fantastic on the iphone. Everything falls into place perfectly. Of course, the header does appear- which kind of stinks- but everything else is there.

Just a side thought- Mobile surfing will definately be on the rise with the billions of iphones being sold- so I commend you for moving in the right direction with your new site- On the site I am working on now- I am doing an html and a flash version so it can be viewed by phones- that being said-

There are scripts out there that will detect whether or not a user has flashplayer installed- I have used them before on sites to redirect someone to another page to download flash if they didnt have it kind of thing- but in your case- it would be cool if you used a script like that to redirect them to a different page- where everything was pretty much the same, but with a html header and nav system. Then it would look perfect on the phone- its just not the same without your header

Juliet - the pictures look much better at the bottom of the page, and I'm glad there are at least thumbnails and a large picture or two in each post! I also like that the thumbnails are consistent. YAY

Just one additional "quirk" - the static navbar goes behind the header images as you scroll down. I'm not sure why. I do like the color change on it - it may just be worth playing around with what works (top, bottom, etc.). Like I said, it may just be because it's something that's unique and new.

Joshua, Thank you for the kind comments. I'm happy to hear it looks good on the iphone. (I want so bad!) I will definitely add some script about the flash to redirect the mobile users out there that can't see flash on the phones. I'll have to look into how complicated that is going to be since the header appears in each page of the blog.. but great suggestions.

Kaitlin, thank you for checking it out again. I am not crazy about the static bar being at the top. I told myself I'd give it a day and see how I feel about it. I realized that smaller laptop screens may have an issue with it at the bottom, but when I viewed here on my 17 inch laptop and then at the office with the 23inch, I preferred it at the bottom, so I think I'll change it back. again.. haha.

one thing i'm not seeing is the static bar going behind the header images like you mention. You said you're using Firefox right? I'm wondering what could be the issue... can you do a screen capture?

Thanks again!!!

I just checked on my computer at work, on IE7, and encountered the same thing. I don't think I had the same issue when the static bar was at the bottom because it never really "scrolled" over the header image. I will try to get a couple of screenshots so you can see.

Just checked out the site again- really nice- I'm with you- Im not sure I love the nav at the top above your logo- not bad- just not sure I like it better. Good stuff

Thanks Kaitlin. I checked the site in IE and saw what you were talking about. I changed it back to the bottom.

Joshua, thank you again

BTW - it doesn't seem as intrusive/weird on my nice widescreen monitor at work. I guess it will partially depend on your viewers (are most on smaller screens or have most moved to nice large screens )

Well my overall target audience is going to be hs seniors, moms, and engaged couples. I'm assuming most are looking from work first and then if they view from home they will most likely have a bigger screen monitor. The smaller laptop screens are probably in the minority.. at least that's what i'm hoping. Bigger is better