TheFieryScythe

This is a portfolio website I created a few months back to show some of my work, but as you can see its not exactly well designed as it is my first website. I would much appreciate feedback on whats good and bad about it as i'm recreating it as a college project.

From looking around I understand that frames/iframes are a big no-no, and that CSS is the way to go.

Thanks for your time.

(If the site isn't working, or your getting "SSL-Explorer" it may be because my host is doing server upgrades)

My god in heaven!

Start over. Without holding your hand all the way through re-designing this is the fastest way of getting something good.

Might I suggest WordPress as an option for you. If you're not too good with web design then it could be a viable option.

Yeah, I thought I might get a response like that . I have every intention of starting over, but as part of the research phase I thought I would get some feedback on this site first.

I've had a quick look at WordPress, but the reason I am making a new website is because I want to learn how to do it properly, so i'll be building it from scratch. This website was a 2 week spontaneous project to give me something to do and learn, so there was no real planning involved, but the new one will be thoroughly planned.

Red on red doesnt work either.

Okay FireScythe,

1) I would start by getting rid of the idea of using frames and forgetting that they ever existed. I know when I first started designing web-pages, framesets appeared a good idea.. "I'll hold my navigation in a frame to the left and have my content load in a bigger frame in the middle! Great, that makes it easy to position everything" In reality though there are many many better ways to create a similar effect.... In short, ditch the frames

2) Blackgrounds (black backgrounds) have to be used with caution. They create a very hard-to read contrast and most users find it difficult to spend any amount of time reading white text off a black backround. It can be useful at times to use black as your background colour but unless you need that contrast as a tool of impact it isn't a good idea. If you still would like to retain the black backround, consider putting your text inside of a <div> that has a lighter coloured backround. This way you can use black text which is much easier to read.

3) As Daniel says above, you have to be careful with your colour choices.. Those buttons hurt my eyes when I look at them.. Trying to distinguish them from the red already in the background image is quite hard. You actually say in your site The same thing is happening with your choice of colours.. Red and black and visually appealing colours but not when you are having to make out text..

There's not much to the site as it stands so I can't comment much further. Take a serious look at CSS and positioning elements and work on getting a navigation built into a page.

Lose the frames and work on the colours.

Hope that helps a little.

Thank you, thats very useful .

I'll be using CSS layouts in my new site, much better way of doing things.