TJS WebDesign

I have just started this new site and wanted some advice on layout, and images, thanks.

Hi....
First thing I'd do is center the entire design.

As far as the design goes, it's rather simple and a bit undone. First off I'd find two colors that you like and work them in. The blue is fine for perhaps a header and your accent color, but it would be nice if your text area(content area) had another color. Maybe white? Maybe a soft blue or yellow.
But whatever you choose, would give it a little personality.

My number rule is to never use the font comic sans. It's simply unprofessional. If you were doing a child's site, comedians site or some other fun/less serious site, it could work.

In your white forum info box, put more padding to get the text off the edges.

The purples links don't really compliment the site... try a different color.


Shrink the copyright info at the bottom. No one really needs to know/see it. It's important but should be prominent.

Surf some stock photography sites and find at least one photo to add visual interest. If you find one you really like, select a color out of it as your complimentary color!

Well sorry to ramble.... good start... needs a little more time to give it some pizzazz!

Id reallt like to see alot more whitespace in this design. Overall its going quite well! maybe incoorporte another color aswell.

Keep up the good work!

To be honest, it's not very good.

You are by no means sufficient enough in web design to offer paid services in my opinion, especially not to companies. The site lacks a number of things, and also breaks a number of rules ranging in the categories of SEO, accessibility and web standards.

• First off, you need to learn XHTML strict, or even just regular HTML. I'm sure you're familiar with HTML, but you must be able to structure your site's XHTML without the need of a WYSIWYG editor. Learn to use and love <div>, <span>, <h1-6>, <p>, <a>, <ol>, <ul>, <li>, <blockquote> and <link> (notice I left <table> out of this list) together to make a logical, semantic XHTML page. Forget design at this point, structure the content so it makes sense.
• Got XHTML whipped? Great, let's start something a little more advanced. CSS, which you are also probably slightly familiar with is the most versatile browser presentation language currently in widespread use. You can do just about anything with it. You've got your XHTML page laid out logically, you can now use CSS to transform it into something pretty.
• More on topic of your current website, here are a few major concerns I have about it. First and foremost, that table needs to go.
• You're using images for your navigation. Why? Text would do much better for SEO and accessibilty. Stick your navigation in an unordered list <ul> and style it with CSS. You can acheive the same rollover effect without the need for JavaScript or images with CSS.
• All that JavaScript should be unobtrusive and in a separate file so it can be cached.
• The CSS should also be linked to in an external file using the <link> tag.
• Pesonally, I don't like your logo or your header. As a design agency, you need to come up with a logo that's new, fresh and memorable. An @ sign just doesn't fit the bill for any of those prerequisites. The shifting gradient background looks strange just standing there with nothing surrounding it, and the text placement, font and text color choices are horrible.
• That black bar with the marquee looks really out of place. Style it or remove it. Using marquees isn't a good idea, anyway.

http://w3schools.com/xhtml/
http://w3schools.com/css/
http://csszengarden.com/
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/
http://adactio.com/atmedia2005/
http://www.newguyinennis.com/samples/css_hover/

Don't take this as a personal attack of any kind, I'm just simply trying to let you know where you stand in this field. If you put some serious effort into it, you could be coding like a pro in less than a month. And whenever you get stuck, we're here to help.