Website design

Elrond

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Firstly I'm a developer so the coding shouldn't be a problem, what I'm after here is the 'design' or look of a website. It's the normal story where you can code it but can't make it look good!

From my sig you can see that I already have a site but I would like to make it look more professional (hopefully the photos will also become better) looking. I'm going to use the software that I currently use to display photos but will probably move the thumbnails to the left or right and have two columns instead of one row and they will also be larger. I also don't really want to do the whole lot in flash, partly because I don't know how to code it, but also because of the performance factor, although if it's called for it can be done.

So basically I'm just after info on what I can do to make it look better, there's probably nothing wrong with it now but at the end of the day things can always be improved on. Do you have any example's of layout (I don't really want to use a site like clik pic), colour schemes, menus etc?
 
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Having spent most of the past 18 months going from not knowing anything about webdesign at all to now having done my own site, and in that time having looked at hundreds and hundreds of others I'd say let your images do the talking. Keep the background and text neutral colours, for instance I would be tempted to either make the background all white or grey or black and then all text a similarly neutral tone. At the moment the bright turqoise text seems a little over powering to me. There is a good resource I used for inspiration here: Minimal Sites | Minimal Design Website Gallery and Community
 
You can also see what i did with mine, which is built on a wordpress theme called photopres which has then been heavily, heavily modified to get what it looks like now. The only thing I really should change is the slideshow pro gallery on the home page which is flash based, and as we all know these days boys and girls, flash is bad... :) Dave Wyatt:
 
Just let the images do the talking.

I am the opposite to you, I can't code but I can design. So I did the design on my newly launched site and my friend coded it all.

I'm pretty pleased with it :)
 
Just let the images do the talking.

I am the opposite to you, I can't code but I can design. So I did the design on my newly launched site and my friend coded it all.

I'm pretty pleased with it :)
You guys should get together for website brainstorming session
As for those of us who can neither code nor design , we'll just watch on in awe!
 
You could also use redbubble.com and sell your work also.......

My site Icemanonline


You put the work in and join in the community too.............lots of help to get you started and make your website known.......and its FREE



icemanonline
 
Also have a look at this clip for an easy to maintain website/blog.
click here
 
What are peoples opinions on using Smug Mug, one of their options where you can customise?

The reason being is that it would be cheaper than paying for webhosting.
 
What are peoples opinions on using Smug Mug, one of their options where you can customise?

The reason being is that it would be cheaper than paying for webhosting.

I use Smug Mug for my site - www.simonbutlerphotography.com - and I think it's brilliant. I can't code so I was a bit concerned that most of the customisations involve coding but there are loads of tutorials, tips and codes you can copy on the Digital Grin forum. Plus there are lots of people on there who enjoy writing code for you. When I was designing my site I couldn't get my menu bar to line up; I posted a query on there and within a few minutes someone had looked at my code and corrected it.

I subscribe as a power user which cost for about ÂŁ35 for a year which is cheaper than my previous webhosting. Plus my site looks much more professional than if I coded and designed it all myself.

Downsides? Well, unless you pay for a Pro account ($150 / year!), you are forced to have "powered by Smugmug" at the end of the site description and at the bottom of your site. The powered by smugmug thing tends to confuse Google so your site might not be as visible to people searching for a photographer. And their built-in photo printing service is US based so I have disabled this on my site. But I used some code from the DGrin forum to add a Paypal option so people can still order prints of my work but I have to send the photos to Photobox manually rather than it happening automatically if I lived in the US.

Hope that helps.
 
You could also use redbubble.com and sell your work also.......

My site Icemanonline


You put the work in and join in the community too.............lots of help to get you started and make your website known.......and its FREE



icemanonline


I'll jump into this thread as I am interested in a website as well. I mainly want to have a website to show some of my shots.

Redbubble seems to have a nice layout with the added benefit of selling them :) Have you had any luck with your sales?
 

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