peace

Hi, great site and forums!

I thought I'd ask for some help here because I am stuck trying to redesign a website. I know what I want but I don't really have the ability to experiment and get what I want.

In the top left of the website is a lot of solid blue that really annoys me. I want to break up the solid blue in a way that will make it easy on the eyes. I was thinking some sort of circular effect that would compliment my logo. Also, I think some frosted type horizontal bars effect fading into the solid blue would work too.

Basically I'd be thankful for any little design trick someone could offer to help me along. Please don't pay any attention to the rest of the page because it's in construction, thanks for your help!

http://www.sounddevice002.com/sd002new/

Kyle

PS I know this is probably a strange problem but I really don't know what I'm doing as far as graphics and what-not.

C9Mouse

What kind of site is it? It looks like one of those Earn Money Quick sign up jobs. I noticed the picture is from PhotoSearch.com

Is this a legitimate project?

bigcloud

Based on this, it sounds like a template might be best. You might pay a little more upfront (then designing it yourself) but then you don't have to worry about the major design aspects.

On average, people spend less than 1 minute on a website. I know this varies from site to site and service to service, but it's good to look at the lowest end of the spectrum. You'll want to quickly gain the attention of your audience. From the looks of your site now, I would assume that most of your audience is elderly and your major design aspects should be focused around that.

Some tips that I like to personally pass along to people are:
-If you page is not heavily content driven, keep like information on any given page on the screen at all times. Don't force someone to scroll only to read an additional 3 or 4 lines of text.
-People respond to pictures and graphics. Use them.
-Avoid "extreme" typefaces.
-Write clean and understandable copy to YOUR audience.

There are a ton of things that can be listed here, but hopefully this gets the ball rolling and helps you.

MsOz

Why do you have to have that irritating chunk of blue, anyway? Just crop it, leaving enough to surround your logo, and move on. Since in your own words, you don't know what you're doing, there are no "quick tips" anyone can really give you except the best one from BigCloud, which is to pay someone to help, if only by providing a template.

As is, it will neither attract, nor retain visitors.

lindaw

Looking at the page I am going to assume that you are using the pics for placement only. The site also accepts pay pal? If you are doing the graphics only then follow the suggestions made and purchase a template. If you are also responsible for the coding then you have taken on a huge project with online ordering, security certs, etc. and hopefully you have the html experience to make all of this flow together. Even if you purchase the template you need to know how and where to add the text and make any tag changes necessary.

peace

Alright, thanks for the suggestions but I am afraid I misled you guys. I have graphics experience, I am just self taught and I have huge gaps of knowledge with graphics. When I said I don't know about graphics, I was half joking, my bad. The site is for old people and I try to keep it simple. All I want help with is the top of the page. I need some effect that will replace the solid blue. Drawing shapes and using filters for artistic purposes are two things I have no experience with at all and I can't get the ball rolling so I came here to see if someone could recommend a simple technique or point me to a tutorial. I'm sorry I mislead you guys.

bigcloud

Along the lines of using filters for artisitc reasons, there are a number of things I can suggest that hopefully create a spark. Maybe Render Clouds on a different layer and play around with the blending modes. Maybe a more "fixed" pattern (something like a grid or small circles or scan lines) set on a layer above the blue, set to multiply, and reduce the opacity. Sometimes just a simple gradient may do enough to break it up.

Sometimes the best thing to do when you find that you're making slow progress on the creative front is to find things that inspire you. I flip through magazines, hit the local art gallery, grab a pencil and pad and start drawing random things, search the web and start bookmarking those things that you would like to recreate.. then recreate them. Having a strong idea of what you want it to look like when you're done will make this process of getting started much easier. Is there a particular site that has something that you are looking to accomplish?

C9Mouse

I would offer some advice myself, but to be completely honest (and I hope you can still do that here) I feel there's something a little off about your site.

My suggestion would be to hire someone to do the work for you.

C9Mouse

Sorry about the double post (must go get coffee.....). [confused]