Website input?

[AriaStar]

Okay, it's a girly thing, I know, and I've spent not that much time on it so far. After having completely finished it last year, tested it in different browsers, then had my hard drive completely die before uploading the final version (annoying as fuck is that my HD died right after I had deleted all the filed from my GoDaddy hosting account and right before I was going to hit the button to upload the final site). So I've been like, Hell, this sucks, at doing it again.

Anyway, I'm just starting again, so it's not all finished, and I have it backed up on my external drive too this time. It's for my dress-making, and I wouldn't even call what's up a real first draft of the site.

Anyway, let me know what you think so far, and if it doesn't display right for you, please let me know which browser you are using. In fact, please let me know which browser you are using anyway so I know which it displays right in as well. Also input on content, whatever. My goal is to be better than my competition who seems to think Geocities circa 1999 is the way to go. She's a total bitch, and I mean that with every fiber of my being.

Anyway, here:

Aria Austin Creations (http://www.ariaaustin.com)

I'd also like a better name, if anyone can think of one. The URL will remain the same. Thanks.

[skyz]

call it aria star couture (not ariastar but aria star)

as long as it is one of a kind it is couture and couture defines your work as high end fashion and is psychologically a set up to paying well

i don't know who you consider your competition but it would seem to me you are going in the direction of this new queen of the feminine scene

marchesa (http://www.marchesa.com/)

i like the color scheme of the site very much it provides an easy ethereal timeless ambiance this is good for encouraging the customer to linger desire and buy

there is real money to be made in fine fashion

i know this first hand as i told you my grandmother did so

[ericjosepi]

Alright... Critique time.

-The color scheme is good.
-Not a fan of Times New Roman or the large font size though (I'm viewing it in FF2 on the Normal font setting so I'm not doing anything the smarter than average web surfer wouldn't do).
-The links need to stand out more.
-I'm not a big fan of tables, but they help the layout for your site, maybe consider thinning the border to 1 or in some other cases 0.
-My screen res (on this machine) is 1280x800 and it almost doesn't fix maximized. Consider redesigning for a 1024x768 minimum since I consider that a bare minimum in 2008 since we all have LCD screens that are 15" minimum (unless we're on MacBook Airs that have the same screen res that i'm running).
-The title tag should contain something more meaningful than "home". It just looks unprofessional with anything less than the site name.

That's about all I can find that I don't like about the home page. I didn't look at the other pages but remember, the first impression is EVERYTHING on the net.

[esophagus]

My two critiques:
-Love the banner, the scheme, the over-all look.
-Not a fan of the large centered text. I shouldn't have to scroll right on an imageless welcome page, on a fair-sized monitor.

[AriaStar]

call it aria star couture (not ariastar but aria star)

as long as it is one of a kind it is couture and couture defines your work as high end fashion and is psychologically a set up to paying well

i don't know who you consider your competition but it would seem to me you are going in the direction of this new queen of the feminine scene

marchesa (http://www.marchesa.com/)

i like the color scheme of the site very much it provides an easy ethereal timeless ambiance this is good for encouraging the customer to linger desire and buy

there is real money to be made in fine fashion

i know this first hand as i told you my grandmother did so

I'll PM you the URL. This website will primarily focus on film and historical reproductions, with the Custom page ultimately linking to its own page when my line is large enough. At first I plan to focus on daily clothing more than formal, though the daily will have finer touches that walks the border between dressed-up and casual. The Marchesa site is pretty. I wish it had more views of the dresses.

[AriaStar]

Alright... Critique time.

-The color scheme is good.
-Not a fan of Times New Roman or the large font size though (I'm viewing it in FF2 on the Normal font setting so I'm not doing anything the smarter than average web surfer wouldn't do).
-The links need to stand out more.
-I'm not a big fan of tables, but they help the layout for your site, maybe consider thinning the border to 1 or in some other cases 0.
-My screen res (on this machine) is 1280x800 and it almost doesn't fix maximized. Consider redesigning for a 1024x768 minimum since I consider that a bare minimum in 2008 since we all have LCD screens that are 15" minimum (unless we're on MacBook Airs that have the same screen res that i'm running).
-The title tag should contain something more meaningful than "home". It just looks unprofessional with anything less than the site name.

That's about all I can find that I don't like about the home page. I didn't look at the other pages but remember, the first impression is EVERYTHING on the net.

I hate hate HATE Times New Roman, though Arial didn't look quite right. I learned the hard way once, after designing my first site, which had a shit-ton of pages, that some fancier fonts don't display on many computers. What font would you suggest? Someting elegant, but easy to read I haven't messed with the title tags too much, though I will end up changing it probably to the website name, or a welcome-to type. The frame is 1235, so it is all nice and pretty on my widescreen, but you're right that it will cause a user of a regular monitor to scroll. It will be easy to redo that to 975 or so, maybe an hour or two. I'd like to do this at the same time as the font.

[AriaStar]

My two critiques:
-Love the banner, the scheme, the over-all look.
-Not a fan of the large centered text. I shouldn't have to scroll right on an imageless welcome page, on a fair-sized monitor.

Exactly why I'm asking. :) Eric addressed the size. I hate it designed for a width of 1280, which I don't think would even display on my monitor at work, though, r-tard I am, I didn't take five seconds to check today.

The font on the main page will be centered, though I do agree about it on other pages. The F.A.Q. is left-aligned right now. What font would you suggest too? Because I personally hate TNR, though Arial didn't look right. Maybe Aria in italics? Something that will display on any computer. I learned that the hard way years ago. I'm already concerned about whether or not the Edwardian script at the top will show right.

[skyz]

here is a design a dress contest (http://www.glam.com/contests/bediscovered/?referer=MSN)

watch this film this is haute couture at it most haute you can watch it online

YSL his life and times (http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Yves_St._Laurent_His_Life_and_Times/60034519?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=2077850585_0_0)

try to get your hands on this book for the costume design

gowns by adrian the MGM years (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=stripbooks&field-keywords=gowns%20by%20adrian&results-process=default&dispatch=search/ref=pd_sl_aw_tops-1_stripbooks_6069357_2&results-process=default)

[ericjosepi]

I hate hate HATE Times New Roman, though Arial didn't look quite right. I learned the hard way once, after designing my first site, which had a shit-ton of pages, that some fancier fonts don't display on many computers. What font would you suggest? Something elegant, but easy to read

On the last few projects I generally used Verdana with a few backups. It's actually a pretty simple little CSS code trick and it gives you multiple fonts to choose from should one be missing (i.e. Windows vs Mac vs Linux vs Having MS Office Installed, etc).

body {
font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", helvetica, sans-serif;
}

If you have a little free time to kill, I suggest taking a quick gander at this article (http://www.sitepoint.com/article/anatomy-web-fonts). It's where I poached the code from an has some good tips on font selection, color and all that jazz.

[tokenuser]

You need to learn a little CSS. You can get the same effect as tables, but with a much more flexible design.

Also, you might just want to consider using wordpress of similar and picking/customising one of the bajillion templates out there. Wordpress might be simplistic, but its a great, and flexible, CMS (content management system) that will allow you to focus on content for the site rather than futzing over the design each time you make an update.

[skyz]

for the costume section if i were you i would have the history of couture which begins with charles worth

the designers such as poiret patou chanel dior balenciaga givenchy halston galanos madame gres mlle vionnet shiaperelli balmain lanvin etc were indicative of their time and any costumes for film or stage for that time would be a reflection of their impact

for example poiret for/patou the 1920's

dior lanvin balmain for the 1950's

ossie clarke biba mary quant courreges for the 1960's

halston for the 1970's

versace for the 1980's

gucci armani and prada for the 1990's

you need better pictures though this should not be hard if you use library books for reference and scan the pictures as many of the designs by top designers were photographed by the top photographers of that time both for fashion media and on the celebrities of the day such as baron de meyer cecil beaton holst avedon david bailey etc.

you should visit the wecsites of the great designers - they are some of the most beutifully designed websites on the www and often have a history section

dior (http://www.diorcouture.com/dior4.html)

and the runway shows are on youtube armani prive (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TrrxZse55Js)

and you should watch all of audrey hepburn's movies as all her clothes starting with sabrina were by givenchy

you can make me a copy one day of the gown she wears in 'my fair lady' it is by far the most beautiful gown i have ever seen

i will be glad to help you with this project i know pretty much everything about fashion i used to go the the new york public library and read all the back issues of vogue and i have read 100's of books about style and have made a sizable cash investment very happily too i have no regrets

i have a vintage teal velvet ungaro coat you would probably kill me for :D

a vintage black velvet YSL jacket that could take my comfortably in any circles :p

you need sources for fabulous fabrics that is the key to beautiful design the fabric

someday i want to design a perfume

[ericjosepi]

You need to learn a little CSS. You can get the same effect as tables, but with a much more flexible design.

Also, you might just want to consider using wordpress of similar and picking/customising one of the bajillion templates out there. Wordpress might be simplistic, but its a great, and flexible, CMS (content management system) that will allow you to focus on content for the site rather than futzing over the design each time you make an update.

I also like Dreamweaver for just that reason. Macromedia did such a good job with it that most of what you did came out as CSS as opposed to plain old HTML code. Though there is something to be said for hand coding pages from scratch in Notepad to prove your 1337 sKiLLz. Oh those were the days... 12 years ago. But like I said, I haven't done any serious design work in years but definitely Dreamweaver was my tool of choice.

Anyone try the Adobe versions? If so what did you guys think?

[Hyperkill]

What you really need to do is get Photoshop or Gimp (it's free). This will enable you to create better artwork that is more consistent. I disagree with the others and say that you need to work on your color scheme. If you require help with that check out this site...

http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp

As for creating the artwork for the site, it's pretty easy. Head on over to http://www.deviantart.com and look for some Photoshop or Gimp brushes and install those. Then just start playing around creating various things, make it fun. Also keep in mind that you should create your website using a document size of about 900 X 1000 pixels. This allows you to create a picture of what your website will look like when you're finished. After that, slice up the individual pieces such as header, navigation, etc. and you're half way done.

CSS can be a little tricky at first but it's actually pretty easy. After looking at your code I see you are using a lot of z indexes for some reason. Don't do that! Instead, create a container and put all of your divs inside of it. This way you can float them and they all fall right into place. Remember that divs are just blocks that you put stuff into. Don't over use them because you'll then be stuck with a jumbled up mess. I could create a copy of your site using only 5 divs. One for header, footer, navigation, main content, and the container. If you're interested in a great book check out CSS: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland. It covers everything you'll need to know, even the IE hacks which are sometimes necessary because Microsoft doesn't know what standards are.

[Hyperkill]

I also like Dreamweaver for just that reason. Macromedia did such a good job with it that most of what you did came out as CSS as opposed to plain old HTML code. Though there is something to be said for hand coding pages from scratch in Notepad to prove your 1337 sKiLLz. Oh those were the days... 12 years ago. But like I said, I haven't done any serious design work in years but definitely Dreamweaver was my tool of choice.

Anyone try the Adobe versions? If so what did you guys think?

Dreamweaver pretty much blows. Believe it or not, us designers don't use Dreamweaver or similar tools to get our site set up. I use an editor called Bluefish which is like a glorified notepad with syntax highlighting and tabs for each individual file. It's not about being 1337, it's about having complete power over what is happening instead of letting an automated piece of software do it for you. Now, if we were still designing layouts using tables it'd be a whole different ballgame.

[xibalba]

I looked at bluefish reminds me of the old Arachnophilia before they went java.

[esophagus]

Exactly why I'm asking. :) Eric addressed the size. I hate it designed for a width of 1280, which I don't think would even display on my monitor at work, though, r-tard I am, I didn't take five seconds to check today.

The font on the main page will be centered, though I do agree about it on other pages. The F.A.Q. is left-aligned right now. What font would you suggest too? Because I personally hate TNR, though Arial didn't look right. Maybe Aria in italics? Something that will display on any computer. I learned that the hard way years ago. I'm already concerned about whether or not the Edwardian script at the top will show right.
Yeah, centering on a homepage isn't really a problem. If you were going to keep the size, then I would suggest left-aligning. Might help the problem a bit.

As far as font goes, I'd suggest something along the lines of Bell or Baskerville. I'm not quite a computer genius, but they seem to be on most (all?) systems. They fit really well with the scheme of your page. If not, Arial in italics is still a definite step up.

[skyz]

colourlovers (http://www.colourlovers.com/)

colour lovers pallete creation tool (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7407skdtA8&feature=related)

if you ever go into manufacturing then you would use the pantone textile color system (http://www.therightcolor.com/PantonePicker/ColorPicker.html)

[Patch]

I don't think I have anything to add. I pretty much agree with everything said so far.

Question tho, do you do mens wear? Say, coats? Or do you just do womens wear?

[AriaStar]

I knew I could count on you all for some good input. :)

[AriaStar]

Question tho, do you do mens wear? Say, coats? Or do you just do womens wear?

My agenda currently includes Aragorn's Strider garb and a leather renaissance, reminiscent of Three Musketeers. :)

[Patch]

My agenda currently includes Aragorn's Strider garb and a leather renaissance, reminiscent of Three Musketeers. :)


So no custom mens wear then..?