Your thoughts guys! Company/ portfolio site...

Hey everyone,

thought i'd see what the general opinion of the work at::

http://www.designisruin.com

This is the website for my design studio company that I'm currently setting up offices for in the UK. I tried to present a different look from the standard corporate affairs of many design studio sites, as you'll probably notice that much of my work has a different feel and look to it. Basically this is a website that I'm very comfortable with and that I can expand as necessary with realtive ease

As far as I'm aware the site should work in every resolution from 800x600 upwards and every modern browser from IE5 and Netscape 6 onwards. I'm considering converting the backend to php at some point, but i have no need to do that at present.

Thanks

Wow! Definently one of the best portfolio sites I've seen. Quite an impressive portfolio as well. Very nice, I really like your work on sitepoint!

Nice work. My only suggestion is that on an LCD screen (what I have) the grey text looks almost white and is hard to read. Other than that it looks great!

Thanks everyone

Yes, i'm a Sitepoint contest fiend but I've seen a number of the contests on here for a while now and the standard of entries on here is very good. I also like the idea of having to apply to become part of the design team.

I wasn't aware about that LCD screen problem as no-one had ever mentioned that previously to me, thanks for letting me know

Oww man this is Cool...I've checked the site and the site is rock....i love the theme too, nice work.

I like it... it seems very ornate/old fashioned yet modern at the same time. The menu at the top seems very cluttered though.

BTW.. the text looks fine on my LCD screen, it all depends on how bright people have them.

Thanks for the comments guys/ girls.

Penguinpanda.... looks as though you discovered my lack of forethought! I forgot about the menu when I was designing it, and that was about the only place I could put it as it was too late to re-code everything. I'll have to redo it at some point as I plan to launch an online store selling t-shirt designs and other bits and pieces.

sweet site man, I love the washed out look! Your work is really awesome too

I love the site.

I really like how the front page is a news page that way you can see what is new or going on with you/the company. I like when you know that there is something new to browse through.

The light gray font may be a little too light. I had a hard time reading it. Also, the text you have over the image or piece of work seemed to blend into some of the images a bit.

Other than that, great work!

Love the design. A couple of thoughts...

I've noticed that you refer to your business name as both "Design Is Ruin" and "designisruin". Because branding is everything, you should pick one way to type your business name and be consistent throughout the site.

I also have the same readability issue with the light gray text as others have mentioned.

Last little nit-pick -- your main page is the News page, which is fine (a great idea, in fact), but when your users decide to explore the site, they will click on the "News" item in your menu and get.... nothing. Many won't understand that they are already on the News page. Either remove the "News" link from the top of that page, or change the menu items to show which page you are currently on throughout the site.

Hope that helps -- your portfolio pieces are excellent.

Jess

Thanks for all your comments so far everyone, be assured your comments have all been taken onboard. Please keep them coming if anyone else has anything to add.

The site is going to undergo a major overhaul soon as I'm going to add some major improvements (clothing store just to mention one ) as well as a whole batch of new work to it, now that I have finally moved into my own design studio!

very nice website, i like it. Amazing work

I really love viewing this kind of design. It's one of my favorite style. I cannot give you a critique, sorry! I'll just give this a 2 thumbs up.

Very nice layout design, superb!

Phew, nice site man! I'm lovin' the look you have gone for. Some rollover effects on the navigation would be nice though - nothing too major, just a simple colour change, or something like that.

The text colour might be a slight bit to light, its a teensy-weensy bit hard to read, but, I'm just nitpicking now

Good job!

Now the office move is complete, I thought i'd let everyone know that the site has now undergone a substantial overhaul as I said it would, with a completely new design as well as a database driven backend which makes the whole site flow quicker, and allows me to display a substantial amount new information on each project. There's also due to be a store added selling my custom t-shirt designs as well client lists, testimonials and some arty manipulated photographs of myself on the about page.

I've taken on board a number of the comments mentioned such as the difficult to see menu, the descriptions on the projects being difficult to read on the old site and also the text legibility problem. It also matches all of my company stationary.

Once again it should work in most modern browsers at res of 800x600+

I'd be interested to see what the opinion is from the wise viewers here at DC and see if anyone has any features/ areas they'd like to see in future updates (not for a while though, I need a break from altering the site!)

I like it...I just thought the top navigation should stand out more...maybe a simple image rollover. Nothing major...Over all though...It looks great!

You should add some flash animation in the header or buttons effects, that would look awesome with it.

Very awesome! And that logo makes me very happy indeed.

I like it, but you should make it easier to navigate in the portfolio area.