A new layout for 09 - comments?

[GetCarter]

Trying to ditch the thumbnails on me' site: www.stevecarter.com (as a bit of research shows that people don't click on them). I'm also trying to avoid flash, as so many people hate it.

Looking for something really simple, html, but classy. I have lots of galleries, but am thinking of making them all uniform, and like this:

http://www.stevecarter.com/frames/frames.htm

What do you rec? Too minimalist?

It shows them almost exactly how they sell in shops BTW.

C&C on the site design welcome.

Ta

Steve

[stigmundfreud]

the text at the top reminds me of why I dont submit reports written in the Comic MS Sans font

I'd also consider making the images/frames smaller so that 1024x768 browsers aren't dwarfed

[andy-xr]

My Page Down cuts off half of every image, and it's not quite 3 presses of "up" to get each photo on the screen. Probably related to the title, hope that was descriptive enough for you

[GetCarter]

andy-xr said:

My Page Down cuts off half of every image, and it's not quite 3 presses of "up" to get each photo on the screen. Probably related to the title, hope that was descriptive enough for you

Cheers chaps - have removed title.

I read last month that there are now more than 50% viewing the web at higher res than 1024 x 768. So maybe time to move on (?) They look like postage stamps on my monitor! Though perhaps the frames are indeed too big and may well dwarf (I made them 980)

Thanks for the comments.

[stigmundfreud]

always play to the lowest resolution

[GetCarter]

stigmundfreud said:

always play to the lowest resolution

800 x 600? 640 x 480??

Edited by GetCarter on Friday 26th December 21:00

[Bee_Jay]

GetCarter said:

stigmundfreud said:

always play to the lowest resolution

800 x 600? 640 x 480??

Edited by GetCarter on Friday 26th December 21:00

Despite having lots of large macs and monitors, I regularly surf while sitting on the sofa on my nice brand new little Dell E4200 laptop with a native widescreen resolution of 1280x800, so I do a fair bit of scrolling on most sites, including yours...

P.S. - love the framed photo effect.

Edited by Bee_Jay on Friday 26th December 21:05

[stigmundfreud]

GetCarter said:

stigmundfreud said:

always play to the lowest resolution

800 x 600? 640 x 480??

Edited by GetCarter on Friday 26th December 21:00

I'd say 1024x768 will cover most of your visitors these days, why not run some stat gathering on your site

[Dogsey]

Works fine for me, although I think most if not all of those images would work better with a black (white core) matte rather than the off white you've gone for.

[4hero]

Your photos look tiny here Steve, bump them up to 1920 please

[Zad]

As the web image is shown against a black background, the frames are contrasty and visually very dominant. In real life the texture and diffuse reflection of the mount card against a natural background will (I imagine) be much less intrusive as the brain will edit it out. Maybe display them against a 95% white background with drop shadow? A bit of a cliché but it might work better.

[Famous Graham]

Works for me

[nick_bbb]

Looks good Steve

[SamHH]

I understand the desire not to have thumbnails, but I don't see the point of the borders. I'd rather have a bigger photo (i.e. 980 wide on its own). If you're thinking about 'sellability', personally, the impact of seeing the image filling the screen would be more likely to make me want to buy it than seeing it like it would be in a shop. Also, if the images were bigger than my screen res (1024) and it meant I had to scroll sideways to see them, I probably wouldn't bother looking unless it was something I really wanted to see. Lazy, I know, but I guess that's just the way we are when browsing casually, as you've discovered with the thumbnails.

[Simpo Two]

It's an awfully long page but if people don't click on thumbnais I can't think of a better way. The mounts take up a a lot of space but I accept you're trying to make them look as they would when mounted.

The photos look great, my only negative comment being that if I was choosing which one to buy, I'd spend a long time scrolling up and down trying to find the one I liked again. I adopted a different style for my NZ images at www.blokewithacamera.co.uk/NZ.htm - but then again, nobody's bought one off the site, so I guess that doesn't work either!

[Bernie-the-bolt]

The page is full of fantastic pictures that distract me from the site the site be it good or bad!

[john185k]

Personally I really like the frames. Gives a 'complete' look.

[L4MBOLUV3R]

for starters get rid of the new! gif's quite tacky. replace with a NEW in a light-ish colour will suffice better and look less tacky.

for image viewing switch to light box. looks more tasteful. http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/

for the title you have the txt aligned right and the logo aligned left so either push it all to the right or all to the left.

when you click on your photo pages you tend to get taken to a blank page you just have to scroll down or click through. having a more appealing thumbnail system along with light box will show the full potential of your pages better.

sorry if this is all over critical but this is what i attempted todo at uni and they taught us to be really critical. i have really good knowledge of photoshop and intermediate knowledge of css so if you want any help improving your site send us a bell and il try and help

[GetCarter]

Thanks for your comments everyone.

I've lightened the background a little, and will keep playing with different frames. I think I'll make the framed version the 'thumbnail' so that bigger versions are available. Might keep the existing page for the 1024 brigade... but they are shrinking rapidly.

The page loads here in 9 seconds (after a ctrl F5). Is it too slow for anyone out there? - dialup, forget it!

http://www.stevecarter.com/frames/frames.htm

[Bee_Jay]

I must say, I do get bored of scrolling and then lining the pictures up to see them by about halfway through.

Would much prefer some kind of gallery that I click through... The lightbox one mentioned earlier is excellent (and even works on my iPhone).