[Fineus]

Hey all.

During the spring months I got a commission from a friend to create a website for his bosses Limo company. I went ahead and did what he asked as best I could and I thought I'd post it up here for the more artistically critical amongst you to comment / criticise.

http://www.the-pink-limo.net/

Whatcha think? Keep in mind I had a design spec on this one so there are certain things I had to do that normally I wouldn't have done.

[BlackDove]

The scrolling images are annoying.

So are the two big images of the car, although the fact that the car is pink is just ++

The menu isn't big enough to notice, since the images are what draws the attention first, and I hate looking for what should be the first thing to be obvious.

Oh and the background color is too psychodelic for my taste. I get it, it's a Pink Limo. Does the website really have to be lila/pink? Also, considering the purpleness of the website, it is highly strange that the title is Yellow in contrast.

Anyway, those are just my opinions. Not like I could do any better so keep that in mind while I play Mr. Negative.

[Fineus]

Thats fine Luckily (as far as I'm concerned) all of those things except for the size of the menus are things that the guy specifically asked for.

I should add at this point that he's a mechanic, a bit of a chav/townie/whatever and likes big shiny things ("make it bold and bright" was part of what he asked for) so I ended up having to go with that.

Interesting that the menu is small though, that's useful stuff.

[Colonol Dekker]

As long as the Chav with the Cash is happy.
Although Prom nights is a yank thing surely??

[Fineus]

Apparently he is

And no, they've really caught on here as well. Mostly for end-of-year functions of importance such as finishing high-school, college or University. There are also increasingly beginning-of-year proms as well.

Heck, any excuse to get drunk.

[Colonol Dekker]

London hasn't taken to them, but we've been having "School disco's (at school i mean  ) for decades..

Folkestones got a good nightlife, i used to be down at St Martins Plain all the time, You know where the Ghurkas are stationed?

[aldo_14]

Am I the only one who thinks 'the pink limo' sounds well dodgy?

Also, that limo is blue.  Tut-tut.

[Shade]

Hey, if Clint Eastwood can make a movie called Pink Caddilac, anything goes. About the site, in no particular order:

1) Email contact link would be welcome in addition to the phone number, what's the point of using the web if people can't contact you over it when they're there anyway?

2) Limousine is spelled Limozine on the info page.

3) A physical address makes it feel both more trustworthy and personal as it's not just some cyber entity that might only exist on the 'net, so adding that to the info page might be a good idea.

4) There are obviously at least two different cars. A gallery page showing all the choices (assuming there are more than those two) would also be welcome.

5) In addition to the pictures, some text on the front page welcoming the potential customer and praising the company a little (I dunno, top professional drivers, no scratches on the paintwork, car interior regularly cleaned and de-smoked, whatever...) would make it more immediately appealing - If I happen on a page with no text and just large pictures and some links, my first impulse is to move on to the next site.

6) If it really has to be pink like that, at least go all the way. Get rid of the square and edgy style and use something more flowing with rounded corners etc., which will go much better with that colour

[Colonol Dekker]

no scratches on the paintwork, car interior regularly cleaned and de-smoked, whatever..

Surely he can only put that if it takes place though 

[Shade]

Well obviously. If it doesn't he'll have to come up with something else... after he lets us know so we know where not to rent our Limos

[Edit] Some more stuff. All the pages seem to be missing html, head and body tags. Most browsers will let that pass, but: a) some won't, and b) you sell yourself short on some things that can be helpful to search engines (which you want to be nice to as a commercial site), namely description and keywords meta tags. And finally you should add a doctype declaration at the very top, as this helps browsers to figure out how to render the page.

[Fineus]

aldo; He asked for a blue one on the front as well.. meh.

Shade;
1, He didn't want one. Apparently if people have to call you then you're already in touch with them and can haggle the price etc.
2, Bugger
3, See 1!
4, Good idea. I like that.
5, Another good idea.
6, Yet another good idea. I need to learn how to do this and it's actually next on my list of HTML tricks to learn. I've never been able to do corners. Some really good points there though, thanks!

(And again in your second post). I think I'll make a note of all these for any future endevours. Many thanks

[Shade]

For 6, it's not at all difficult in it's simplest form. You just use a 3-column, 3-row table and set the BG graphic for the corner cells to be a pic of a rounded corner. The problem comes in matching the pics' colours to the table background - This can be hard as various browsers slightly disagree on how to render colours whereas the images are displayed as-is, but there's a simple trick to fix it: Make a 1x1 px image of the proper colour and set that as tiled background for the rest of the table.

Tada, rounded corners.

[Edit] Another thing: Ought to roll booking info and contact into one booking/contact link since they lead to the same place anyway. Different links to the same page are an annoyance for visitors, as they can end up thinking the site is hanging when in fact they just clicked over to the same page they were already on.

[Edit] Oh yeah, probably don't even need to tile the 1px background 'pic', it should stretch well enough. Not quite sure though, been a while since I did any web design.

[Edit] One more thing: Plan for visitors to have different resolutions from the one you run. This means defining such things as width values and the like (though generally not for pictures) as a % of screen width rather than a fixed pixel value, that way you keep your formatting under all resolutions.

This is mainly the case for simple sites such as yours though, for more complex sites where precise positioning of elements takes on far greater importance, there can sometimes be no choice but fixed values (HLP main site being a borderline example of this - scaling could not easily work with all those graphics having to align perfectly).

[Edit... again. I need to stop this soon] I should mention that it certainly is possible to do both nice graphics layout and dynamic scaling with resolution though. You just use fixed widths on the leftmost items and then tile a matching background to the right of those, which will then fill out the screen nicely while keeping the good looks. It's when you start needing to align pictures with background graphics or certain items on the page (such as the 'home' banner on HLP being the exact width of the news and highlights items combined) that the site starts to need fixed widths to keep looking top notch. Can fudge it to some extent, but it's rarely worth the effort.

On HLP for example, the home banner could taper off into black (or perhaps a repeatable star pattern) on the right side as it already does on the left, the top and bottom graphics could end in a uniform look that could then be tiled seperately, and finally the primary div and the news item could be made dynamic width while keeping the nav bar and highlights fixed width. Complicated and time consuming to get right, but could be done... just not worth it as it already looks great Just an example for how it works if you want to do stuff like that.

[Setekh]

5) In addition to the pictures, some text on the front page welcoming the potential customer and praising the company a little (I dunno, top professional drivers, no scratches on the paintwork, car interior regularly cleaned and de-smoked, whatever...) would make it more immediately appealing - If I happen on a page with no text and just large pictures and some links, my first impulse is to move on to the next site.

Agreed here. I think what you have on your INFO page is pretty appropriate for the front page, actually.

[Gortef]

Well, Shade allready did bring up the good ideas to improve the site. Info on the front page is allways a plus and if it feels like that the front page is becoming a bit heavy looking, one can allways make a light and simple "intro page" with a small pic and a link which welcomes the visitor in to the main front page. But his has become a 50-50 debate actually, some people like it and some don't (as far as I know).

It's a great start thoug... but go all the way with the pinkiness

[Grug]

If the client's happy then it seems fine.
Simple, not too over stylish, no flashing text crap etc. Easy to use.

Feature wise, if the client wanted more you could of had an online booking system rigged to a database that he can use for keeping track of them, a browse limo page perhaps to pick out a colour or something (unless the two on the front page are the only ones available) run from a database, maybe a few other dynamic things too. Probably the use of ASP.NET or PHP with a Database of your choosing.
- That's just me scope creeping though.

For a simple site on the net to have contact info, works great.

[Ashrak]

the fact is, you should do that they ask for you should do something that you like and make them like it too

[Xelion]

I know its a bit late but I thought I'd add my 2 cents. Anyway, overall a great site . Some people have mentioned some great advice so far, and some of mine might overlap that.

An excellent job on the background and foreground colors, they contrast very well! The layout is great, and the depth of each area is in the right order I believe (The content stands out the most, followed by the navigation and then the sites overall design). The company text even looks classy just as limos are! I also think its good you stuck with one navigation menu, unlike some sites which like to have one at the bottom and one at the top which I think is just ridiculous. The only negative aspect was having two navigation links that take you to the same location.

Some minor Improvements could include (not such a big deal); a price enquiry form that would replace the booking link, and usually when you have a website you'd have an email address . The image viewer could use flash instead of JavaScript, since it doesn't move very smoothly. Some CSS styling to the navigation to make it look more fancy. Use rounded corners using CSS and images instead of square corners.

Recommendations for coding; use valid html, and always include a doctype declaration, you can learn about html and other languages at w3schools. Try to use an external style sheet, so you reduce file size, download time and bandwidth usage. At all costs avoid using tables for layouts.

One thing I might mention that differs from designer to designer, people think that if the Client is happy then everything is good but if an increase in the demand for the products/services they're providing don't happen then the website can prove to be unsatisfying later on, and thus you've lost your customer. I think its important to keep an open mind between Client short-term and long-term satisfaction.

Is there any reason for the search engine links at the bottom of the page? or is that a client request?