SITE REVIEW: GardenPlansIreland.com

Hi again guys and gals,

Another gardening website! My brother is a garden designer and I redesigned his original site about a month back. Here it is: http://www.gardenplansireland.com/

Comments appreciated. Thanks

Nice and clear, I like the earth tones. Good atmosphere given the message.

It looks like the site could cut off at the copyright, but I understand why you put in the footer

Good job with the multiple navigations, they're easy to see and use!

nice layout. i like the colors and how everything is presented. also, the gardening diary is rather eye catching. lol, my eyes were like drawn there.

but i do think there's a bit too much white space at the bottom of the page. it looks good and all, but its just too empty..

I think your site could be a lot more earthy & welcoming. It's too cold right now and doesn't make me feel like I'm on a gardening site at all. For starters, looking at your logo without looking at the title doesn't make me think of gardening whatsoever.

You don't seem to have a focal point on your site. I don't know where to look first.

You've already got a contact section so why list your personal information at the top of the site. Plus I don't think that information should be listed on the same line as the logo & a photo. It doesn't look right.

Do you really need to have empty TD tags? What's up with this tag?
<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>

Hi guys,

thanks for the comments!

flavah about the '<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>', it is just a HTML version of a 'spacer.gif' or similar spacing image. I know it is bullky and lazy but when design the page it saves me a heck of a lot of time rather than creating spacer images Oh yeah and the logo in itself should not suggest gardening but garden design (i.e. it is a plan/design, maybe I should strengthen this concept though)

AnarchY SI: I'm glad the gardening diary is eye-catching, then the design has worked!

Neksus: I did not specifically design with the intention of adding 'earth tones' to the site but I guess it just kinda evolved that way. Guess the premise of the site guided me then

Any other suggestions/comments? Thanks

Nice & clean looking site! Very easy to navigate, however your link on the buttom of the page - "Original Garden Stew Member - View my profile>> " have colors (yellow and blue) that don't really go with the rest of it. Good luck

hmm.. for the spacer you could make a 1px by 1px transparent gif image and then specify the width in the img tag.. then you could use the same image for every spacer without any problems or anything. but just have it be like


however, i've used the &nbsp; to space things plenty of times in sites i've made lol

however i do think flavah is right about it needing a focal point.. unless the diary is the focal point. but you could so something as little as changing the color of or background color of the main text.

good tip about the spacer AnarchY , it's just that i get lazy, know what I mean

yes I think the site does need more focal point direction, i agree 100%

thanks....

the site looks pretty professional tbh, but i think that you need to work a bit on the alignment, as of now, it looks kind of random.

The red and blue borders should disapear and be replaced with the green and brown that make the "colour theme". The rest is nice. I like it