SITE REVIEW: Truceco.com - Photoshop Tuts and Image Hosting

This is my personal site. I also offer free image hosting and various tutorials. The site is fairly new so I don't have a whole lot of tutorials and such added in yet. Any ideas for different tools to add would be great! ALL of the tools and resources are made 100% by me. I DO NOT copy any other site's code!


I like the design colors on it, but something is missing. Any ideas?

Maybe some ideas for a header?

http://www.truceco.com/

At first glace, I immediately read blog site...so if that is what you wanted, kudos. However, I can't help but also notice that the colors of the site look kind of dull.

In terms of site structure, I like it, very simple - the navigation on the right side of the page, rather a-typical but it still works.

I would just like to see more play with color I guess as a particular crit.

I agree with mr. darek. The site just screams blog site. I also am not too fond with the header. Id play around with that and see if you can change some of the stuff. As for the bloggieness i would move all of the news onto a News page, and change the home to tell what your site does and offer a few links to major pages on the site.

poly

It is part blog because it is my personal site. I also offer various resources. Any tips on what to do with the colors?

What do you think should be done to the header Poly?

Any additional tools or features that you would like to see?

I think the links need to be changed.
Possibily inactive as something like #ccc, with an #f00 mouseover? Or the red you're using now would be fine as well I suppose.
Is there supposed to be an 8 inch gap at the bottom of the page?

Lol....8 inch gap. No it isn't supposed to be there, and most of the time it doesn't appear there. Sometimes on FF (which I know you use too) it doesn't display tables with height set to 100% correctly. Usually a refresh fixes this.

About the mouseover, you want the links to go to #FF0000?

There is nothing wrtong with blog sites, but if you want to advertize your free image hosting & your tuts. You should mention that right at the top of the page. Right now it's the blog side that everyone sees first. Is that what you're aiming for? Or did you want the tuts/image hosting to be the first thing ppl see upon entering your site? But like I said, put an intro paragraph at the top summarizing what your site has to offer.

The logo isn't bad it's actually kinda cute but it doesn't seem to fit the site content very well.

Your links aren't visible enough, they seem kinda weak, I think they just need to be bolded or something.

Site colours could be improved as well. The grey makes me sad. The colours you pick for your site as so important. They project a certain mood to the viewer and the colours you used are great but the grey with them seems to bring them down. Plus I don't think the grey looks that great with those bright colours. Try maybe a black which is also a dark colour but it makes the bright colours stand out more, or a white. Play around with different colours. Try to find one that goes well with the three others.

In your image upload area, line up your form. The left side is great but the rigth side isn't.

Missing meta data

Don't forget alt tags for images

Look forward to checking out some of your tutorials when you get more

Thanks for the tips 613flavah! I agree about the intro paragraph. My HDD went bad again so I can't update it right now, but I will add that in by thursday night! I will re-align the upload form. I am thinking about removing the resize check box as well and just making the textbox determine whether or not the image should be resized.

As for colors, I tryed to make the whole site more white, but this is how it ended up. Would making the right side a deeper red (#990000) be too overboard you think? As far as colors, what should I add?

Nothing wrong in trying! Try everything possible for colour combinations. If you need help/inspirations on what to use try these web colour palette sites (http://www.lynda.com/hex.html) & (http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/re ... lor_codes/) I use these two sites a lot for my colour combinations. Seeing the colours may help you visualize things better.

I like your idea about the textbox determining whether or not the image should be resized. Try it out see how it works out!

You should definitely make your navbar bigger

Argh! I lost the PSD for the site when my hard drive went down! I am going to have to redesign this one form scratch.

Any last minute ideas on it before I begin?

- The red on grey combination looks very drab and boring. I would suggest making the main content area white but of course this would mean that you would have to change the mouseover colour on links.

- The main menu area could be slightly centre-aligned i reckon i.e. adding the gradient border on the left of the menu to the right of it as well.

- Make the logo area link to the homepage with appropriate ALT text also.

- More line height on the main menu links

- Very hard to notice the Google ads. I reckon the grey is a cause of a lot of issues.

- Repeat most important links at bottom of page or add a 'back to top' link.

- Add a small piece of introductory text somewhere near the top of the page e.g. just before the main content area. I say this because when I first saw the site it was not immediately apparent what the site was about.

Hope this helps

OMG that's awful news Were you able to restart? Still need more ideas?

Actually happened to me once. Lost all the software I developed. Luckily I managed to get most of it back. Still a horrible feeling.

Why don't you have any DOCTYPE?

I don't have a doctype because I get lazy and forget to put one.

I am bummed about losing the PSD, and I am trying to re-design it. It is a pain though.

Thanks for the tips Garden Stew! I am planning on updating all that soon now!