New Website Up - See What You Think

[BJW]

Hey,

I just put up a new site promoting my "band" (rather - promoting myself). Here's the url: www.feelslikefridaymusic.com. Anyway, I downloaded the trial version of Macromedia DreamWeaver MX 2004 the other day, and I just started tinkering around and came up with this site. I really have no experience with web design or anything - I didn't even have a clue how to use the program, but I'm pretty good a computer stuff.

What do you think of the site? Anything that's good? Anything I should improve on? I appreciate any and all comments. Now if I can just figure out how to do a guestbook and an email list submission form.. . .

Thanks in advance!

[glynb]

Had a look at the site.
The layout is workmanlike, nice and tidy and the links work. i didn't like the grey colour scheme, it's a bit drab, this is rock n roll, it should be exciting!

The pic on the laft panel took ages to load on my PC and when it did finaly load was a pic of a guy sat on the sidewalk with an acoustic... not too interesting.

The pic in the pannel on the left sometimes seemd not to load at all on a couple of the other pages i clicked on. I think you need to go into a photo editor and reduce them in size to something no more than say 30/40k tops, otherwise they just take way too long to down load. If you have to reduce the picture dimensions to chieve that then do it. If the site loads too slowly people will get fed up and leave.

On the bio page the text was a bit florid at times "musical phenomenon", "electrifying shows" , and from the pics page 'dreamy photos of Brian...' I mean by all means don't be unnecessarily humble, but bigging yourself up gets up people's noses!

Having said that, on some of the photos there's a passing resemblance to leonardo Decaprio, which has to be a good thing in a business where image is important, but i think you need to use far less photos of yourself, or you come across as narcissistic! Use a few photos, but great ones that show you off to best advantage! How about colourful live show pics?

The band page, which is all you, I assume was tongue in cheek, until your real band pics can be posted, right?

To say you are a novice web designer, i think its a good attempt, the basics are there, just needs some more work to make it more interesting/exciting.

Good luck.

[Phobea]

I'm more of a designer than a musician so I'm gonna be a bit more picky than most.

Firstly, I like the graphics, colour scheme, and layout. Perhaps a little too clean and corporate for a rock band, though. The HTML text is way too big, usability is important but body text should never be bigger than navigation or header text. Try a 6 or 7pt Verdana for body text, with header for each section in the same font as the navigation. Try centering the whole thing aswell.

Aside from that, good job!

[AussieInLondon]

Up to a year ago, I ran a pretty successful consultancy as well as the music side of operations. Health made me choose only to carry on with one, music won.

That said, I can see the many "newbie" mistakes in Brian's attempt. But without the training and, at the very least, a good read of the manuals, Brian has taken a bit of leap into the deep end of the swimming pool.

Brian, instead of using the .PNG format that takes up a LOT of bandwith to those still on a 56k connection, like our friend Glynb sounds like he/she has, convert them to either .GIF or .JPG and the site will load much faster. Layout is always a personal thing and if YOU like the grey tonality and feel it is how you wish to be sold to the Internet audience, then that is your perogative. I would humbly suggest it is not one I would advise you to stay with though. It can be rather dull. And you want viewers to return regularly. In the Entertainment industry - grey is not really a good option.

The rest of the site is of the same ilk and therefore needs no more converstation than that I have already mentioned.

In summary, I would seriously suggest a look at the rather extensive help files and samples that come with Macromedia products. Buy a few books about the apps you plan to use for your website masterpiece and then - right from the very start - sketch out the layout of each page on a blank piece of paper. Lay them out in front of you (and family and friends) and HONESTLY get the feedback and flow of your design before you open the application and type one word.

It doesn't have to be a work of art, just rough drawings and how they link to each other. It may sound silly, but I know of many professional designers who use this method with every site they design. It is known as Storyboarding and has been around forever in the film/cartoon/art industry.

Hope this long-winded answer has been some help. Good luck with the site and your career.

[BJW]

Hey everybody,

Thanks for all your reply's. When I put the site up, I suppose I was assuming when I shrunk my pictures down (the main ones that go in each page) that they would decrease in file size rather - I really don't know why I thought that. I will render them to .jpg's at a much smaller file size so the pages load faster.

I've really been toying around with color scheme's and layouts. I've been through several changes (granted I haven't spent much time at all - like I said earlier) and this seems to look the best so far. I did the index page and just filled in the scrolling layer for all the other pages - kind of did it all in one sitting. I suppose if I'd sit down and do each page at a different time I'd come up with a much more diverse web site. I really want to work with blue's in my color scheme. I like the john mayer website (www.johnmayer.com) especially color-wise. I'm guessing that's all done in Flash - which I'm also guessing would be way above my skill level at this point.

I'm planning on buying a book over DreamWeaver. I've got a friend who does web design for a the college I went to in undergrad (www.tabor.edu) who gave me some good recommendations as far as books go.

To glynb, I suppose if you knew me personally, you'd know that all the "shameless self-promotion" is kind of a sarcastic thing. I'm a pretty humble person, and anybody who knows me who has seen that kind of thing knows its more of a joke, but I totally understand how it could look extremely arrogant from an outside point of view. Thanks for pointing that out. I was really just looking for pictures to put on the site.

I'll work on it some more - but I'm ready to start recording more songs again. I'm pretty busy with 2 other jobs, so I don't get much time to devote to my hobbies. As far as careers go, I'm trying to get into dental school. Maybe someday I'll be a dentist by day and moonlight as a rock star. This is just a hobby that I'm trying to develop and pay a little more attention to in my life.

Thanks again for all your reply's and advice!

[Adam B]

Site is not bad looking, and might be enough.

Most bands don't have amazing websites anyhow.

Really though, the best solution would be a BBS of your own, themed to suit you.

I would recomend phpbb, or something similar that supports a calander, mass emailing options, a portal, skins, a message board (better than a guest book), and a photo gallery.

Really when people check out your site they are looking for information first, music second, and pretty graphics last.

You want a site that is easy to navigate first of all, with all the essential info easy to find and clearly displayed.

Good job though on your first site.

Oh yeah, the pics are way to large in size. They take forever to download, hence making the site run slow and and also increasing your monthly bandwidth used (which you probably pay for in your hosting package).

Adam

John's site is done in Flash, and he needs to have a "skip intro" option.

[BJW]

Again, thank you to all who gave comments/suggestions. I've re-done about half of the site. Some of the pages are new (brown color scheme) and some are old (grey color scheme). It's a BIG improvement. Have a look and see how it is now.

www.feelslikefridaymusic.com

Thanks again.

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by BJW

Again, thank you to all who gave comments/suggestions. I've re-done about half of the site. Some of the pages are new (brown color scheme) and some are old (grey color scheme). It's a BIG improvement. Have a look and see how it is now.

www.feelslikefridaymusic.com

Thanks again.

I like the look & layout of it...I just saw it today, in the sort of tannish/greenish/brownish(?) color...Which I think looks sharp. The gray pages look...well, gray. The layout itself looks clean and interesting (in a good way).

Let's see...you're recording music, creating a website, going to dental school? Each one of those in itself is a black hole for time....

[BJW]

Originally Posted by jfrog

Let's see...you're recording music, creating a website, going to dental school? Each one of those in itself is a black hole for time....

Hey thanks!

I'm finishing out all the pages now.

On top of applying to dental school (I'm not in yet), recording music, and creating a website, I work 2 jobs - one in medical research and the other as a teacher/tutor for Kaplan Inc. (test prep for the MCAT, DAT, ACT, SAT, GRE, etc.) I'm also getting married in June. I'm being pulled by about 5 or 6 black holes for time, haha. Oh well, you've got to do what you love, right? Maybe I love too many things.

[BJW]

OK, i'm done for now. There are no more of the old grey color-schemed pages - I finished it all out with the new style. Let me know what you think.

[AussieInLondon]

There ya go! Looking good mate! Well done.

[BJW]

Originally Posted by AussieInLondon

There ya go! Looking good mate! Well done.

Thanks a lot! Now it's back to recording.

[scottfisher]

One suggestion. Where it says FLF music, you should fade the picture into that color, it clashes. Also, try colored scrollbars. Hmmm...

Maybe you could change the background color of the picture from the left up to your body, so it blends. Keep the right side, gives good texture, and wont clash.

Other than that, awesome!

PS - I like your music, kind of John Mayer sounding. Really great. What did you record with?

EDIT: Im talking about the background pic on the Home page.

[BJW]

Originally Posted by scottfisher

One suggestion. Where it says FLF music, you should fade the picture into that color, it clashes. Also, try colored scrollbars. Hmmm...

Maybe you could change the background color of the picture from the left up to your body, so it blends. Keep the right side, gives good texture, and wont clash.

Other than that, awesome!

PS - I like your music, kind of John Mayer sounding. Really great. What did you record with?

EDIT: Im talking about the background pic on the Home page.

Hey thanks a lot! I'll look into your suggestions - I really want colored scrollbars, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it.

As far as recording, I use a firepod as my interface and for pre's. For vocals I use a Studio Projects C1, acoustic guitars with a pair of MXL 603s's, and electrics go through an original POD. Drums are all loops.

Thanks again for the compliments and suggestions

[scottfisher]

Colored Scrollbars

A simple Google search brought up a nice little generator. There are tutorials, but that seems simple.

My site uses transparent scrollbars, I really like the effect it adds, but only works in IE.

[BJW]

I like it!

Thanks!

[pashop]

I like the layout ....colors might be drab. Get pics that are real.....go to a pro and get proper head and body shots that are pleasing. As a single your selling yourself and you need to pick it up a notch. You will be amazed