Our new site
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- 19 Responses
- harv0
Tesmith, I was just by your storefront yesterday. (B3K moved in beside you)
Much has been said about the your website. I think it could use a little more punch. If you look at Digital Propaganda on front street. http://www.dpgroup.com/dpcanada.…. Their site is just garbage so at least your doing better then them. Ha.
I think when Im by there Ill stop in, say hi!- Yes, there are some awful printer sites. Look forward to meeting you.tesmith
- utopian0
tight like white®
- k_temp0
To sum it a bit, everything looks too simple: texts, titles, pictures, case studies, services, about, contact, what's new, what's old, what's for lunch... everything.
Find a perk and make that bigger, not loud with colors or spark, but bigger in to have it as a focal point.
In your SERVICES, if you really want to go for simplicity ditch the lightbox script. It's very slow and it's not necessary. Simply run all the pictures at a bigger scale.
- thompson0
I wear extra large
- ian0
It's simple, a little bland, the images are too small to do them justice but overall its a damn sight better than most printers websites I've seen before.
Me thinks that this thread may not exactly be what you're looking for though, a critique as opposed to new clients.
- tesmith0
Ian, this is what I was looking for. I have great respect for a lot of the people's opinions here. Really wasn't looking for new clients through this venue.
- ItTango0
For instance: http://us.moo.com/
Your products/services probably don't run this deep, but I find their layout "engaging". Makes me wanna' browse their sight.
- tesmith0
Thanks for the suggestions. The designers presented a number of options and it was my decision to go clean and simple. I like a lot of empty space and resisted embellishments but understand what you're saying.
- detritus0
I share the reservations about plainness.. doesn't strike me as being a clean, well-designed site.. rather, a plain, underloved one.
Feels very early millenial in its design and layout.
If I were in your shoes, I'd've gone with @font-face, and used a single, decent, noneOS font across the board. The mix of images for your top nav and plain vanilla html text feels a bit ..meh.. to me.
.
Is it just me, or does your wall logo looks different to your site's logo?
- I am not typographically savvy and didn't anticipate it being such an issue. Logo is differenttesmith
- fadein110
Very basic brochureware website.
- ecodesign0
It is very basic I agree with comment above - I feel it lacks something | but maybe that's just me ...
- GeorgesII0
very swiss, it sta....
- Continuity0
Agreed that it's a very basic brochureware site.
Also, the use of Arial Black on the front page is ... well ... unfortunate.
- tesmith0
It was intended to be simple and is intended to act as a "brochure". We are printers and wanted to show what we do. That being said, our clients are designers and wanted it to be tasteful and informative.
- Better start by ditching Arial in those index page images, then.Continuity
- Arial is taboo?tesmith
- Pick a font, any font.seeessess
- zenmasterfoo0
@tesmith - less is more - sometimes.
What this design does is play down your skills so much they're now lost. Emphasis is needed on what you do. If you lack design examples to showcase, you need something in the site design to show in its absence. White space and small photos go opposite to that and won't drive you more business.
Keep it simple in the next design step as well, if you want. But do it with tasteful design treatments and thoughtfulness placed on your site style.
- yes...ditch the arial too.zenmasterfoo
- "design examples" or "design treatments"? We're not designers.tesmith
- Continuity0
'That being said, our clients are designers'
Really? No offense, mate, but nothing about this site speaks to this. In fact, if I was shopping for a printer in Toronto and doing it on the web, I would pass you guys up for exactly the same reason I make it a point of passing up Transcontinental on the occasions I do print:
- Banal
- Corporate
- Soul-lessIf you want to pull in designers as your target market, you have to speak the language, which is design. Why not some sexy full-browser backgrounds done in jQuery of work you've done? Why not invoke that wonderful feeling of the tactility of a good uncoated stock? Why not set your copy in some swanky, elegant faces?
You see what I'm getting at, here?
Also, speaking of copy: marketing types want 'solutions'. Designers want sexy printing work done.
- ukit0
For such a "simple" site it's a little weird that you have two separate navigations that overlap with each other.
The layout feels unbalanced the way you have so much white space on the left and then the boilerplate text centered in the middle of the righthand column.
Simple is good but it also means you have to get basic details of site structure and navigation that much more perfect, otherwise the simplicity will just reveal the flaws.
- tesmith0
That makes more sense, I appreciate the constructive response Continuity. Banal, perhaps but if we come across as corporate we may have accomplished something. "Designers want sexy printing" is certainly accurate. We hope to address that once we put up more case studies
- I'd say coming across as corporate is exactly the thing you want to avoid with designers.Continuity
- Very true but we are not at all corporate and have other types of clients as well.tesmith
- pinkfloyd0
Needs more cowbells.