Website designs

[gr82bart]

I'm very tired of my current website. I've been researching what makes a good website (don't bother responding to this remark ppl, I have my own ideas) and came across some interesting links to some great websites that have elements in them to give me ideas:

http://www.thefwa.com/ In the upper left side check "photography" as the category

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1072872,00.html 50 coolest blogsites as chosen by Time/CNN

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1073316,00.html 50 coolest arts and entertainment websites as chosen by Time/CNN

http://www.sksantos.net/

Dead Link Removed

http://monakuhn.com/

http://www.jonathanyuen.com/ One of the best sites I have seen on the web - very interactive

http://www.girlsoloinarabia.com/ Several interesting design concepts

http://www.dissizslix.com/

http://www.hanlee.com/

http://chrismcpherson.com/

I have many more ... to many to list here.

I'm currently planning my new site and have come up with a few high level 'requirements':

• Simple
• Gallery functionality
• Coordinated integration with other marketing materials - like my business cards and other stationary for example
• Organization and segmentation of images - not overly done though
• Clear and concise English
• User friendly and intuitive navigation
• Hip, modern, cool, young, fresh
• Design layout to fit on one screen - little to no scrolling
• Multi-platform and multi-browser compatibility
• No philosophical or other 'artistic' BS
• Performance optimization BUT those folks with 56k modems just have to move to the 21st century - sorry
• Universal colour management of images
• No ads
• No banner links
• No do it myself fever - I'm hiring a professional but under my over-the-shoulder guidance

When it comes to performance optimization, I plan on ensuring images load and reload fast - regardless of the size. Here's an example: http://www.dianfurniture.com/

Regards, Art.

 

[Pinholemaster]

Get Apple's iWeb and design your ultimate site.

 

[gr82bart]

Get Apple's iWeb and design your ultimate site.

No. But thanks for the suggestion.

Regards, Art.

 

[SuzanneR]

Art,

I've been reading this blog lately, and here's a post/thread with a lot of good information and resources. You might find some good ideas here.

http://aphotoeditor.com/2008/01/31/portfolio-website-design/

 

[gr82bart]

Thanks Suzanne. Great link. Nick Cobbing's website link is particularly interesting: http://www.nickcobbing.co.uk and is kind of, sort of what I was thinking.

Here's another one with similar design concepts: Dead Link Removed

Regards, Art.

 

[MikeK]

I'm very tired of my current website. I've been researching what makes a good website (don't bother responding to this remark ppl, I have my own ideas) and came across some interesting links to some great websites that have elements in them to give me ideas:

http://www.thefwa.com/ In the upper left side check "photography" as the category

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1072872,00.html 50 coolest blogsites as chosen by Time/CNN

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1073316,00.html 50 coolest arts and entertainment websites as chosen by Time/CNN

http://www.sksantos.net/



Dead Link Removed

http://monakuhn.com/

http://www.jonathanyuen.com/ One of the best sites I have seen on the web - very interactive

http://www.girlsoloinarabia.com/ Several interesting design concepts

http://www.dissizslix.com/

http://www.hanlee.com/

http://chrismcpherson.com/

I have many more ... to many to list here.

I'm currently planning my new site and have come up with a few high level 'requirements':

• Simple
• Gallery functionality
• Coordinated integration with other marketing materials - like my business cards and other stationary for example
• Organization and segmentation of images - not overly done though
• Clear and concise English
• User friendly and intuitive navigation
• Hip, modern, cool, young, fresh
• Design layout to fit on one screen - little to no scrolling
• Multi-platform and multi-browser compatibility
• No philosophical or other 'artistic' BS
• Performance optimization BUT those folks with 56k modems just have to move to the 21st century - sorry
• Universal colour management of images
• No ads
• No banner links
• No do it myself fever - I'm hiring a professional but under my over-the-shoulder guidance

When it comes to performance optimization, I plan on ensuring images load and reload fast - regardless of the size. Here's an example: http://www.dianfurniture.com/

Regards, Art.

Just to let you know the site http://www.girlsoloinarabia.com/ listed here has a potentially dangerous script and Trojan. Beware and make sure you AV definitions are up to date.

Mike

 

[gr82bart]

Just to let you know the site http://www.girlsoloinarabia.com/ listed here has a potentially dangerous script and Trojan.

What's the dangerous script and what's the trojan name? Nothing came up when I launched that site. BTW that site has won several website awards too.

Regards, Art.

 

[Ralf]

What's the dangerous script and what's the trojan name? Nothing came up when I launched that site. BTW that site has won several website awards too.

It seems to be a (very old) attempt to load an external site via i-Frame. However, the target server is down, so nothing happens at the moment. Smells of casino spam. (Not intentionally done by the original web site owners, but with a hacked account or infected computer.)

 

[rcoda]

Art,

What about my site? I designed it myself with FrontPage and Photoshop. Runs off a database and has Paypal functionality. When I decide to change anything I only have to change 3 active server pages and if I add images, the index pages for each category.

Rich

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

Few web browsers are colour aware, or colour managed. You can safely stick with sRGB, or you can try going towards the future with Adobe RGB (nearly ten years old), and somewhat let colours fall where they might. If you avoided Flash, and kept image sizes reasonable, while avoiding scrolling, your website should work smoothly for anyone on dial-up. Think of the person on the other end, interacting with your website . . . if it will be fast enough, simple enough, and contain good images, then you have met your goals. The website should showcase your images, not the interface. If your visitors/clients would enjoy a media rich environment, then offer that, but understand that you will exclude/discourage other visitors.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

 

[Early Riser]

At this point I will not compromise what I want from my web site to make it more accessible to people using dial up. In general dial up is rapidly being replaced by high speed internet so to gear your page for a declining technology seems counter productive. However I am in the process of making a dual html version of my site so that people using iPhones can access it and my web site designer says that my site, which is Flash based, can now be made to scale up and down with the size of the browser window.

I agree wholeheartedly about the keeping it simple aspect, I think the photography should be the star of the web site and not the bells and whistles. Some of the samples posted in the OP are not simple to me but appear rather complex and I feel take away from the photography. As for music added to a website I think it can further detract and I always turn off my sound when I encounter it and almost always skip the intro splash pages. I think it's also seems in bad taste to have google ads on your web site which can be visually very distracting and add to the download time.