Project 2 Roughs - Seth Dines

[Instructor]

Wow! These are some seriously professional looking websites, Seth. Nice work.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think your first design is far superior to your second. It has great use of color, space, layout, margin, you name it. It's a textbook minimalist, high-tech website. The second looks like it is a purely mobile website, or perhaps built for lower resolution displays.

I really like the blue/orange complimentary color set in the first design. It looks clean against the white and sets up some nice contrast without dominating the images or type. The typography is also excellent. Very good use of typographic hierarchy. Your headlines are big and bold and your bodycopy is lighter without being difficult to read.

I also really like the iconography on the About Us categories and the work sample types. It provides a sense of thought and texture in the design.

Spleegle plogg. Spleegle plogg, indeed.

[old_man_pat]

Seth, I like both uses of the minimalist design. Based on their site, the client appears to prefer a minimalist approach, and I'm assuming the traffic has been appropriate for their business goals. In other words, their target market is likely not first time visitors from the search engines (presumably referrals?). I prefer the first set of designs, namely because of content. I still think they would benefit from such a design. I also like the minimalist architecture in the photograph for your first rough. I've noticed different design firms have used this type of work environment as part of their own promotions. I especially like the icons used to promote the concepts involved. I agree with Georgia, that the gray text for the navigation menu might improve with a different color when set against the gray background. Looking forward to seeing what it looks like when you complete the footer and round out the information.

[gotsatisfaction247]

"rich_rough_2_sd_home" is my favorite so far. You made great changes! It looks very bold and clean, and gets the business idea across very well. Once again, very good work from you! I like your style!

[justinepaigek]

Hi, Seth!

These are both really great designs and are very professional looking, and are eons ahead of the original site's design. Having said that, I like the design of the first one just because it looks a lot easier to navigate, I mean, I do like the second layout, but it seems more conceptual and it seems a bit confusing on how one would navigate it? It still looks awesome, of course, I'm just curious how user-friendly it would be.

[ryansegal]

Seth,

I know you like the second design, but that first design is incredible. It's extremely well done and it looks like it was done professionally. All the information is communicated effectively without wasting too much space, and it all flows together so well. I think the shortcomings of the second design are that it's too minimal. At first glance, I have no idea what the website is supposed to be for. It seems more oriented towards people who already know what the website is for. A nice little bonus: you won't have to make a whole lot of design changes, if any, when you start building this thing in Dreamweaver. Really looking forward to the final website!

[Miasera]

Hey Seth,

Again, you blow things out of the water with the layouts you come up with. Both are simple but still eye-catching, and easy to navigate, and after looking at both of them I'm also favoring the second layout. At first it seems almost a little too minimalistic, but then the next page definitely pushes aside that feeling. So go with the second layout, though honestly both of these are pretty great just as they are.

[kiwakom]

That's amazing designs!
I love that! I think the rough 1 is better. I like the icons, images, and your font choices.
It's perfect!
I have nothing to say...
Good job!

Kiwako