Project One, First Prelimary Critique

[ariaaearnest]

Hello David!

For the first layout, I love how dynamic your photograph looks! I can kinda see what others mean by looking too monochromatic but I don't think that's a problem. Maybe with your bottom boxes talking about projects make your text a bit lighter? That's the only suggestion I have.

I agree with Lauren about your second design. It definitely caught my eye! I love the way you edited the photograph and the minimalist look of the website makes it super stylish.

Both of these designs are really strong and I feel like you could go with either one of them! Though my personal preference would be the second design.

Overall, amazing layouts!

[Instructor]

Well, David, I'd say you have two equally good designs here. Pick which ever one tickles your fancy.

The first one paints a picture of business success. It looks like the website of either a wealth management firm, or a high end business consultant. The design is super clean, works well with it's image and uses contrast extremely well. It's easy to read and easy to navigate and let's it's picture do most of the talking. Might be a fun design to play with paralleling on, should you decide to build this one.

Looks like the only real issues on your first one is just cleanup stuff. Make sure your buttons in the top left are equidistantly spaced around the rope in your picture. And move your email link up to the top since it gets lost in the water.

I really like the minimalism on this second one. It looks like a super expensive photographer's site. I really like the Picasso style all sides photograph. It comes off as a really fun character study. The type works perfectly with the minimalism and is well placed. Great use of leading to give a bit of visual interest as well as size to point out what is important and what is not. It also uses whitespace super well to make each of it's handful of elements really stand out.

There really isn't much to tweak on your second design. I'd play with moving your Picasso all sides photo collage up to lock in your top class info line or possibly move it down to lock it in with the baseline of your email.

Awesome work! I want to see which you choose.

[dzynecin88]

Excellent layouts, David. Very clean and professional. My preference is the sailing design, which surprises me a little since I usually prefer artsy - and cubist style in particular. Although grayscale is working well for both designs, I'd still like just a tiny hint of color somewhere, but that's just a personal preference, not necessarily needed to improve the design.

[gr8ful1]

I really like your first design, it shows a bit of personality and fun in what still looks like a very professional website. I like everything about it, the only thing I see is that your top header, the grc, links, etc seem oddly spaced to me. I think you were trying to keep that upper right over your head clear, but I might try spreading those links across the entire width.
Your second design is nice as well, but very minimalistic. I think because it is black and white it isn't as exciting to me. So maybe playing with some muted colors would help. I really like the photo being superimposed on itself, but the black void it creates all the way to the right edge of the page is distracting and seems unfinished maybe....????

[Benjamin_Nance]

Both of your web sights show well thought of design. I like the first one the most. the drop down menus and the picture create balance.

-ben

[ravens.way]

I like the classic style of your first site design. The first site is the one that stands out most to me. It could be improved by increasing the font size to improve readability. I like the simple style used in your second site.

[jtenenbaum]

Hi David, Strong professional designs. You really went out of the box and it shows - seems like everyone is excited about your designs with positive comments. Maybe you should take up a career in Marketing You Rock! No really I was super impressed with your design skills and your ability to absorb the HTML / CSS info. Really an accomplishment.