New website.

[Paul.J]

Following on from a previous post by Wizer,(Tom) who was thinking of doing web designs,i decided to take him up on his offer to build a site for me round my needs.
The site is mainly for people to view my work.
Tom started the site just before Xmas,but due to me making changes here and their,it took a little longer.
Tom was very patient with me and i think we got the finished site that we were aiming for.
I am very pleased with it apart From my poor quality piccys which will eventually get replaced over time.
So what do you think :?:

 

[loz]

Very nice Paul !

I'll add a link from my site if you like

 

[Oryxdesign]

Nice, I haven't read the words but it looks good and is nice and fast. Well done Tom.

Simon

 

[miles_hot]

nice site - the only annoyance I found was the pop out pictures of the various bowls etc varied in size meaning that the Next button moved up and down. I like the fact that on other sites (wow?) the next button stays put so that you can click through the whole lot with minimal effort.

nice way to show your bowls and other turnings - are you hoping to be able to sell some? This is not at all clear from the site.

Miles

 

[Bodrighy]

Nice and clean, fast, does what it says on the label. Good on both of you.

 

[Haldane]

professional looking, pages quick to load, easy to find your way around,
Great

 

[Doug B]

Really nice looking site Paul.

Could i ask what sort of cost has been involved setting it up & how much it will cost to keep it up & running.

Well done to both you & Tom.

 

[wizer]

Thanks guys. It was a great learning experience for me. I've not worked with a 'customer' like this for over ten years. One significant difference with this job from previous ones, is that Paul wanted to be able to edit the site himself. This was a head scratcher. Unless you have an understanding of HTML, buggering up the site trying to update it can be catastrophic. Paul admits to not having a clue where to start with web coding. I've built the site with editing in mind but Paul's agreed to wait before I hand it over to him. I intend to write up some documentation to help him.

I've written the whole site with a 'standard' in mind. Something that I can replicate for other customers with just a different design laid on top. So I also owe Paul gratitude for letting me use him as a Guinea pig.

the only annoyance I found was the pop out pictures of the various bowls etc varied in size meaning that the Next button moved up and down. I like the fact that on other sites (wow?) the next button stays put so that you can click through the whole lot with minimal effort.

This was a tricky one for me. The reason it does that is that the images are all slightly different sizes and aspect ratios. In the end, I made it so that you could click anywhere on the right hand side of the pic to advance and anywhere on the left to retreat. It was a compromise, I don't think it's too much of a bother. Paul's prospective 'customers' will be concerned with the individual pics and not necessarily looking at every single one.

 

[wizer]

Could i ask what sort of cost has been involved setting it up & how much it will cost to keep it up & running.

Doug, I did this as a favour for Paul as I am not fully setup. I'd say that I spent about 20-25hrs on this, if that maybe helps give you a picture.

Contact me if I can help you with anything.

 

[miles_hot]

the only annoyance I found was the pop out pictures of the various bowls etc varied in size meaning that the Next button moved up and down. I like the fact that on other sites (wow?) the next button stays put so that you can click through the whole lot with minimal effort.

This was a tricky one for me. The reason it does that is that the images are all slightly different sizes and aspect ratios. In the end, I made it so that you could click anywhere on the right hand side of the pic to advance and anywhere on the left to retreat. It was a compromise, I don't think it's too much of a bother. Paul's prospective 'customers' will be concerned with the individual pics and not necessarily looking at every single one.

DAMN, missed that - makes it a lot easier

 

[Paul.J]

Thanks for the comments all
The site is aimed at selling my work,as i have been asked quite a lot recently if i have a website to view my work,but not neccessarily what is on the site as most of those pieces have been sold/passed on.
They are mostly their just to show what sort/type of work i do,and hopefully as i progress so will the work been shown.
If you are thinking of having a site,i would really have a hard look at how you want it laid out and write the text out.Tom was great at helping out here also.
I thought i had done all this but when Tom put it all on the site and showed me for the first time,there were many changes which has took a lot of Tom's time up.Sorry Tom :shock:

Wizer wrote

I've not worked with a 'customer' like this for over ten years.

And i bet you won't want to again :lol: :lol:

 

[Bodrighy]

As far as selling is concerned I use Etsy and Misi and have links to them on my website. I just use mine as a gallery to display the sort of thing that I do. I looked into setting the site up for selling but it was too much pfaffin about with updating all the time when I sold something.

Pete

 

[johnny.t.]

Looks really good Paul

 

[wizer]

As far as selling is concerned I use Etsy and Misi and have links to them on my website. I just use mine as a gallery to display the sort of thing that I do. I looked into setting the site up for selling but it was too much pfaffin about with updating all the time when I sold something.

Paul and I discussed a full commerce website where he could sell direct. But Paul wanted to keep his operation small for the time being and work on commissions, he wanted a website which was more like an online portfolio or business card. It's where Paul can direct people who want to know about his work. It's also easy for customers, friends, etc to pass on his details and let people see what it's all about, without having to actually go and see Paul.

 

[mickthetree]

The site looks great Paul and Tom

Really clean and clear with good images. The copy has a very nice tone to it as well.

You mention Birmingham on there but it might be worth mentioning more local areas near you as the search engines will pick these up. You may have reasons you dont want to as well obviously.

The photos look great, but the ones in portrait format spill over the viewable area on my 15.4" laptop screen (standard on any laptop). This also forces the close button off the screen. Resizing of these to max of something like 500px high would fix this though.

Very minor points to a good job well done.

Being wordpress its going to be very expandable in the future for you too, should you wish to add e-commerce / more pages etc. And makes it very easy to update too.

Nice

 

[wizer]

thanks Mick. I thought long and hard whether to use WP, in the end it was a no brainer. Ive stripped it down to the bare minimum and scoped very strict roles so the user can only use the parts they need to and can't break anything

I'm going to have another play with the images. Lightbox can be a tricky script to manipulate.

 

[gasmansteve]

Very nice site Paul and well done Tom.
You`ll be offering turning tuition and then a dvd next :lol:
Steve

 

[mickthetree]

Hey Tom

Yes wordpress is a fantastic option. I used to hand code everything, but I've recently turned to it for certain sites.

Lightbox is great too. I use it on many sites. If you haven't already seen them, have a look at sexy lightbox too and easy slider 1.5. they are both great.

I often get users to open a flickr account and load all their photos into that, then feed that account into the site. That way they can use all the clever uploading and editing features of flickr and dont have to delve into the site. Lightbox supports this without too much code.

 

[matt]

Nice, clean, and simple. Good work.

One comment I would make is that I could find nothing* about you wanting to sell product - you come across as an eager hobbyist displaying work for passing interest rather than making it clear that you want or are even prepared to sell anything. Part of that is the strong association with the subject matter being a hobby (i.e. as opposed to having a site displaying, say, MP3's) I've no doubt that visitors might get in touch but they might equally assume that you're not retailing and go in search of a retailer.

* I must admit I only scanned the home page because there are too many words for me, especially without any headings to break things up a little. If it's in there then I did not see it which, in itself, is an issue. If you want to say something important then you must grab your visitors by the balls and make them pay attention. Most are simply rushing from one site to the next waiting for the one that instantly feels as though it's offering what they're after.

 

[wizer]

I think Paul wanted to play down the sales aspect and use this more as a method of displaying work. WRT the homepage, I can only work with the content I'm given and I laid it out in a simple manner, breaking it up with images. We could have shifted most of it to an 'About The Artist' page, but that left the homepage with very little content. The web designer can only go so far in assisting with the creation of content.