finally ready for a critique!

[Matt Tilghman]

Hey guys. New here. Been lurking and working on my website. Finally ready for a critique! Here is the website:

http://www.tilghman.smugmug.com/

please tell me anything and everything that comes to your mind.

Here are some specific questions:

-banner nice or cheesy?

-are the colors of the navbar good? how about its flow?

-for the navbar, i made the width equal to the widest category... but can i make the widths of each button different?

-the navbar is not perfectly centered with respect to the banner. it's not terrible, but anyone know how to fix it?

-can i make the font in the navbar the same as the banner? (ie does it exist in HTML/CSS?) The font i used was Trajan Pro

-what's with all the black space between my navbar and my slideshow? i think it's because i just added the 'catch-all' center command to the CSS which i guess also centered it up-down (in addition to left-right) so it's up-down centered for verticals as well because there's a few in the slideshow. can i make it centered for left-right but top for up-down?

Thanks guys!

[du8die]

Thanks for posting, and asking for feedback.

I think the colors work decently. As for the header, it bugs me that I can't tell the difference between the I and L in your last name. I think you need to come up with some kind of separation to make it clear. People are going to remember your name, not your banner, so make it easy for them to remember your name.

Other than that, not bad.

d8

[denisegoldberg]

I agree with the previous poster's comment about not being able to make out your name from your banner.

In addition to that, I believe that your banner takes up too much vertical space. You want your viewers to know whose site they are looking at, but shouldn't the focus of the site be your photos, not your banner?

Do you intend to sell your photos? If you do then you should reset all of your galleries to indicate that the largest display size is X3. You have currently enabled the original for display, and that means it is available to download (for free) by simply clicking "save photo". That option will disappear as soon as you disable viewing access to the originals. The originals will still be used for printing.

To align your slideshow photos to the top, add the parameter
imgAlign: 'top'
to your slideshow code. All of the slideshow parameters are documented at http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/Flash+Slideshow.

Trajan Pro is not installed on all computers. Take a look at http://www.typetester.org/ for a list of safe fonts.

--- Denise

[JohnnyNapalm]

First few thoughts:

-Can't make your last name out, as others have said. Thought it was Tughman.
-You should replace the Smugmug splash image on your slideshow with something of your own.
-I'd ditch the whole footer and add something custom.
-Ditch the "This is my friend family".
-Clicking your slideshow takes me to smugmug.com. Would be better if 1) it took me to your galleries, or 2) wasn't clickable at all.
-The word "New" on your header doesn't represent anything to me...what's new?
-Photos by Location -> Europe takes me to Sailing.

You've got some really nice shots...get people to those pics as efficiently as possible, and you'll be great.

[Matt Tilghman]

Thanks guys so much for the honest and valuable critique. I've messed with the banner a bit - raised the text and made the overall height smaller... do you like it better?

also made the non-subjective suggestions mentioned.

Anything else?

-also, i realigned the slide show images to 'top' but theres still more blackspace than i'd like. any way to further reduce it?

[thaKing]

-also, i realigned the slide show images to 'top' but theres still more blackspace than i'd like. any way to further reduce it?
looks like .menu has a height set at 100px, that's the reason for the black between the menu and the slideshow...

[Matt Tilghman]

Thanks! any other comments?

Also I added a custom footer, but how do I remove the smugmug one? It doesn't seem to give me the option in either the Easy Customizer or the Advanced Customization.

[JohnnyNapalm]

Thanks! any other comments?

Also I added a custom footer, but how do I remove the smugmug one? It doesn't seem to give me the option in either the Easy Customizer or the Advanced Customization.I personally don't like the new logo. I'd have the whole name above the mountains at this point. The first version looked cool because it looked like it was behind the whole vista, this one can't make up it's mind.