Free Web Design- for my portfolio

[mburt]

As of august 2011 I have a website (now active) which offers website and graphic design. With ddadmin's approval I'm creating this thread to inform all those interested that I am offering any of the following services for free:

- Evaluation of website
- Change of style
- Updated graphics
- Website restructuring (if you have any current issues)
- A link from my site (if you wish)
- Any other website consulting

Why am I offering this for free? Basically I need a to develop a strong backing for my small business. I need to prove to people that I have a quality service which (in the future) I will offer for a very reasonable price. Getting a few clients is exactly what I need- and this only benefits my clients.

If there are any apparent issues with my website (I'm not too concerned with the doctype right now, I have many more things to deal with) then please let me know. In the case that my website doesn't load please just contact me through this forum's messaging system.

Thanks very much! :)

My website: www.michaelburtdesigns.com

[djr33]

As a very basic comment about your site, I'd recommend adding some sort of indication to the extra tabs that they are links to more content. As is, they could just be decoration. For example, you could add a small arrow or even just a bullet to show they're "something" rather than just colors.

[james438]

Application sent. I would like to suggest a confirmation page saying "message sent. I will try to contact you soon" or something like that.

What content are you looking for in the Brief Message?

[DuncanCox]

First of all congratulation for your new business. About your website I want to say yes it is working fine. I like it. Just try to add some more option for the client.

[mburt]

Hm james438, there should have been a confirmation page after you applied. I'll have to look into that.

In four days I'll be getting a much more stable server so maybe that will fix some of the bugs.

And thanks Duncan I agree. I'm going to try to figure out as many features as possible (or maybe a better way to display the current features I already provide).\

EDIT: Daniel, I'm trying to work in a plan to create subtle fade in instructions for the top menu links. However I'm not entirely sure if that's what I'm going to do, I'll probably figure it out soon.

[mburt]

Bumping this thread for the first (and last time, no worries) - just in case any other members of DD would happen to require my services.

[Daniela313]

hi i promise to send u a detailed respond to your site, just in a few days.. but the first impression is very positive! thumb up!

[mburt]

Thanks!

[DynamicDee]

You might want to make the link to your portfolio a little more obvious. I know it's in the news update section but I never would have thought to click on the little arrows.

Other than that it looks good!

[mburt]

Thanks for the advice. The website is now updated. After realizing how pointless the hover effect was, I took it off. I think it looks much cleaner now.

[djr33]

I usually do not browse with full screen windows (they're usually tall and narrow) because I usually have a few things open at once. In the case of a narrow window, the right pane moving down looks a little uneven. I had to expand the window to full screen to realize that the design fit together well.


It's worth considering how various users will browse your website. I think that the larger screen sizes have hidden that there still is a lot of variation in what size windows your visitors will have: most will have large monitors, but that doesn't mean they will have maximized windows. And of course don't forget about mobile browsers.

This is just a general note since I know you're trying to make a "perfect" site to attract clients. You could easily lose a client if they have a different configuration than you do and in that configuration it looks a little strange.

[mburt]

Hm that's a good point. Maybe the most obvious way to deal with that issue is percentages, but that really won't work when I'm using graphics for background images.

The only real way I could see around this is to find a way to use each corner as a graphic, and have the actual content area expand via percentage. This would probably be a bit more work, but I do really feel like I need the graphical background layout.

As per mobile browsing- I can't really see a huge demand for that yet, where as I'm only just starting (I'm barely on Google lol). In the future though, this will obviously be an area of concern.

Once again, I appreciate your insight!