Critique on website created using squarespace

[Robin88]

So earlier on this year I was asked by a family friend to create him a website for his business and I decided to give Squarespace a go, and this is what I've created for him.

http://terry-english-iqhl.squarespace.com/

 

Don't mind the Squarespace domain, that will be changed over to his own domain in the coming days, we're both really happy with how it looks, but I figured it'd be a good idea to get some critique in the meantime.

Terry is an armourer who has worked for the entertainment industry for over 50 years and if you've seen a film, advert or stage production with armour in it in that time, chances are you'll have seen some of his work.

Unfortunately he has never really paid much attention to his online presence, and has left the management of his website and email to others who claimed they knew better but in reality knew absolutely nothing and therefore have caused his work flow to suffer as more and more work comes from people searching for him on the internet, to give you an idea of how bad they were at their job, here is his old website, which will be going down and removed permanently in the next few days.

http://www.terryenglisharmourer.co.uk/

 

I'm waiting on a few more photo's from Terry to add to the new website, but in the meantime I'm pretty much done with the main bulk of the work until then.

Thank you @LinusTech for the heads up regarding Squarespace, it's been awesome and super simple to use.

[ZetZet]

Well, you need to put his email, address and phone on the squarespace website too, contact mail is really annoying to use.

 

also http://www.blackeaglestudios.com/ suck  :lol:

[HaloFan9087]

It looks good.  Lets just say that if he does not have experience using HTML/CSS, java etc. and you only need basic functionality it is really a great option.  A more impressive website could undoubtedly be created with a much higher investment cost however compared to his now old website the difference really is night and day.   There are other services like wix that are essentially the same which I have used for minor projects and have found that to be a pleasent experience.  As for workflow (I assume you mean just being easy to contact about projects) the new website appears to be meeting that requirement.  Looks nice, and a very cool profession if I do say so!

[Nineshadow]

Oh God, his old site.

Was that made in 2000 or something?

 

Wait...2008?Jeez.

 

Anyway, your site is good and simple. It doesn't really need a lot of other things honestly. You could add more contact information, like an email and/or his phone in the Contact section.

As fas as aesthetics go, you could make the canvas div stand out from the background a little by making the background a little gray, then adding a box shadow to the canvas.

I've done those, posting the results in a sec.

This is what I'm talking about :

 

It makes you focus on the center.You can skip the box-shadow if you don't like it or you think it doesn't match the style as the canvas already has a decent border, but you should make the background a light gray so the content will catch the user's attention more easily.

Here it is without the box shadow :

 

The code is really simple tbh :

body {background-color: #F2F2F2;}

body #canvas {    box-shadow: 0px 0px 23px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.75);    -webkit-box-shadow : 0px 0px 23px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.75);    -moz-box-shadow :0px 0px 23px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.75);}

[hsm]

looks good, minimalist. i guess it gets the job done but you should make the contact info more apparent, maybe posted right at the top or bottom.

[Robin88]

Well, you need to put his email, address and phone on the squarespace website too, contact mail is really annoying to use.

 

also http://www.blackeaglestudios.com/ suck  :lol:

Hmm, I've never really thought of contact forms as being annoying, I'll have a think about that, I was contemplating whether or not to have his contact details in there anyway, but decided against it for the time being, but then again Terry does prefer contact via phone or letter so yeah, I'll put it to him and see what he thinks. Cheers

And yes they do, they made him a custom email address when they made his old website, but tied it to the same hosting as the company that hosts his old website, and that is gonna be a major pain because I need to keep his email going but remove the old website. I need to do this because he has a lot of business contacts who only have that email and removing that email would immediately stop any and all work currently coming in.

The website was taken over by someone else on Terry's behalf a few years back, and after then it went massively downhill and ended up in the piss poor state it's in now.

[Flight1sim]

The new website looks awesome, but i'd add a bit more to it, the first page doesnt seem too interesting, but thats all i have to say

8/10

[Robin88]

It looks good.  Lets just say that if he does not have experience using HTML/CSS, java etc. and you only need basic functionality it is really a great option.  A more impressive website could undoubtedly be created with a much higher investment cost however compared to his now old website the difference really is night and day.   There are other services like wix that are essentially the same which I have used for minor projects and have found that to be a pleasent experience.  As for workflow (I assume you mean just being easy to contact about projects) the new website appears to be meeting that requirement.  Looks nice, and a very cool profession if I do say so!

He doesn't even know what those things are, let alone how to use them, even I couldn't make this website by coding it manually, so Squarespace is ideal for that, and we looked into a professional to make the website and he was looking at a minimum of £800 if I remember rightly, with this it's cost him about a fifth of that.

And by workflow I mean the commisions for Aliens replica armour and film and television work amongst other things.

His job is amazing, he has worked with some of my favourite actors and on some of my all time favourite films and being able to get a glimpse into this world is a huge honour, there's stuff in his personal pictures, and in the stories he can tell that would make for an amazing book to read.

Thank you for the comments, at least I know we're on the right track

 

Oh God, his old site.

Was that made in 2000 or something?

 

Wait...2008?Jeez.

 

Yep, it's awful, and it makes a total mockery of the incredible work he's created in his career, and he didn't even know what it looked like until he asked me to show it to him, and when I did the look of sheer embarrassment and shame on his face was just awful to see.

 

looks good, minimalist. i guess it gets the job done but you should make the contact info more apparent, maybe posted right at the top or bottom.

Do you mean the layout of the contact page itself? Or did you mean to make the link for the contact page more noticable in the links?

I'll look into making it more prominent and rearrange that page if I can. Thanks for the comments, getting it right is important, and every suggestion is welcomed

[Robin88]

The new website looks awesome, but i'd add a bit more to it, the first page doesnt seem too interesting, but thats all i have to say

8/10

Yeah, I'm kinda inclined to agree with you, but I don't really want to clutter it too much, keeping it simple and minimalist is what we're after, I'll see if I can add more to it without making it messy. Thanks for the comment and rating, and even an 8/10 is better than the clusterfuck that is his old website

[Robin88]

 

Oh God, his old site.

Was that made in 2000 or something?

 

Wait...2008?Jeez.

 

Anyway, your site is good and simple. It doesn't really need a lot of other things honestly. You could add more contact information, like an email and/or his phone in the Contact section.

As fas as aesthetics go, you could make the canvas div stand out from the background a little by making the background a little gray, then adding a box shadow to the canvas.

I've done those, posting the results in a sec.

This is what I'm talking about :

 

 

It makes you focus on the center.You can skip the box-shadow if you don't like it or you think it doesn't match the style as the canvas already has a decent border, but you should make the background a light gray so the content will catch the user's attention more easily.

Here it is without the box shadow :

 

 

The code is really simple tbh :

body {background-color: #F2F2F2;}

body #canvas {    box-shadow: 0px 0px 23px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.75);    -webkit-box-shadow : 0px 0px 23px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.75);    -moz-box-shadow :0px 0px 23px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.75);}

Thank you so much, that makes it look even better, I've updated the website with your code and it looks great.

[Nineshadow]

Thank you so much, that makes it look even better, I've updated the website with your code and it looks great.

No probs.

 

I'm surprised by how much I learned when I made my own website, a lot of things which I didn't expect honestly.

Currenly up at http://52.17.204.11 for like a few hours.

It doesn't have as much information as it should have, but it was a website about something imaginary anyway, so it's not like it matters. The main page looks especially blank. Also, it's in Romanian, not English.

[Robin88]

No probs.

 

I'm surprised by how much I learned when I made my own website, a lot of things which I didn't expect honestly.

Currenly up at http://52.17.204.11 for like a few hours.

It doesn't have as much information as it should have, but it was a website about something imaginary anyway, so it's not like it matters. The main page looks especially blank. Also, it's in Romanian, not English.

Yeah I might take closer look into HTML and CSS and learn it myself, it's something that I'd like to learn but never committed to it even though it'd be advantageous to me if I did ^__^

It looks really good and it almost passes off as a real thing in some areas, and even though it's in Romanian I can navigate it really easily and I understand what it says and I don't know any Romanian at all

Nice use of Ubuntu's logo btw

I also added in Terry's contact details to his website, I can rearrange it easily enough if needs be, but at the moment I'm happy with how it's laid out, but I'm open to further suggestions

[Nineshadow]

Yeah I might take closer look into HTML and CSS and learn it myself, it's something that I'd like to learn but never committed to it even though it'd be advantageous to me if I did ^__^

It looks really good and it almost passes off as a real thing in some areas, and even though it's in Romanian I can navigate it really easily and I understand what it says and I don't know any Romanian at all

Nice use of Ubuntu's logo btw

I also added in Terry's contact details to his website, I can rearrange it easily enough if needs be, but at the moment I'm happy with how it's laid out, but I'm open to further suggestions

jQuery is also pretty useful. Especially for interactivity.

 

The Ubuntu logo was the first orange logo that came into my mind . Except Orange...but that logo sucks.