The Brew Cabin

@LLL

I will speak to duncan my mate at the now defunct hollistix (he is now punping petrol for texaco in rural scotland) and see what we can do

Up near or not far from Auchterarder by any chance…the joy of internet, even when a links long since dead, you can often find an archive of its contents elsewhere :p

Although, and it shows how crap my Geography is, because when looking into who Holistix were or where they went, I thought that Auchterarder was somewhere in Germany hehe


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In regards your other mate’s website, I think he might be yanking your chain about its pedigree…or whoever created it for him was a bit economical about their portfolio

That fact is neither here nor there, but I think that adds to your feeling of it being less than personal…it has too much of the template feel about it, from certain stock images that stand a bit proud or seem a bit awkward

As such I went digging to see if it was a template, and if so where it came from, and I then found odd things like the following:

Far too heavy on JavaScript to ensure layout, gaps between words / file names

Example:

Instead of rainbow-wave.jpg there’s a gap that means it adds %20 in its place as per below
Then there’s this in the code

iWeb allowed users to create and design websites and blogs without coding, and included a number of Apple-designed themes, each of which had several page templates with coordinated fonts and colors. Users could customize these pages by replacing placeholder text and by dragging and dropping their own photos and movies into the document.

More info on the drag n drop type website creation app

I’m not a professional coder, and whilst I’m the first to play down / underestimate my various skills, but I cant see the lads from tesco or dixons using that hehe

Then there’s the issue with separate CSS files for each page, machine made div’s or naming schemes…a human being wouldn’t want to label elements in long number strings as they would get confused which bit they were doing and would pick / use descriptive things like content / content left / sidebar etc ditto for maintenance, imagine having to alter something 12 long months later and trying to decipher random numbers to work out what’s what

There are too many anomalies & too many basic errors for it to be the product of some high end coder types, and looks more like a template that’s been tinkered with

And I think that’s the issue you have, all the positives are gone as it’s a template that’s been rejigged but not enough that the person fully owns it

However, and leaving that aside or trying to look beyond it, try to think of the difference between a home printed flyer and properly printed advert…you want the website to be the latter, and yes it might seem somewhat clichéd at first but that standard approach or layout styles mean that visitors can easily navigate & content flows naturally

I sort of get what you mean, that identi-kit approach that creates clones etc

But people do expect certain standard or type of layout, and it’s the content and how well it’s put together that makes it personal…most houses use the same techniques but its how those elements are combined that make them a home or a cold civic type building

It’s late got distracted whilst looking at those anomalies and doing other stuff I have to online, so will cut to the quick

If you remove those shiny stock type images from your mates website then I reckon it would look less hostile, as they don’t sit well with the other elements…it’s like mixing pencil type graphic design drawings with photo type images ( I don’t mean the work photos)

But look at swatches under navigation tabs, the font & images used for testimonials, envelope of the contact page, and even the tape effect on the photos of the previous work & Polaroid type frame

Then when you look at that rainbow swirl, page curl / rip for Facebook link and that header alongside it, and the roller with painted line ( both small & large)

Well, it’s like creating a kitchen but putting a mix of flat matt doors on units and random high gloss / laminate doors on others…a bad marriage of styles[/color]