New to web design-working on a site for an investment fund!

**benmaxime** · 03-28-2009 11:03 PM

New to this.
Suggestions and feedback please.

Explorium Capital LLC

**justy540** · 03-29-2009 12:17 AM

I've checked out your site before and read your story and I think it's awesome that you're geting into web design at such a young age. I wish I had gotten into it much earlier. I'm going to offer a lot of points up, and I don't want you tot ake it the wrong way at all. I'm just trying to impart as much as I can of what I have learned in the past ten years in the field. without further adieu, here's my input :

- get a logo made - having the buisiness name in a plain font like that makes the site a little unprofessional
- restrict the drop shadow to the right and bottom, remove it completely from the top and left, this will look more natural
- take the opacity of the drop shadow down to at least 35% if not further again it will look more natural
- give the site a minimum height
- once logo is done put it in the top left
- invert your gradient on the background, the brain views the gradient as a horizon, and 99 times out of 100 it is best to have the lighter color up top
- add a copyright and sitemap to the footer, put your tagline on the right, this info aligned left
- drop that gif on the left, it doesn't mean anything to me and looks amateur

I'm guessing this is a work in progress ad you'll be adding more pages. Looks like you're off to a good start let me know if I can help at all.

**benmaxime** · 03-29-2009 09:30 AM

Wow thanks so much!
A few comments,
-the gif to the left is the logo....
-how do you give the site a minumum height?
-i've been told that the shadow is very nice looking what is wrong?
-also this site will be very small and protected because its for a fund
only investors can see the information posted on it...
-any suggestions for the home page?

**justy540** · 03-29-2009 03:33 PM

If the gif on the left is the logo, I would reduce it's size substantially to increase the quality of the image. I would then put it in the header, tot he left of the company name/tagline. Make sure the tagline is narrower than the company name, you'll have to reduce the font significantly.

The CSS for minnimum height is "min-height:XXpx;" IE6 doesn't respect this, google "min-height IE6 hack" to figure out what your options are.

Drop shadow is a great way to add depth to the site, it should just be a little more subtle, and reflect a natural shadow. a natural shadow doesn't come down on all 4 sides, the light typically comes in on an angle. Picture yourself standing outside on a bright summer day, your shadow goes in one direction right? Not out in a circle around you. Same principal applies here. A lot of design is understanding how the brain interprets different techniques.

A small protected site is fine, for the homepage there should be some public info perhaps a summary of what they do and a way to become an investor etc.

Keep up the good work!

Justin