Sorry to be harsh, but this needs:
ok 1. The font is very childish looking. Find something more professional (but still fun and engaging). 2. There are 3 blocks of text that are completely disengaged, yet speak to the same topic. Unify them a little. 3. The colors are a bit too harsh in contrast, especially the pink. The background is very distracting.
If you're going to compete with all the players in this market,do some research, this is not going to stand up against any of the bigger players in the market. Overall the design is a joke, I agree totally with Patrick's feedback.
I appreciate all the feedback but I do take objection to some of it.
I've uploaded a picture of the latest version, you can also see it live at http://www.swankdeal.com.
Changes I've made, based on feedback:
Changed the background to subtle gradient instead of the flower picture.
Better spacing all around
Aligned the elements
Resized the sign up box
Changed some of the styling of the sign up box to make it more prominent.
Stylized the body text and links
Used the pink social media icons you suggested
What I take objection to are the comments about the color scheme, the logo, and the banner fonts.
Color scheme:
You say that pink and green don't go together. Others don't like the orange and blue. These colors were chosen based on color theory. According to color theory, colors opposite each other on the color wheel compliment well (with a few exceptions). Looking at the color wheel (http://images.sixrevisions.com/2010/02/04-02colorwheel.jpg), you'll see that pink and green are directly across from each other, as are orange and blue. An example of a site that uses and orange and blue color scheme is Amazon.com. The use of the four colors I used is known as a tetrad color scheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorscheme#Tetradiccolorscheme).
Logo + Banner fonts: As I said in the description, the target audience of the site is women in their 20s - late 30s. The logo was supposed to be feminine while playful (playing off the "swank" name).
The purpose of the both the logo and the banner typefaces being casual is to help conversion. According to conversion psychology (http://persuasiveweb.wordpress.com/tag/playful-websites/), website that have some more human characteristics (like playfulness) convert better. A notable example is 37Signals' BaseCamp (http://persuasiveweb.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/picture-11.png).
| Minor Problem | |
| Tagline seems hidden and doesn't contrast very well. | |
| The red/ blue seems kind of annoying to look at. I would suggest using a more subtle color for the background it seems very bright and large. | |
| Positive Feature | |
FontsI like the fonts used in the content area. | |
| New Idea | |
| Seems like this box is fairly large compared to the content inside it. I would make the bottom of this box shorter so it makes the content look vertically centered. I would probably make the whole box a lot shorter overall. | |
| I don't like the use of different fonts down here from the content. It doesn't match to me. | |
Background color is distracting and kind of annoying with the pink/red
Tagline is hard to read-
Suggestions for colour to use instead of blue?
Changes I made:
| Positive Feature on revised.jpg | |
| 1 | keep some space around the logo. move the tag line to right |
| New Idea on revised.jpg | |
| 1 | what about redo this part? with different font face and style? |
| 2 | make this standout! do some styling, hey don't be a lazy dude :) |
| 3 | you can improve this part also |
Personally i don't like the way you have done the whole design, sorry. the orange flowers background doesn't go with the other stuff. give some prominence to the signup box, your main goal is to collect email address as much as you can, right? :)
The site is supposed to be feminine - it's a beauty and health group buying site geared towards women. Looking at a colour wheel, the orange and blue go with the pink in the logo and banner image. Do you have suggestions for a different colour scheme or different background image to use?
I agree with giving the sign up box more prominence.
What about using just Pink, white and some different shades of pink? it'll look much much better!
| Minor Problem | |
BackgroundBackground image doesn't seem to fit in with the overall design. | |
The site is supposed to be feminine - it's a beauty and health group buying site geared towards women. Looking at a colour wheel, the orange and blue go with the pink in the logo and banner image. Do you have suggestions for a different colour scheme or different background image to use?
Hello Wisam, previous reviews are really wise–listen to what is told there. You really have to change logo–it looks too amateurish, you need something more professional and elegant looking. I would not use both pink and green in logo.
And the background...–first, orange does not go peacefully with pink, second, flowers are too bold and big, they catch more attention than the content of the page itself. I think it should be more abstract and calm...
I would also stylize the links–default links colour is not the best choice to my opinion. And of course, please change hyphen to dash and without spaces.
As there is a big pink element already I would try to use pink icons, may be this set http://cre8tivenerd.com/2010/04/pretty-in-pink-social-media-icon-set/ or another. I am not sure it will work but anyway I would try.
And aligning, do not forget to align elements, it is important. Thank you!
I appreciate all the feedback but I do take objection to some of it.
I've uploaded a picture of the latest version, you can also see it live at http://www.swankdeal.com.
Changes I've made, based on feedback:
Changed the background to subtle gradient instead of the flower picture.
Better spacing all around
Aligned the elements
Resized the sign up box
Changed some of the styling of the sign up box to make it more prominent.
Stylized the body text and links
Used the pink social media icons you suggested
What I take objection to are the comments about the color scheme, the logo, and the banner fonts.
Color scheme:
You say that pink and green don't go together. Others don't like the orange and blue. These colors were chosen based on color theory. According to color theory, colors opposite each other on the color wheel compliment well (with a few exceptions). Looking at the color wheel (http://images.sixrevisions.com/2010/02/04-02colorwheel.jpg), you'll see that pink and green are directly across from each other, as are orange and blue. An example of a site that uses and orange and blue color scheme is Amazon.com. The use of the four colors I used is known as a tetrad color scheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorscheme#Tetradiccolorscheme).
Logo + Banner fonts: As I said in the description, the target audience of the site is women in their 20s - late 30s. The logo was supposed to be feminine while playful (playing off the "swank" name).
The purpose of the both the logo and the banner typefaces being casual is to help conversion. According to conversion psychology (http://persuasiveweb.wordpress.com/tag/playful-websites/), website that have some more human characteristics (like playfulness) convert better. A notable example is 37Signals' BaseCamp (http://persuasiveweb.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/picture-11.png).
Hello Wisam, great that you commented in details! I told pink and orange do not go together:))) Pink and green exactly is a very good combination, depends of course on shades, but in general pink and green is fine. Although, all this is just theory, there is nothing better than human eye that defines exactly what goes and what does not.
Good that you are working on improvement, I know many people who make something and consider it perfect and do not mind to work on further though their works leave much to be desired. Wish you good luck!
| Minor Problem on revised.jpg | |
| 1 | As someone already said, you need more space for logo. And the logo itself looks cheap. In my oppinion blue background color makes all this look wrong, try to find some balance between colors. |
| 2 | Don't use the same font everywhere. You can pick sans-serif or serif font for your content leaving that hand written font only for headlines. Also take time to stylize your list. |
| 3 | Too much white space in this block. Make a little smaller block, or bigger form. Play with subscription button, you can use it more cratively, as it needs to grab your visitor's attention. |
I believe it's one of your first works, it looks you have done it really fast. Design need a lot of impovements, fistly with colors and size, but with a little more time spent on design, you can get quite good result.
Just don't give up, I was creating the same quality designs some time ago, just work hard and you will get nice results.
| Positive Feature | |
Designthe design of website is very good, the colours are appropriate for the target | |
| Minor Problem | |
Bigger buttonsI would recommend bigger "subscribe" buttons with probably a different color button. Joining the mailing list is probably the top priority for you so make that the biggest thing on your page. | |
| New Idea | |
Smaller gift card contestsYou might also consider smaller contests. In my personal experience bigger gift cards don't really get that much more publicity on twitter than multiple small gift cards. Plus I have more chances of getting the contest right if I have more smaller opportunities. Just food for thought. | |
Good luck with the new venture :)
Big buttons = better conversion. Even better if you can a/b test that would be fantastic
| Critical Problem on revised.jpg | |
| 1 | background colors dont really work well together |
| Positive Feature on revised.jpg | |
| 1 | Pink color wich clearly states it is for women |
| 2 | 500 dollars prize wich gets people to sign in hoping they ll win the contest |
Harsh is fine but more specific comment would be helpful.