Company Website

You have been working really hard on this site! I am not sure which of my thoughts will be helpful to you, so I'm just going to throw some brainstorms at you. I think you're off to a good start!

There is a lot of unused space at the top. If you don't expect your navigation to grow horizontally, you could try to pull your logo and navigation into one bar. Taller like your last version, but a lighter color. Or, perhaps there is some other relevant content you could place up there? It seems a little bare to me.

Overall I think the site is a little cold, but I think that might be what you're going for. You could try to add a soft texture or gradient to the background to give it a little depth.

Here are a couple articles about texture and backgounds. I think something subtle will work for you -- but it will do a lot to make the content stand out:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/31/backgrounds-in-web-design-examples-and-best-practices-2/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/07/textures-in-modern-web-design/

The graphics you've used in software design/dev - and maintenance & support aren't working. No matter how nice you get the design, these are going to stick out as a little amateur. You could try to buy something from a stock agency. I would expect a dummy software box instead of the swirly graphic in the software tab. Is your maintenance and support global?

I read an article/tutorial once that said that good web 2.0 design (haha - now that we are into 3.0) is all about paying attention to every pixel. That a one pixel line could make/break a design. If you look at a lot of sites that are broken up like yours - they are successful either with contrasting background or the 1px line separation. Don't know if that helps without a link!

The only other thing that I notice is that that navigation with retail highlighted leaves a big block of white space under it. Perhaps you could make those navigation tabs larger to fit or find some content for there?

I don't mean to sound like nothing is good here, there are good elements. I just think you are looking for ideas more than anything. Hope this was helpful!

i think these are a good start. i personally like #3 the best so far.

i think there's just too much info going on on this page. i'm assuming that this is the index/home page? i feel like i'm confronted with way too much info right off the bat. i like the footer having the quick links right there. i also agree that the main nav gradient should be more subtle, then the center area i think should have one of the jquery/slideshow boxes and not two. and the box should be somewhere between the sizes of the two boxes there now (slightly bigger than the first one, but smaller than the "studio team" one)

i also don't like drop-down menus in websites. it's partly a personal opinion, but also i see my grandparents attempt to use dropdown menus on sites, and it makes me realize how hard it is for some users to navigate a site with them. because these dropdowns seem really big, i would get frustrated that it was covering up the content i want to see.

hope that helps! :)