Contractors Website

Appreciate the feedback Rodrigo. Do you mean a dark to transparent gradient from the bottom up?

Hi Andy, I meant a gradient with "alpha channel" or "mask" transparency - from the full wood texture at the top (behind the header area) to a slightly more transparent texture (but not totally transparent, just more subdued) over the text area (with a flat colour showing underneath - matching one of the colours already in the palette). This way, you get the benefit of the wooden texture (the user will cognitively assimilate that) but when they focus on reading the text, there's very little distraction and good contrast. However, it's pretty legible already, you may not need to change it at all. I'd say, just experiment with this and see if you like the result.

Hi Andy, that's great! That's exactly what I meant. You can hardly notice the difference from the original (meaning, it was not "overdone"), but the new version really makes the text more legible, eliminating the distraction of the wooden texture.

The full wood texture has some really strong contrasts between light and dark areas, so when sitting beneath text the readability can suffer. When you knock it down by a step or two (taking out the high contrast of the wood texture), the text is much more legible, but you still get the effect of the wood metaphor.

I would emphasise the transparency/flat colour even more on the text area, but this is already a really good step. Also, when it comes to optimising this for bandwidth, you can have the texture completely disappear at the bottom of the page. This way, you can set a flat colour in HTML and it will save a few KBs, making the website perform better. Since on most pages this would be going behind the footer anyway, you would not be losing too much of the integrity of the concept.

Excellent work, mate!

Hi Andy, that's great! That's exactly what I meant. You can hardly notice the difference from the original (meaning, it was not "overdone"), but the new version really makes the text more legible, eliminating the distraction of the wooden texture.

The full wood texture has some really strong contrasts between light and dark areas, so when sitting beneath text the readability can suffer. When you knock it down by a step or two (taking out the high contrast of the wood texture), the text is much more legible, but you still get the effect of the wood metaphor.

I would emphasise the transparency/flat colour even more on the text area, but this is already a really good step. Also, when it comes to optimising this for bandwidth, you can have the texture completely disappear at the bottom of the page. This way, you can set a flat colour in HTML and it will save a few KBs, making the website perform better. Since on most pages this would be going behind the footer anyway, you would not be losing too much of the integrity of the concept.

Excellent work, mate!

Thanks, Nate. I'm hoping that whatever pictures they supply me will not have as much wood as shown here. I really like the background... Any ideas for a different colored footer? I only chose the brown because it was subtle enough not to be a big attractor.

Maybe just make it a much darker brown?

Wow, zeros for originality and engagement?

I'm new here. New meaning...I just signed up like 30 mins ago. I wasn't aware that not adding stars to the other categories would result in zeros. I apologize. But now that I'm looking at it...it is engaging. Maybe not all that original...but I think it suits the purpose very well.