LukemDesigns - new new new.. new

As a whole I think the site looks very clean and modern. I do like the main graphic. It is abstract and visually appealing. I don't think it needs a "meaning."

My one constructive criticism is that the headings on the main page do not match. What I mean is that the first two ("that's right!" and "we love what we do.") are written in all lowercase and have punctuation, but the third ("The People have spoken") does not. I get that you may be referring to The People as a proper noun, but unfortunately it just looks mismatched.

I do love the witty-ness of the site and headings. It is perfect and would make me want to work with you.

Hey Luke,

I have to say, this is a clean and simple Design, now the thing I want to point out, this design wants to represent your small business, okay buy, I think you work as a freelancer right? do you meet your clients? So then you can come with more attractive design, like speak more with them, interact with them. request a free quote button, or big button like check our portfolio... I miss some features that a business even if is small needs it. You really want to go bigger and bigger as we all do!

Don't get me wrong this is cool, and I think after you code this, add the header slider (i think that's what is going to be) it will look amazing!

I will add some notes about the Design!

Good Luck my friend and I hope this helps you!

This is great, Luke. I've seen a lot of your concepts and you have a lot of talent.

Overall, I think this design has a very clean and professional look that would attract companies as well as singular customers. It also stands out as different compared to the gazillion other website design sites. :D

For my nit-picking, I'll use the notes function.

Hi Luke!

Your overall design is striking but there are a few things I'd like to point out for you to consider working on (I'm reviewing from top to bottom on the home page):

1. Navigation: I'm assuming that the darker shadow behind the "Home" button and the lighter white color is supposed to be the active state for that page (meaning if someone was on your portfolio page, the portfolio navigation button would then have the dark shadow behind it). While a nice concept, I don't think it's obvious enough for your users. You might want to consider changing the active state for those navigation links to a more obvious color other than white.
2. Slider: Looks lovely. I like the background color you've chose for the top half and it frames the slider well.
3. Call to Action: You're falling a little flat with your call to action which I believe can be resuscitated with typographic boost. Perhaps you can try more of a premium font for your titles as a whole (which would include your call to action). Also, placing it dead center might not be the best of choices. Have you thought about left aligning it and placing a button to the right that links to your portfolio or contact page? This will do wonders for your usability.
4. Main Area: There are some spacing and typographic issues here that I think you need to address before finalizing the design. The "thats right" and "we love what we do" blocks will come alive with a graphical presence there. Perhaps icons that represent what those areas are supposed to communicate. Also, there's too much space on the bottom between the quote area.
5. Quote Area: Your spacing needs to be worked on with the actual quotes and the person's name. Also, the font size is way too large for the quotes. It's fighting with the H1, H2, H3 tags which creates typographical mayhem to a users eyes. Lower the size of the quotes and letting it breathe more next to the person's name will help.
6. Footer: Give your left footer menu more space from the copyright text. Also, I suggest adding social media buttons/icons instead of words on the right. It's much more engaging for the user and you'll get more click throughs that way.

As for the other pages, I think a lot of the notes I made above will also apply to them too (spacing and typography). You're onto a great start!

Hi Luke

Don't know how I missed your first version, but this certainly contains improvements.

My comments are from the point of view of a prospective SME client, in particular, someone I might refer to you in my consultancy capacity. In other words, someone I'm entrusting to your care and who's respect is important to me.

I can't add much more to what's been said about the design, except that I find it attractive, simple to understand and easy to navigate. But not inspiring. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

There's just too much vacant real estate. Where's the content? As designers, you and I may love this clean and open look. Small business owners HATE it. That doesn't mean they won't end up with something similar, but initially, it scares them. They don't actually read the text, but they do skim over the headings. Yours carry very little weight.

I'm not convinced the tone of voice (including the no caps) is working. I get it that you want to be witty, casual, hip and appealing. But this has not yet hit the mark. Too much style, not enough substance. A good source of inspiration for me when trying to write in this way is the copy on myemma.com. Brilliantly written, in my view.

I'm sure you've read my rants on the subject of marketing messages. To recap: it's not about what you DO, it's about about what I GET. The main heading looks like it's about me, but it's actually still about you. Dead giveaway – starts with the word "we". As do the next two.

My suggestion is to clearly identify your target audience and tell them exactly what the benefit is of working with you, how they're going to feel when they've dropped a bundle of folding:

Awesome results for business site upgrades.

Then tell them what problems you solve and how their businesses will be enriched. Note, that doesn't include your process, your team, your areas of speciality or your years of experience. They simply DO NOT CARE. They only care about their own problems. Your site must reflect your recognition of their needs, otherwise you're in danger of attracting undesirable clientele.

A headline in those terms clearly tells me I'm in the right place and sets up my perception of you as a specialist. And who would you trust to fix your brain tumour – a generalist GP or a specialist brain surgeon? SME's brains are in their businesses.

Lastly, I know it's a draft, but your stated goal is to be grammatically correct. Please check your spelling carefully.

Can't wait for v3. Hope this helps.

I should also mention that the people comments blocks text do not mention vertical align into the blocks area , if it mention it will be batter. And also this home page poor informative.

I think you chose a great image for the colour scheme but I just dont think it associates with your message enough. Try something a bit less abstract. Maybe lines? To lift the page up a bit if you get me? I like your text and quotes.

I like the top of the design, however the bottom portion is so easily overlooked. Get some inspiration from dribbble.com or patterntap.com to help you bring this area out. Where it states "we make you look...", is not positioned correctly and it leaning more to the right site of the page. This should be perfectly center aligned with the image above it. It would also be nice to see the main image slide rather than be static.

I always do the same, the header area is full with good and vibrant stuff like clean navigation and logo design, with a featured area that is big and present but everything else just doesn't want to fit in.

I understand your 3D effect for the white band under the featured content slider, good idea. Kind of like DevBridge's footer area on their current design. Depth of field and all that junk lol.

Title colours are good and keep in with the main header background colour. Like the black then light coloured text under the header.

Paragraph text (as in the words) could be better but if you want a fun and charming (approachable everyday type guy) feel to the paragraphs then this is ok but needs a bit of fine tuning to bring across your message more.

The background colour is good, as I previously mentioned, but it is to blurry. The way I would fix this would be to use Photoshop to add "Noise|" of about 3-5px. This way when you add a white spotlight effect the eyes of your viewers will be able to stare at it more comfortably because of the grains or noise in the spotlight.

I like the wings in the footer, very good use of shadows either side as well, very creative and it really separates the two sides of the footer.

Between that's right/we love what we do and the people have spoken there is a lot of white space, try reducing this (if someone else said this already I'll say sorry in now, but I'm not reading all the reviews!)

It is a little grid based, the header is very nice, but the shadow is a little fake looking.

Instead of just typing that u have facebook, twitter, etc, I would use icons. Thats the only point I have about the design really, other than that It is a clean styled website, Would have liked a live preview but it looks good. :)

Hey Luke,

Though the layout is correct according to design standards your catch headline writes "we make you look AWESOME on the web". I'm afraid the design does not represent what you're aiming, I can't see anything awesome on it. It just looks to another wp template to me.

Perhaps you are going to drop a really cool video on that frame you have, but then it won't be more than that, a cool video embedded in an average website.

I have taken some time to check your stuff and reviews here in CF and I noticed your skills are up to much more than this.

I want to see some AWESOMNESS!

Best,

Eze

The whole site seems clean and simple. By this I mean that as a whole is ok, although I would have cared a bit more graphics, this to attract the attention of those who visit. Another thing I noticed was the text beneath this is spartaggh! etc. .. seems a bit overlapped I detach a bit.