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First post so i'll give this a bash. I'm gonna just reel off comments on various sections and throw in how i would improve it. Apologies if its a little 'off the cuff'
I think you need to think about who you want to attract to your site and what you want to get from it. This scribbly look is quite naive, you may have used it to block out elements quickly but i think you should think about this 'nice clean design' people recommended you go with, maybe look at some minimalist sites. Take a look at people you consider your competition see what they are doing, work out why they have done things in a particular way.
As a Graphic Web Designer i think either get some graphicy grunge in there instead of mouse drawn lines: Use a stylus or brush styles to get that hand made effect, or go with a clean minimalist approach. Get a colour scheme sorted and block out elements simply with maybe some slight flourishes of 'graphic' here and there.
Kill the opacity/multiply approach, seeing the edging on a square element THROUGH a boarder that ISN'T square looks bad. You could cut the image edges up so they fit that particular boarder. CSS3 has border graphics, you could prob look into those.
That pinboard thing, is very iWork/iWeb and isn't really an original approach at the moment but could be nice; try photographing a layout you have made yourself and expand off that. I'm guessing that was a previous web design. I like the layout of that particular site, works well, looks like there is some harsh drop shadow use there however. Not sure where the light source is coming from looks like you have 2 or 3 contrasting lights, pins are shadowing right and the post it goes left, middle top one heads down, tweak that so its consistent.
Type use: I like the all-caps ALAN HORNE, nic, clean, standard font works. The Italics+Bold and All-caps, is sort of triple emphasising, very OTT... chuck in an underline while your at ya know! So i think here use one or the other, bold works well so emphasis something. Looks like you have 3/4 fonts in there too, reduce those to maximum of two for consistency.
The twitter updates again on that bland blue doesnt work well, here i would use another graphic element, something in keeping with what you ultimately go with, style wise.
Make sure you vector your logo, 'ah' is nice and simple, though i have an urge to play on your last name 'Horne' maybe you could shape the negative space or the 'h' for example?
Anyways there is my.... £3 worth of comment, hope they are useful. Good look with the reworkings!
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Chris Hart commented:No not necessarily, I just systematically went through the elements and made comments. I know i have come across harsh but personally i find a harsh critic makes me want to stand up for my design and evaluate what are the weaknesses and if they are weaknesses or just a matter of taste.
Let me tell you some strengths.
What i do like about your design is its layout, resembles the 960 grid and i think that works well. Also its really great that you have the right information on the first page, you have up to date stuff on there, links clearly to further information. You also have a concise, friendly invite into your web design. No pretentious bollocks just, I make [honest] cool websites. It has real potential, my favourite websites are those that have been handled by someone down to earth, personally catered and i can see that is what this is.
jQuery could bestow a lovely slide aspect to this site, say all those links slide you elsewhere or some CSS3 opacity effects. Again thats a slight taste thing i have going at the moment!
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Alan Horne commented:
Thanks for the feedback, it seems as though you don't like the feel of the site, and thats probably where the negative comments are coming from.
There is still some tidying up to do on the design, and i do have a clean concept of the design in my head too, so i suppose i could put both up.
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So in essence, change everything?