What are /r/design_critiques' favorite Products & Services?

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One of your projects looks identical to something I found on Dribbble while back while looking for some style references.

Dribbble: https://dribbble.com/shots/5408295-Beauty-Shop-Product-Details-Page

Yours: https://www.behance.net/gallery/78754475/Fragrance-shop-concept

Trying not to point fingers, assuming you worked on this together with Marius but It's potentially hard to judge what's your original thinking if not...

A few points of critique:

• Reads as "forestry" more than "landscaping" - maybe add a residential element? (house, roofline, pathway, garden, bushes, mailbox, not sure)
• Bottom half reminds me of a lime (though I did drink tequila last night)
• Watch your line widths and negative space widths. The thin outlines around the trees and thin space between banners will get lost at smaller sizes.
• The line between the grey and green outer circles is thicker along the bottom than the top half
• The tracking (space between letters) is very tight - it makes it difficult to read even at this large size.
• The banners need more padding between the borders (and cutouts) and the type
• The typeface is generic - consider other sans serifs that have a little more uniqueness - still clean but maybe a little more character like Oswald, Rosario, Lato (all google fonts)
• Consider giving the banners a little more depth by showing some folds and line shading like this kind of thing
• Consider the content - does Landscaping imply lawn services? If so you can cut out a lot of visual clutter all those letters create
• Consider simplifying overall - and look at lots of examples of landscaping logos for ideas (but don't steal any :)

Yeah... I can see what they mean.

The problem with overusing green is it quickly loses any meaning it had.

And I'm pretty sure you know you have more choices than just green with CGI leaves as a background or white minimalism.

Honestly, you need to go look at well-designed websites and stop excusing bad design choices with comments about what's popular now, because your site design would have been considered unprofessional at least 10 years ago, if not more. (It's very GeoCities and MySpace.)

And if you're stuck on using green, try searching hex codes on Dribbble. e.g. https://dribbble.com/colors/16c72e?percent=30

You could improve this site a lot from a usability standpoint. First and foremost, the site is not responsive and is painful to use on mobile. My advice would be to look into responsive web design best practices using css media queries and implement them into your site. Other than that, the site looks pretty dated visually and the auto scrolling text and banner is unnecessary. Check out examples of modern websites like stripe and try to understand what makes them a pleasure to use both visually and user experience wise. Best of luck!

Unfortunately, this design is not very good.

There's a lot of colors clashing which mades it very difficult to read. Try to pick colors which are starkly contrasted. I would suggest browsing Adobe Color for assistance with picking a color combination which is pleasing.

On the information side, I'd consider reworking this too. Unfortunately, it doesn't feel balanced at all. Consider switching fonts, making certain text bold (such as your name), etc.

Browse google images/design blogs for inspiration on successful business card designs.

I would also remove the facebook logo next to your name. If it's suggesting that you search for you on there, it doesn't seem like a good idea.

I'm not sure how common your name, but it may not show up first result. They have no reference to what they correct person would be. They also shouldn't they shouldn't just go to your personal account.

The back design with the logo needs some work on the colors as well (whatever new colors you pick, keep the colors consistent throughout the card). I would also consider revising the text. It's difficult to read with that gradient and it looks blurry.

Keep trying! Although this design may not be good, your next one could be stellar. Failures are an important part for anyone mastering a skill.

It's still pretty ugly. It's okay but not good/great. Sorry...

But it's not super bad and has potential, what I would suggest is just going and finding someone else's GOOD design and roughly copy what they're doing. Maybe even go and find a design you like and copy the colour scheme if you want to change that up.

Have a look through Dribbbe. Like this one here.

I'm going to be truthful.

It does not look good.

Here are some tips:

• Use only one typeface. (Currently you have three)
• The icon is cheesy and the typeface is really not professional
• The copy does not clearly state what this service does (if it's a notification system, why is there a search bar?)
• Get (or make) a transparent Sierra Trading post logo
• Typography, typography, typography

I made you a little demo.

First thought: the font is covering the most important part of the ad.

Second thought: the font needs more line height and the image probably needs some work on the grading and should be slightly darkened. Especially behind the white font to make it stand out.

And additionally: you should probably go for justified text in the info-box since this is a print product and you're able to. The space between the bike and the left edge isn't the same as the space between the info-text and the right edge. You can adjust that as well.

​

I think it's not quite working right now but a few adjustments will already help.

​

Edit: You can try to work in the font with the biker. Here's an example https://dribbble.com/shots/2407600-Entergy-Concept-pt-1

Bit hard to tell what you're going for and therefore hard to give feedback. First one certainly channelling some of that vaporwave aesthetic but you really need to scrap paint.net and find something better. Maybe try Gimp (open source) and use some better references and focus on conceptualising a message or theme you wish to convey. Behance might be a good place to start looking for inspiration.

Bad color matching. Try this tool: https://color.adobe.com/create and study color theory.

Also, don't tilt. It'll be hard for people to give feedback properly.

I dig the background image though :-)

Well, the first thing that I noticed when I opened the image: colors don't fit. There are some nice tools like Adobe Color (https://color.adobe.com) or you can have a look at Google's Color Scheme (https://material.io/design/color/the-color-system.html#tools-for-picking-colors). Play around with these and you'll find a better solution.

Next thing that screamed at me was that you didn't use a grid. Things are all over the place. Starting from the links in the navigation bar to the elements itself, everything differs in width. I also noticed that you tried to implement a creative element by cutting the corners. But they are all differently cut.

I couldn't say what is clickable and what is not. There is nothing to lead the eye - you're not making clear what you want the user to do. If a user has to think, (which costs energy and can get frustrating) he will rather leave the website if it isn't really important to him.

Headlines, links, text, everything has different styles, sizes, fonts. There is no concept of hierarchy, which is again confusing for the user.

Maybe you can work on these aspects and ask for feedback again. I will have a second look and help you out.

By the way. I don't know if you're planning on coding the website afterwards, but you might want to pay attention to that aspect as well. Some parts of that would be really annoying to realize for the browser. I'm sure you can work something out and the result will be fine in the end. Good luck and keep it up!

Sorry friend. There's not a whole lot of good going on in the poster.

Here: http://imgur.com/WUzcABE

If you want the photoshop file, message me and I'll send it over to you.

Edit: Okay, here's real feedback since you're trying to learn.

1. Pick a color scheme; keep it simple. Use https://color.adobe.com/explore/

2. Pick a font. Any font except the one you used. Try something san-sarif for a modern feel. Pick a second font if you want. Or don't.

3. Choose an image. Outline it. Fill it with a color from your palette.

4. Figure out hierarchy. What is important? Where do you want your readers' eyes to go?

I like the website design. The shop descriptions are empty, there is not enough text content on the page. Some pages are duplicated. There is a menu link to /about/ page and a sitemap link to /about page, both pages exist, they have proper canonical but I would fix the sitemap links. The server response times are not too fast. Sometimes with over 900ms. Google pagespeed score could be better 46 on mobile and 63 on the desktop is too low. You could optimize images size with tinypng or some other tool. A lot of css code is not used on the pages and the css files are huge. Product pages are not inside the sitemap. Here is the full list of issues https://www.pulno.com/shared/d26bd3716951882f

I honestly don't think it's that bad. My biggest issue on first glance is the

Date Name of blog post Blog meta info

centered/left-just/centered formatting.

I think you have appropriately complimentary typefaces, including the serif on blockquotes. I would just work on toning down hierarchy through layout and instead focus on your already-fleshed-out typographical hierarchy.

I would also increase the spacing between blog posts as their visual spaces are tending to merge.

I would also reduce all of the SOCIALNETWORKSHARETHISOMG buttons into a single Share This Button

It still doesn't feel like you understand the concept. It's there in the title: 'database'. IMDB is a fantastic tool for getting lost in data. The system provides curated data, cast and crew, connections, and then spurs a cottage industry of user generated content. Your design may favor the full screen display, but shows less data, less links. It buries (maybe even banishes) content you deem superfluous, but which I find quite helpful.

IMDB has survived more or less intact over the past decade, not in spite of its design, but that it performs its core task very very well. Its in a class of sites that are enormously "sticky" in how they allow navigation through data. I think of baseball reference and allmusic being in similar states.

A better IMDB would make it easier to make ad hoc associations between the data. It would leverage its stores of user generated ratings to build taste profiles. Take the "People who liked this also liked... " box that displays on each page. A ui tool that could expose the algorithms underneath and allow for graceful user manipulation would be huge. "Films with simular scores by gender", "by race", "by country of origin".

These aren't bad explorations. Definitely some ok options on the board I think there's two main problems with the concept you're working with at the moment. 1. It's all feeling a little crowded in on itself. 2. It's not communicating much in the way of unique brand personality. I'm not feeling the 'crazy' in daisy.

Here's an example from dribbble: Maize Popcorn Co. - This one looks hand-drawn, and that little bit of irregularity in the letters actually adds alot of character. The overall layout has room to breathe, and builds to that 'pop' up top with it's hierarchy of sizes. The result is deceptively simple and charming. full branding

I think the Mazie in particular could be a good point of reference. 'Crazy Daisy' probably doesn't have the time for perfect edges.

Taking into account your basic knowledge well done on putting this together, however the color scheme looks dated, the Horizontal line, grey on pastel navy contribute to that. Consider:

• Using a totally white canvas.
• Focus on typography, Serif and Bold darker shade of grey for headings. Sans serif and a lighter shade of grey for paragraphs. Use Google fonts to find fonts add them to your CSS.
• Use a more modern icon pack such as Fontawesome.
• I recommend Webcreme for inspiration.
• In your main heading replace the << / >> Characters with Double quotes.
• Consider using Twemoji to replace your hobbies icons. (Twitter emoji implementation)

I believe after that you’ll end upvwith a more polished, modern design. Keep learning we all are! I hope this helps.

Yes, I'd change the logotype to something simpler and not so rounded. Go check out https://fonts.google.com/ Type your business name in there and look at the sans-serif fonts until you see something you like. Pair it with the mark, in a complimentary size in a dark grey, and see how it looks.

These are killer for student work, especially for high school, so kudos on that. The composition of the first one is great, and I love the gradient in the 2nd one and the use of negative space for the text in the 3rd.

For the 2nd one, there's a lack of contrast between the car and the background, so it kind of gets lost in the image. Maybe try saturating the colors in the car a little more just to bring it more to the foreground.

In the 3rd one, I'm not a huge fan of the dark blue sky. It draws my eye up to the "May 2015" and competes with the car as the focal point. I'd try maybe desaturating it a bit so it's not so vivid.

I'm also not feeling the "May 2015" brush font (if it's a font and not done by hand). It comes across as childish/juvenile instead of aggressive/grungy. I might look for a different one. Skumfuk and GL Steak Brush are a couple I like.

Solid work though, keep it up.

A good effort if you are just starting out. Here are a few of my thoughts

• Read a basic book on design. Maybe a book like http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Edition-Designers-ebook/dp/B00125MJYM/
• Your site is lacking stuff like alignment, contrast and repetition. Read a basic book and follow it and you site will look so much better.
• Go to a site like https://color.adobe.com/explore/ and pick a color scheme. Your current blue is a bit too harsh.

Hope that helps.

Hi flobin! Took a look at your menu redesign and I think its a solid start! I have a few suggestions/questions though that you can consider making it pop out some more!

• Font colors against the gray background: although alright at first glance on screen, you have to consider if this is printed out. Will the colors muddle against the gray? I'd either lighten up the gray, or change the colors for better readability.
• Food item descriptions: I would tighten the text up so that the description doesn't reach the price area.
• Try adding some food drawings that are either similar to this B&amp;W lineart or this colored lineart
• Main dishes: Are the Grilled Eggplant, Falafel Qudsi and Mezze 4 Choix Du Chef part of the main dishes? If not, maybe you could relayout that portion?

That's some of the things that come to mind looking at your menu. Hope this is helpful!

This is an excellent illustration. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily translate into an effective logo. Try taking this same concept and breaking it down into something much simpler. It may help to see how other illustrators have broken down skulls (or almost-skulls, in your case...I think).

https://dribbble.com/search?page=1&amp;q=skull

See if there's something there that inspires you. I think you've got a great first iteration, but you're at a point where you should be refining and simplifying the mark.

It's not bad, a few suggestions though:

• The trunk texture is pretty overwhelming. And is it repeatable?
• The pine tree in the logo is nice, but I don't know that I'd make it part of the typography. Messing with that is kind of frowned upon. The I's in "city" and "studio" aren't consistent, and it throws your eyes off because of that. What if it was just to the left of the text?
• Since there is such little content, I feel the grid for your video showcase is unnecessary. I'd put each video in its own row with full width, and play them right there in the site, rather than a popup lightbox. Let me recommend using html5 and something like videojs to play them. I assume you'll benefit from having your site function on Apple devices?

But overall, good job. Nice, minimal, and too the point.. I wouldn't bloat it up with much more, people are only going to be visiting this thing to see your work samples, and then if they're interested, a way to contact you, and you already have those covered.

This is just some free wordpress theme and it really shows. You should try and develop your own theme, wordpress is super easy to learn if you have a basic knowledge of CSS and HTML.

• I'd recommend you reconsider use of the Lobster font. It's not the most flattering and doesn't help the site feel trustworthy. At the peak of it's overuse some designers started referring to it as 'the new Comic Sans'.
• Try a shade of green that isn't quite so hard on the eyes.
• Make everything smaller (especially in the nav), with more space to breathe between elements. Having clear margins on everything will make the site easier to browse.
• Consider branding improvements that will create the appearance of trustworthiness.
  

Best of luck with your project!

First off, this is a REALLY cool, simple idea and it works flawlessly and quickly, so UX-wise, you're off to a great start.

First, when the file is ready for download, the bright green button screams for you to click it, but you can't unless you select a format. Whay about having the button greyed out until you select a format (in a bright green dropdown until a format is selected, then once it is, the download button goes green.)

Secondly, why can't I get an HD version of the file even if it's available?

Lastly, the icons for no audio and no video don't work clearly. Maybe something like this for no audio and something like this for no video?

Gahhh! My eyes! Burn it and start over.

Go simple:

1. Helvetica typeface for everything, thin for everything but the "International Sofa Socials"

2. No overlapping words, and keep the information separate from the title.

3. Make the background image something related to a sofa... for example: a sofa.

4. Use this tool to pick a 3-tone color scheme: http://paletton.com/

Honestly...go back to the drawing board...these designs all look very dated poke around on dribble for ideas or google design inspiration

The design seems to be puristic. Screenshots inside user guide are too big. There are also some seo issues. No www host redirection, server response times on some pages are slow and sometimes they are very fast. Maybe some cache issue? Duplicate title and meta descriptions on many pages. Google pagespeed with 27/33 score and some other smaller issues https://www.pulno.com/shared/98eea42a02d31a70

You should find a good colour palette (http://www.colourlovers.com/) and remake this thing with some pretty colours. I agree with everything said so far basically, this looks like its a design school homework assignment rather than something that is targeting kids. Colours will help.

You talk way too much about yourself in a platform in which you should only be showcasing your work and the process behind your work, doesn't read as a portfolio because of this. I do like your layouts on digital screens but the details are still a little rough on the edges. You need to work on typography also, I reccomend you read "Thinking with Type" by Ellen Lupton, shows you a lot about fonts, texts and letterforms and how to use them correctly to convey the mood you want. Another good read to learn more about being a designer, than the technicalities of it is "How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul" by Adrian Shaughnessy. I love your photography and how you use it as a tool for your designs, I wish I had that skill and not have to google everything haha

You need to work on your responsive design, it's not good. On my iphone it literally looks like shit. If you can't design and want something to throw up that doesn't look like shit, use a framework. Many of them come with rules for typography, grids, etc.

Books:

• DESIGNING FOR THE WEB - Mark Boulton
• DON'T MAKE ME THINK - Steve Krug
• HTML AND CSS: DESIGN AND BUILD WEBSITES - John Duckett (this one might be out of your scope but damn if it isn't a beautiful book)
• A BOOK APART SERIES - multiple authors (this is my personal go to and keep the whole series on my phone for when I commute)

I would say learn some rules of typography and move up from there. Look up some books on print design, layout, etc... many of the principals can be carried over to the web. Remember if you can't design, copy copy copy until you do. You can train yourself into recognizing what looks good and what doesn't this way. Look up Design for Hackers, (it's a book, a blog, and a newsletter,) I think it would suit you very well.

I hope you keep a copy of what you linked here, and see how bad your design is a year or two down the road after you have researched and learned (that is if you keep at it).

This is using graphics to dress up that there's no information here.

Did you reduce legal billing errors and increase billable time? You don't say. That's the information part, the benefit to your employer -- the result. That answers the "should we hire this guy?" question.

Same with all the rest. It is graphics in service to no purpose. You cite programs learned ... to some unfathomable extent. These are the infamous software solutions, but there are no problems solved. So there's a powerpoint template now -- so what? How many lives were saved.

Chairs warmed. Names dropped. Keywords spammed. But there is no information there.

I don't have any particular problem with an infographic resume. Mostly because I've never seen the idea of information taken seriously. When I actually see an infographic resume, then I might know one way or the other. These things hide information, they don't reveal it.

All I get from this is never let you do an infographic as part of the job.

My suggestion is send it out. As is. Again. And again. And as long as it takes. Years if need be. Then take yourself out of the applicant's chair and put yourself in the decision maker's chair. When you can do this successfully, you just started your first day in design.

Want to do an infographic resume? Fine. Make damn sure you're providing something useful for a decision maker. They are your chips to wager. Throw them in any way you want.

more terrible ideas: your resume should not be an infographic I don't know, maybe an employee not having the first clue what information even is should be out there front and center. That way you can restrict their use of the IT systems and save on a computer. Win-win.

I LOVE Adobe Portfolio. That's what I use. Overall your site looks great, I love the color scheme.

I'd recommend looking at https://dribbble.com/ and/or https://www.behance.net/ to get some ideas of how to present your projects. Mockups of phones/signs/posters go a long way to display your work instead of just the flat digital piece.

Unlike the other commenters, I don't know much about Atlas, nor have I seen this concept used before — so it doesn't feel overdone or cliche to me. I actually think there's a lot of potential.

I think your main issues are composition, stroke/style, and color.

For composition, I think Version 1 is too much. Version 2 is closer, but feels off balance and too much empty space. What if you did something similar to this?

Next, is stroke and style of the illustration as a whole. You want to simplify as much as possible, and only retain the necessary details. You want every line and point to look like it has a purpose. For example, you should clean up his hands and abdomen area. Simplify his beard and hairline. Make sure all of the stroke weights match, OR that they're consistent/proportional in some way.

To help with this, find some examples of how you would like for this to look and try to replicate the style in your work. I think this is the best way to learn. Dribbble is a great resource for this.

Here is an example I found of a style that I think could work really well for this.

Last is color. I agree that this green is too Starbucks. Try adding in one or two more colors. The logo should still work in one color, but I think a multi color version could work well, too.

Hope this helps!

I’d move ‘What is tracking happiness exactly’ above the blog posts, move your About text off the homepage, explain what these templates actually are, remove ‘huge fuck up at work’ from the graph you show, make the graphs a lot more fun and inviting, check the site on mobile and make sure your testimonials aren’t overlapping other content...

I’d start with looking at https://dribbble.com for illustrators.

It's good for what it does, I like the four icons and slider. Although, the font on the slider looks really old, I'd consider giving it more of a modern look.

Also, responsive needs a little TLC. Attached a screen shot of the error.

http://tinypic.com/r/dg6rrd/8

Nice & clean... but to be completely honest, I won't use it for my portfolio. IMO

1. Remove the carousel. That component doesn't make any sense for a portfolio theme.
2. Have more images for content.gallery, at least 3 in one row.
3. Since you have opted for a 1 page theme, you can implement something like this. Your tabs can then be Portfolio, About & Contact.
4. Can you make your theme Responsive?

The reviewer at ThemeForest should have reverted with some suggestions for improvements, instead of being a total dick.

Edit: shouldn't this be in /r/wordpress?

I generally like the design. A couple things I noticed from a quick look was I had a bit of hard time knowing what I could click on. For example, there's that Canvas info box in the middle at the bottom. I tried to click the box but that isn't clickable. Then saw the tiny Learn more link.

There's a lot of calls to action on this page. I thought I could click the link "multi-photo murals & canvas" since that looks like a nice blue link. But on hover obviously realized that wasn't clickable. Also it's confusing to click on "Create a Mural" and the "Murals" tab goes someplace different? What's the difference between a Lifewall, a mural and a canvas print? I wonder if the design would be well served to try and get all these possible paths down into a single big Call to Action that's like "Get Started". And then walk me through the choices on the next page explaining what a mural is vs. a lifewall for example.

Also that video looks nice. Have you guys split tested this page for conversion optimization? I ask because making the video much more prominent would be one of the first designs I'd test. A simple page with a play video button, a testimonial and a get started button. (Inspiration could be drawn from the focus of https://www.dropbox.com/)

yeah. id like to judge the redesign, but like i said, its kind of hard to get a feeling about the entire design without seeing the whole thing, plain, simple, front facing, in its entirety.

like this last.fm redesign.

straight views, mockups with product, context.

Nice! This is wonderful. My only recommendation is that the background distracts from the centerpiece. Color theory 101: warm colors move forward; cool colors move backward. So there’s natural tension in an image when the background is warmer than the foreground.

I wonder how it would look on a light, light grey background, with a subtle shadow behind the Stormtrooper? You might get some very interesting, powerful effects with a monochromatic image.

Last thought: you’ve probably seen this guy’s work already, but in case you haven’t, check out https://dribbble.com/turnislefthome. He’s not much of a background guy, but when he does do it, it’s very pastel-y in a way that keeps the models the center of visual weight.

Content does matter because the goal of website design is to present content. No content, no design.

Now, to offer some advice:

• Read up on basic typography rules
• Look at some inspiration
• White & Gray is a good foundation but you need to add some color otherwise it feels very cold (My website has the same problem)

Copy people who are better than you and try to understand specifically why it's better and you'll make good progress.

Hey, I don't know how much 'great' advice I can give since I'm also a recent graduate but here goes from first glance.

• I like the strong cover images you have however, it does not show a clear representation of the project - why are some text cut off? maybe you can create 'covers' for each of the projects (I have done so myself)

• That leads me onto the second point, branding yourself. Make each of your projects come together and make it clear that it came from YOU. You can re-layout some pages, have a colour scheme to stick to etc.

• In some projects, you don't have any text to provide information about it. A quick summary or brief on what it was you tried to achieve could help me understand it without trying to scroll through the whole thing.

• Order your most recent work at the top. You want to give employers what current stage you are at and what the last piece you've done.

That's all I offer for now. May not apply to all of them but it can be an option to think about.

Not really digging the jumbotron font colors/contrast.

See here for a quick example. Not my best work, but you get the point.

Maybe you don't want text-shadow; in that case I might recommend dimming or blurring the background slightly to add some contrast so the foreground text can stand out more. Or try semi-transparent text (rgba / opacity)! See this jumbotron style, it has become very popular.

add a short headline explaining WHAT your site is about and how it helps people (what problem it solves)

look at stripe.com as an example:

"Web and mobile payments, built for developers"

https://stripe.com/

The top left one isn't bad and first well with your website although it could be bigger (im sure thats an obvious one)

I like the grey After with the purple dark with the k swinging under it with that gradient. It fits well.

I would choose those over the funky looking logos below because it doesn't appeal as much.

Speaking of your website, I like the wordpress site but since your a strictly an ecommerce site try prestashop, open source and free. Just throwing ideas. http://www.prestashop.com/

It is clean and clear. Add a little more space after about text, and make this spacing equal everywhere. Aswell try some other fonts. It is a thing of taste but I think there are better ones, for example this one, i love it https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Montserrat

No worries! Just out of curiosity do you have a lot of experience in design (just to know what terminology to use when explaining stuff)? Here's a few things to consider:

• Does the organization you're making this for have a brand font? If yes, use that. If no, I'd suggest switching to Montserrat, which is free, looks great, feels fancy enough for a gala style event. Stick to one font, it'll make the graphic more cohesive and save you the trouble of balancing two fonts.

• Let the heart be the container for the type. This image is one step away from being too crowded, and when text+food overlap it pushes it over that edge.

• If possible, try and get rid of the etc. part of the info. Title/date/loc/time are the most important things here. Put extra details on the back. Also don't forget a call to action, like a web-address or something of the sort.

• Don't use color to segment it anything—instead use spacing.

That green/teal is not working on top of that image, for sure. Maybe in a heavier weight but all that glitter-noise stuff isn't helping.

Lots and lots of gold, for sure. Consider expanding your palette to include some other colors (not a rainbow, but just not heavy gold everywhere).

Try fiddling with this. https://color.adobe.com/

I use sip and just grab colours I come across on the internet. Later on I use adobe color to save colour pallets.

Edit: I now see you can create colour schemes in the pro version of sip, no need for adobe color.

There are nothing groundbreaking in it. It looks like a fashion logo that was kept intact for many years.

Simple logos like this is something that you can do with just plain letters. Boom done. Problem here is that there are no "task" in your task. "Make a logo" is something similar to "make a painting". Real tasks are always comes with the set of restrictions and requirements. This is either a bad task or very tricky one to see if you can understand that you need to came up with your own story behind.

And you need to think beyond couple of letters. Logos are rarely shown on white backgrounds in sterile conditions. Usually it's something like a website, ad, or outdoor banner, clothing, as a watermark, etc.

I think the design is a bit conservative, which might not be too bad considering your target group. It's not responsive and the layout looks 'older'.

Front page feedback:

• The navigation needs more space. Navigation - free shipping banner - pink banner are all really close, try increasing the space to at least 30px.
• I'm not a fan of the free shipping info + payment icons. Try to find a different solution, like placing it on top of the navigation. Personally, I don't think the payment icons are super important so I would place them in the footer and just keep the Free Shipping on top.
• I had difficulties to figure out how to get to the product detail page to actually buy the product. You NEED to add a pink cta not only in the navigation, but also right below the text.
• I like the video, it explains what the product does quite well. It's clear and well structured, but it also needs a lot of time to get across all the info. My first thought when I viewed the site was 'and what about the other eye? Or do they want to sell me two?'? I did what most people do on the internet - I was impatient, scrolled down and missed the top video which would have answered my questions (didn't even start the youtube video to be honest). So for the mainteaser maybe think about adding a gif which quickly shows switching the lens and turning the product. You could place the headline 'Don't let glasses get in the way of your make-up' next to it and place a button button there as well. MORE BUTTONS :)
• Try to be more emotional with your design. A good start would be to add images of your testimonials, this way the user can relate to them!
• Social icons: I'd suggest to unify them, by making them look more like this. You can also make them pink to fit your logo.

Hope the feedback helps you! I might even buy one for my mum :)

I would bring the size on everything down at least a third. negative space goes a long way. I am also not a huge fan of centered type.

this is a decent way i just quickly looked up of a different way to organize info - https://dribbble.com/shots/1348466-Nick-Reese-Cards

minimalism emphasizes a certain elegance when done correctly - http://easyprint.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/minimalist-businesscard.png

Title and subreddit are fine ;)

Here are my thoughts

• The menu as a picture is a bad idea. No search engines can pick up on that, also makes for bad UX.
• Hours and contact above the fold is good.
• no favicon
• map has no padding
• " // Design by Jake Taylor" don't put this in. Link to the site on your portfolio
• No wow factor or images
• Look on https://dribbble.com/ for some examples of wow factor

Not bad for a first time

I think I found your eagle on pixabay - tell me if it's this one: https://pixabay.com/en/eagle-bird-falcon-symbol-311502/

Google's license searches don't work 100%, unfortunately. Once you've found something you like, it's best to look for licensing terms on the website directly. In the case of this eagle, there's a CC0 license which means you can use it for commercial purposes without attribution, but I'm not sure every picture on Pixabay uses that license.

As for your eagle, you have to admit it is an almost complete copy of the nazi eagle. They have the same number of wings (6 outer, 11 inner), they even have the same tail and they share the same feet (although on your eagle, there's only one foot and not two). I mean, it's the nazi eagle whether the designer of the vector knew it or not.

The text should at least be in line with the diagonal line.

Make the 'watch the exclusive...' text at the bottom smaller so that there is more padding between it and the edge of the white area.

Also, get rid of that orphan word! Check this link for an explanation of widows and orphans http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Widows_and_orphans

Have a look at your line spacing and kerning. A good, proper look.

'Beyonce' is cut off at the bottom, makes it seem careless.

Good luck in your project.

The right-justified nav, with left-justified opening content is weird. What if you left-justify the menu links, but keep the search bar on the right?

Also, ShesJustAGlitch is right, carousels are almost never the right choice. If you have the content, I'd recommend a vertically scrolling portfolio. Masonry or not, people can scroll WAY easier with a mouse.

As for placeholder content, Reddit loves cats, you need placeholder images; This should work perfectly. :)

What is the thing to the right of the sidebar? If it's actually blank like that, I'd get rid of it as it makes it look incomplete/broken.

This definitely isn't horrible, just needs to be polished a bit.
Be very careful calling yourself a UX designer.

The home page itself is generic, but it's alright.

The first thing I noticed on the home page is that there's very little to draw me in. I wouldn't have bothered reading the website if I didn't know that it came from a reddit post. What did it for me was the lack of "real" graphics right front centre on the home page. I saw some stock icons, and some nice gradients. It was professionally done, but the lack of a hook to draw me in made the "oh shit, a domain landing page" flag go off in me head.

I took a brief look at your screen shots on other pages. They look alright. What I would do is add a splash of colour to your home page, with a slide-carousel (right where "Welcome to Sportsgen.com" is).

Take a look at some of these sites to see what I mean:

http://bartelme.at

http://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/

Notice that there is a hook to draw you in to the app. You could have a slide carousel, first slide with your company name, and a brief thingy about your app. Next two slides could have the killer features of your app. Make sure to have visible "gumdrops" so people can easily switch slides.

I would model the features pages of your app on the rapid weaver pages. The rapid weaver pages has some dumb graphics (like that FTP/SFTP highway sign), but what it does have going for it that it's easy to read.

Overall, you've got the basis for an awesome design. Just a little polish on the home page, and you'll make a 7/10 go to a 10/10.

(BTW, my favorite program for making graphics with is Inkscape. It's fantastic for vector drawing/maniupulating. Take the time to get used to bezier curves, as well as how to do nice subtle gradients, and you'll go really far. Also, the Open-source icon sets (in svg) are just gold: you can import the icons, dissect them, move them, etc...)

TL;DR Nice website, home page needs a "hook" into your content. You've got a good start, wouldn't be hard to make a 7/10 into a 10/10.

Consider including a Reset block into your stylesheet to better ensure uniformity across browsers. Also check out HTML5boilerplate for more cross-browser and web standards goodness.

Thanks !

I used Sketch App for the screens' design and Principle for the UI interactions. It's similar to After Effects (timeline, keypoints..) but allows interaction and integrates very well with Sketch

Use Google to gain some insight into how to speed up your load time: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Run ALL of your images through kraken.io to reduce image sizes and speed up load time.

I agree with the other comment, get more physical store information above-the-fold on your homepage. Maybe even add a sense of urgency/call-to-action (Print out this coupon and visit us today for 10% off!) or something similar.

Also, I know you're a small business and I know (believe me) how tight money is. But hiring a professional firm to improve your entire web strategy is an idea that would most definitely pay for itself. We're worth every penny ;).

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.koe.design%2F&amp;tab=desktop

As you can see there are some issues to be looked into for both the desktop and mobile versions in order to get the most out of your performance.

Also, landing pages are old hat, don't make people go to the extra effort to see your work.

Remove the gradients, or make them more subtle. You don't have to remove the black lines, but at least change them to darker versions of the main colors, like for the football. The color scheme is too saturated and unnatural. Using the color guides panel in Illustrator to find colors that will work better together is helpful. I put together a color lovers palette for you

All the colors are in high contrast with each other, and they don't seem to fit very well together. Here is a color palette I put together, assuming the light blue as your dominate color. The website is good for finding colors as well. --- As for making the triangle stand out, part of the problem is the high contrast colors stealing attention. Also the image is very busy, so it obviously doesn't have a simple focal point. On top of that, nothing is leading my eye to the center. Outlining the triangle would help make it pop and give it more contrast, but again, I think mostly the problem is everything else is grabbing your attention.

I'm not sure if you've seen the site before, but http://www.colourlovers.com/ is a great place to browse when trying to think about color schemes.

Edit: Remember that color schemes are covered under copyright law in theory (though I'm not sure I've heard of anyone prosecuting there).

The overall layout "works" you need to change the cursor to the finger thingy when ppl are about to click; however, the colors are horrendous. go to color lovers and pick a palate. Also pick better fonts. You can do a lot of the stuff you did with AJAX.

My immediate reaction is that it looks like a slightly dated forum. Then when I had a peek at the source I see it is a vanilla forums site. Did you make the theme yourself or adapt an existing one?

My initial thoughts would be:

• Fix your alignment on your votes/views/comments boxes. They are different widths based on the content and it's throwing the alignment off.
• Your logo could use some work, it's not very easy to read and I can't imagine it being very good for social media and other places you would want to use it. Also the colour change when you hover it is a bit much.
• Square off or reduce your rounded corners. This trend is overused and looking a bit dated.
• Add padding. In many of your boxes on the page the text is too close to the border of the box.
• Background pattern. I would either drop this in favour of a solid colour or at least go for something with a higher contract to the other elements. In some areas, like between the categories, useful links and question list sections it becomes hard to distinguish their edges.
• Link colour. Your link colour is visually very close to the grey you've used for the body text, this makes it hard to distinguish the difference. Your hover colour is also very different to the rest of the whole site and clashes.
• The iFramed wiki pages are also a bit odd. They load slowly, clash with the layout of the page and are generally confusing. Not sure if this is more of a usability issue than a design one.

Overall you've made a good start, listen to all the advice you get here and keep asking for feedback. Good job!

This may be more backend development rather than design, but the loading time of the pages is very slow. It took me 6-7 seconds every time I changed the page on a 50Mbps connection, which is far from ideal when you're trying to show off several pieces of work. If I was just browsing, I'd have given up after one or two pages. A quick speed test didn't produce great results either.

However, from a design perspective it's pretty neat. I like that it has some definite character and personality.

You have a lot of work to do on the performance-side of things. https://gtmetrix.com/reports/emojilottery.co.uk/JORr14av

I think overall it's decent. Maybe try increasing the heights of each section a bit to try to break it up a bit more. It just feels cluttered, but maybe that's just me.

I didn’t use much jargon; I only used a couple terms graphic designers use ;)

By Pitch I meant the Enjoy your music everywhere copy, and it needs some work. Check out one of the many great books on typesetting like Thinking with Type.

CTA = call to action. It’s a common abbreviation used in web design. It’s your main sell. Everything on the page should drive to one—and only one—destination. Like how spotify.com has “Get Spotify” buttons everywhere—those are all CTAs. On your website, that’s Subscribe. So you should put it front and center over the nice lady.

I would highly recommend staying away from using modal boxes for content. On your website, it's for the purpose of showing content, but on most websites, it's for the purpose of displaying an ad, or trying to get someone to subscribe to something. People are accustomed to immediately navigating away from things with modal boxes, so it's bad UX to put your content there.

On top of that you've got navigation arrows in a modal box, which I've never actually seen before, but if I misclick just a bit, I close the modal box and have to do it all over again. It's creative but it's not a good way to show your content.

You describe yourself as a software engineer, not a designer, so I would focus on showing your engineering projects. At the very least you need to communicate what you want to get hired for. Saying you're a 'relatively cheap' freelance designer is basically shooting yourself in the foot as you will attract clients that actually want cheap freelance design. And those are terrible clients.

The work is amateur but that's to be expected. There are some really blatant design errors in the basic categories of typography, layout, balance, and color. If you're really interested in design, I would read up and expose yourself to some of the basic principles of design and then hone your own style and interpretation of those.

Some books I'd recommend:

Robert Bringhurst, Elements of Typographic Style

David A Lauer, Design Basics

Alina Wheeler, Designing Brand Identity

I absolutely agree on everything Apostrof has to say.

You should learn more about grid systems, typography, and hierarchy. You should keep up to date on typefaces, so familiarize yourself with some type foundries like House Industries, Hoefler & Co, FontFont. Read the better design blogs like Brand New, Logo Design Love, Design Observer, I Love Typography, The Dieline.

Also, the devil is in the details. Watch your spacing, your line quality, your spacing around type. Is it even? Is it crowded? Is your type hitting a line? If it's not even, it should be intentional.

Finally, regarding your portfolio, you have artsy examples (the sleep tight, red riding hood, and the parrot.) I don't know their purpose; what are you trying to demonstrate? Your other examples have lorem ipsum, which means they were never real projects. You should at least flesh those out, so they look more real.

Skillshare is a really great online resource. I suggest signing up for a membership and taking some classes there.

Good luck!

Generally speaking, your typography needs work. If you want to get serious about design, I'd highly recommend picking up either Thinking with Type or A Type Primer

I think you should consider tip #6 of the list of 25 practical logo design tips from David Airey's book, "Logo Design Love"

6. 1 thing to remember

All strong logos have one single feature that helps them stand out. Apple's is the bite (or the byte). Mercedes is the three-pointed star. The Red Cross is, well, the red cross.

Leave your client with just one thing to remember about the brand identity design you've created.

One thing. Not two, three, or four.

Just One.

You've got the letters combined, and the gradients, and it's just too busy. Simplify, and remember to make just one thing the identity.

If that is your game UI then yes, I think it needs a large overhaul. Look at your competition, see how modern and visually appealing most are.

Random example from the sidebar - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.LIBRA.MOZY

This site is very stylish, but I would make a few changes:

• Your header-wrap div has a nice background image, but it makes the white banner text hard to read. This isn't a problem for the logo or buttons at the top because you thoughtfully included some darkening along the edge, presumably for exactly this reason. However, you might want to apply a 30% opacity layer of black over the image, or some other technique.

• The "Join Us" button on the banner has a nice fade-in effect on hover but none of your other buttons do, which is a shame. Try adding more subtle animations like that, but don't make them too subtle. For example, the color change on the blue buttons and the grey social media buttons is barely noticeable.

• The padding is a little off in the content and footer sections, so things don't look properly vertically aligned. You also used a few too many dividers in the About page.

• Speaking of the About page, at least for me (Chrome 40 on Windows), almost the entire page is a hyperlink to a Vimeo video, which is kind of weird.

I agree with harman + darth_homer.

Also the navigation/site layout could use a little work. Instead of having all your separate pages appear as sub-navigation try and use something more like what you see on a lot of online stores where they list the number of items in the category and give you the option of going to the next page by clicking the < 1 2 3 4 > buttons. Here is an example.

Use the second level navigation if you have different sub categories of items. For example the sub-navigation for accessories could be Parasols, and Cosmetic Bags.

This would be secondary though to what has already been mentioned.

How about sprucing up the design a bit by playing with some colours? I am not a pro designer so you might want to take it with a pinch of salt. Maybe having some different colours for different countries. Here are some colours schemes I think might be a nice idea to experiment with -

1. https://dribbble.com/shots/1916234-Traveller-App
2. https://dribbble.com/shots/3151269-Magic-Christmas-App

http://tinypic.com/r/6404tz/8 - I love the color scheme there, it's simple, easy to read and clear - I'm not a fan of the silver, white, grey color, it makes it really hard to see!

Given that, I'm partially colour blind - but hey, why not make it so that it's easy to read across all spectrum of vision.

I would definitely make the background a lighter color (or white) for more contrast. It's a bit dark as it is, which dates the design. Also anyone with color deficiency or sight problems wouldn't be able to read this.

The font also dates the design; I'd go with a sans serif font or a more modern serif one (or a paring of both - one for headings and one for body text). A quick google search can give you some good suggestions, and Google fonts have plenty of options.

The intro can go in a footer (people expect to find location/contact info down there) and don't call any website a "web home".

The event section and visit us section can just be links on a nav menu, which would make the home page a lot shorter, and probably work pretty well.

If you're looking for some animations to replace the "gimmicky" part of this, check out codepen.io and enjoy the rabbit hole!

If you can afford someone's time they should be able to neatly package and present a formalized logo complete with vector, .png, .jpg files and a mock-up branding package like something on behance (but plumbing & engineering industry appropriate).

If you like it you can take it from there, otherwise, you can continue to trade for a designer's time and effort to help you do complete projects like signage, web design, etc.

The text on top of the background image is hard to read and the image distracts from the page.

Read up on how to effectively overlay text on images: https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui-part-2-430de537ba96

I think that the different affiliates could be reorganized. On Mobile btw. I think the mobile menu is a little too big. The orange boxes with the affiliates listed looks a little weird. I think if you put all the affiliates in the menu, you don't have to list them in the page.

Maybe a few stock images could help and then sharing some stories in the main page would be cool. It's definitely a good start!

Edit:

I think Groupon is most similar in idea than anything else and it's not very similar but I think it has a great design you could use. Groupon

LOVE the cube game. I'll be visiting your site again just to play it :p
Some notes on the layout/design:

• ~~Add more whitespace between the page's sections (Formal Education, Experience, Languages, Contact)~~ Add more whitespace overall...everything feels so squished together (between your nav links, the logo and the header content, the individual page sections)
• Stylize your nav links a bit
• Polish off the styling in your About Me section (maybe slightly rounded corners?)
• Header font choice seems a bit off. When I first visit your site, I feel like the headers should resemble more of the feel pulled off in the nav links / huge TC logo on TechCrunch.
• I feel like you could also put some whitespace between the cube game and the About Me section in your header.

Looks great!

I have some quick tips. Try adding a dark gradient over the hero image to increase the visibility of the top navigation links.

Increase the opacity of the form box in the hero to increase the readability. Possibly try adding a blur for the glass effect, very trendy this year with ios14.

The copy in the form box is quite long, I would actually add that as a sub heading under the h1 "sell your house fast" value prop. And move the "Call or text Boni" to the bottom perhaps.. You don't want to split your lead conversion funnel into two funnels.

Considering add a row of 3-4 icons as a mid hero section which gives impressive stats or benefits. This is a common thing. For example - "How we work with homeowners" could have 3 icons explaining the main value to homeowners the company can bring.

https://stripe.com

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Here's a good example.

All the images are extremely low quality, it has an animation for all the captions then the images just snap in ruining it (if this isnt intentional it looks like this for me: https://gyazo.com/1c8ef9c79d999302e27f78386507fa72), dont instantly show a modal asking me to sign up, when ever I see a site doing this I want to get off it instantly, its extremely intrusive and ruins the experience. I also have no idea what your site is about, nothing is explained to me as a new user, it just shoves random stuff in my face. You need to add a splash for new users explaining what it is properly, use good images, fix the animations so it shows the images in the animations (again I'm not sure if this is intentional or not).

It's a good start, but it's time for some refinement! Right now I think the biggest issue with this is the color. It just feels rather muddy overall.

Here's a dribbble search that will give you some more inspiration.

The most basic thing you can do is check out what the designers are doing right know, so you can start in Dribbble or try out Behance

Keep the structure of your current design but use a grid and align the content to keep a visual flow, the font can be a serif less one like roboto or open sans but try to use a size for all the titles, another for the menus, an a different one for the main content, don't forget to keep the readability.

Maybe it's not all what you need but I think is the better start

The 3D is unrealistic (gradient lighting, shadowing, and perspective are all off and unnatural) and the design is quite out of date. 3D is fine generally, but tone it down and make sure it comes across as realistic or pleasing, otherwise it becomes too focal. For some design inspiration, check out Dribbble or something.

Consider breaking up your inputs into types. It's their uniformity that makes the form uninteresting. Have currency inputs look and behave differently than date inputs for example. A good example can be found here: https://dribbble.com/shots/1544666-Prevent-Sign-Up/attachments/235422

Along with what other have said, I would add on to only have the side nav bar on the header nav bar, there's no reason to duplicate links the links - and when you're at the top of the page you see both the sidebar and the top navbar with the same links - it's redundant.

Color and type need work - the spacing and size of the text makes it a bit of a clusterfuck when trying to read it. (Also, remove the tab indents on the paragraphs, they don't line up with the first paragraph and they're unnecessary on the web - unless you're actually posting an essay or paper.

Navbar - If you're set on using a gradient, choose a different colors. The white text that says "Serving North Carolina Since 1994" starts to lose itself to the gradient in the corner. Here's an example of a great use of a gradient http://unity3d.com/

I'd suggest to strip it down and start again. Now that you have a base line, a better structured idea and some reddit advice, you can start with a fresher perspective and get a cleaner output.

Thanks for the kind words! :)

Yeah! When I was drafting ideas for the design I wanted a little bit of light-weight decoration, and I read a blog post they published about their front-end, so that inspired some of the skewed rectangles in the background and soft shadows on the project list.

It's mainly privacy, although now that you mentioned it I could always put up a version of the resume without personal particulars.

You're right they probably wouldn't look good flat because there's not enough contrast between them and the background -- which is why you should re-consider your color scheme.

To me, modern design would be sites like https://www.airbnb.com/

You'd want it to be very visual with simple modern typography. Try to avoid writing paragraphs that no one is going to read.

Equally terrible.

Stop and think for a sec: When people get to my site, what are they looking for?

IMHO, they're either looking for what's new, what's hot, or either of those restricted to a single genre. Since flash games can take a while to load, they're probably looking for a bit of info (title, short description) on what the game is before making the time investment to actually load the game.

Very few people are looking for a huge-ass wall of unlabelled tiles, which convey little to no information about what they link to.

I'd suggest taking a good look at Kongregate, which is one of the best flash gaming sites online, in my opinion.

tl;dr: Mystery meat navigation = very bad.

I hate the cookie banners too, just make you dont use them.To check you can use lots of plugin like "attac cookie audit". About the font, it might be that we are actually not seeing the same one. I like "Literata" or "Roboto", just choose something easy to read for everyone, check the fonts of google: https://fonts.google.com/

Anyways the website looks cool(is already a good site) and I wish you good luck with your books!

You'll want to select 2 fonts overall that pair well together. I suggest googling for some articles about font pairing because there are several factors to consider. Maybe you can check out a list like this, pick a primary font for your poster, and use what you learn to find a harmonious partner for it. Good luck!

Just look at any succesful big brand...

Imagine handing of your site to a designer, what is the visual style?

If I can't determine that myself you are not conveying a clear design language.

Think color, font, shape, composition.

edit: seems like you just used a bunch of templates/free stock vectors for any other crypto company

this seems like a really intriguing idea and it is executed simplistically (in a good way)

-i would change the font on the top bar as you lose parts of the letters through contrast

-maybe some variation in logo for each of the items on top bar (even though im a fan of the check mark animation!)

-if you're set on this green theme colour, i would maybe use something like #333333 for all the font. its not as harsh as true black

overall its very to the point and thats exactly why i like it. also, i use https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel to create colour palettes for designs and it could help make all of your greens match a little better if thats the theme you're set on!

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p.s. there are two options to sign up for email lists, maybe not totally necessary

I think you should add attachments for the limo and jewelry site. What's up with the pointer cursors on this one?

My initial thought when on your landing page was that everything felt way too big. Scale the whole thing down to the centre of the page and it would look far better in my opinion. Secondly, your homepage is completely different to all the other pages on your website. My advice would be to think about how you want your website to look as a whole piece, and then work out how you can break that down into individual pages that still visually link together. Personally I like the look of your homepage the best, and I feel you could work on implementing this style throughout the rest of your website.

Hope this helped, Tom Appleton https://dribbble.com/tomappleton