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Fixing my girlfriends website :/ Any tips (digital imaging help)

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B

BuggyDClown

Member
I know GAF loves these, never thought I would be posting one.

Let me preface this by saying I'm not asking anyone to fix or edit or create anything for me. Im simply seeing if theres any basic adjustments or reccomendations that I may have overlooked or not thought of.

Currently my Girlfriend is in charge of creating her schools first IOOB confrence (Industial Organizational Organizational Behavior). They don't have much of a budget so the team has built their own website.

Then I got a look at it yesterday, and I couldnt help but tell them how much needs to be fixed.

www.IOOB2013.com

For starters their logo looks like (and quite possibly is) WordArt. Now I know a thing or two about logo and site creation so I put down a few sketches and offered her some logo concepts. They are not going to be a company, and this is a one time event, so they aren't putting any real money into it. Thus the simple nature of the designs I've made.

Seemingly they want a basic Font styled Logo, and so the following is the one they have settled on. (These are just Illustrator fonts currently, I wanted them to pick one before I actually made it). Yes I know, I'm not the greatest designer, but it is free, and will at least be vector art.

Before
1gXzpkW.png


After
vDfVlJx.png


These are the other options I put together last night.

j4yG3tT.jpg


Now onto the website. I circled the first ten things I would change.

There's a ridiculous amount of odd things going on. Strange unprofessional fonts and inconsistent colors, the awful logo, a random powerpoint like button to return to the top of the page and a scrolling header image with graphic transitions.

I suggested nixing their current banners which looks like cut and pasted photos, and gave her a couple of basic images to work with until they get a nicer photo of the city, and or the school to use. (Just photo's Ive taken from Griffith park)

jTq8Vfa.png

SxBveAq.jpg


Anything ese I'm missing? Thought some of you might get a kick out of the site, since it looks like it was built a decade ago.

C7J3sve.jpg


(I have permission to be posting this from her, not getting into any trouble)
 
A

Archurro

Member
It honestly doesn't look like complete shit; considering it's not her own personal website. For an academic conference website, its functional and doesn't hurt the eyes, I think changing the logo will help a lot, but it's not necessary to redesign the whole thing.
 
B

BuggyDClown

Member
Archurro said:
It honestly doesn't look like complete shit; considering it's not her own personal website. For an academic conference website, its functional and doesn't hurt the eyes, I think changing the logo will help a lot, but it's not necessary to redesign the whole thing.
Click to expand...

Sure, it could be worse. Though currently they weren't really happy with it. Plus I don't think the changes that should be made are all that difficult. Bringing together the colors, and fixing the fonts will go a long way.

The outlined issues are not re-designs as much as making it more consistent. For instance the Home button is a different color blue than everything else on the website, and it brings you to the same page as the conference button. The white font on the baby blue background is almost invisible on some monitors. Also the scrolling banners wildly vary in quality.

I believe the number of changes that can and should be made would both be quick, and very helpful. Especially since she's in charge of the event, so we obviously want it too look good.

Diprosalic said:
don't really like your new logo. it's big and clunky and doesn't say anything.
Click to expand...

That's fair. Like I said, they didn't want anything other than the actual letters. So I tried a few fonts until they liked it. Right now they are using a type face they exported and are shrinking resizing it. The current logo (the word art one) is going to be printed on a lot of things in different sizes. So it needed to at least be adjusted. I liked some of my other options better personally.
 
C

crimsondynamics

Member
Layout-wise there's nothing particularly wrong with it; as Archurro said, it's functional. But if you are going to redesign the site here are a couple of comments:

Use acronyms only when they are universally known. IOOB is no IBM, and International Business Machines became IBM only after years of using its full name. Same goes for BMW, J&J, etc. Spell out what IOOB is until there's some brand recognition behind the name. Nothing wrong with your logo (the first one), but would add the full name under it.

Change "Home" (site title) to something more informative. It could be "Home | IOOB - The International Something Something Bureau" (or whatever IOOB stands for). The same goes for the inside pages.

The white "Join us in Los Angeles, CA for the 34th Annual IOOB Conference in August!" is super hard to read over the pale blue background. Consider adding some contrast. This goes for text across the site.

While your header banner designs are more attractive, they also don't help explain or clarify what the site is about. As a general rule of thumb (unless yours is an artsy type of site - and even then, the images would help convey the fact that you are in such a site), use images only when they contribute to the site's contents. If I see your second banner design on the site with IOOB to the side I still am nowhere closer to knowing what this site is about. It could be about space observatories, or post-modern Islamic minaret architecture for all I know.

Stick to two or three fonts at most. If you want, use serif fonts for titles, and sans serif fonts for text, or vice-versa, or just stick to serifs or sans serifs and use bold or larger text for your titles. For fonts, less is definitely more. Your IOOB logo already constitutes one type of font so keep that in mind.

The color usage could use a bit of tightening. Use a color wheel to determine your color scheme if you don't know (much) about color theory. Get some harmony in your colors! It doesn't matter if you choose complementary, analogous or triadic color schemes as long as you stick to one set and run with it. Colors are generally subjective but there are some rules of thumb, e.g. blue is more corporate, green is more ecologically-minded, etc. Just get the stakeholders to buy in to a color scheme.

Finally, with regards to the site design: it's a bit too old-school I guess. Today's designs are more about edge-to-edge banners and seamless borders to give the design an open, breathable feel. The current design is too boxed in, too "containerized". Instead, consider changing the background to white as well, and let the justified text margins define the buckets of information. Look at sites like engadget, joystiq, polygon, microsoft, apple's front page or technobuffalo to see what I mean. These sites look large and breathable by omission of these "containers".

At least, that's how I would approach this. Hope it's of use to you. Happy redesigning and good luck!
 
B

BuggyDClown

Member
crimsondynamics said:
Layout-wise there's nothing particularly wrong with it; as Archurro said, it's functional. But if you are going to redesign the site here are a couple of comments:

Use acronyms only when they are universally known. IOOB is no IBM, and International Business Machines became IBM only after years of using its full name. Same goes for BMW, J&J, etc. Spell out what IOOB is until there's some brand recognition behind the name. Nothing wrong with your logo (the first one), but would add the full name under it.

Change "Home" (site title) to something more informative. It could be "Home | IOOB - The International Something Something Bureau" (or whatever IOOB stands for). The same goes for the inside pages.

The white "Join us in Los Angeles, CA for the 34th Annual IOOB Conference in August!" is super hard to read over the pale blue background. Consider adding some contrast. This goes for text across the site.

While your header banner designs are more attractive, they also don't help explain or clarify what the site is about. As a general rule of thumb (unless yours is an artsy type of site - and even then, the images would help convey the fact that you are in such a site), use images only when they contribute to the site's contents. If I see your second banner design on the site with IOOB to the side I still am nowhere closer to knowing what this site is about. It could be about space observatories, or post-modern Islamic minaret architecture for all I know.

Stick to two or three fonts at most. If you want, use serif fonts for titles, and sans serif fonts for text, or vice-versa, or just stick to serifs or sans serifs and use bold or larger text for your titles. For fonts, less is definitely more. Your IOOB logo already constitutes one type of font so keep that in mind.

The color usage could use a bit of tightening. Use a color wheel to determine your color scheme if you don't know (much) about color theory. Get some harmony in your colors! It doesn't matter if you choose complementary, analogous or triadic color schemes as long as you stick to one set and run with it. Colors are generally subjective but there are some rules of thumb, e.g. blue is more corporate, green is more ecologically-minded, etc. Just get the stakeholders to buy in to a color scheme.

Finally, with regards to the site design: it's a bit too old-school I guess. Today's designs are more about edge-to-edge banners and seamless borders to give the design an open, breathable feel. The current design is too boxed in, too "containerized". Instead, consider changing the background to white as well, and let the justified text margins define the buckets of information. Look at sites like engadget, joystiq, polygon, microsoft, apple's front page or technobuffalo to see what I mean. These sites look large and breathable by omission of these "containers".

At least, that's how I would approach this. Hope it's of use to you. Happy redesigning and good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the critiques. I agree with a lot of what you said. Much of what I highlighted with the site is in your list of things to fix.

Yes I also agree about the banner, right now the one I gave her is just a picture for LA.

The IOOB acronym should definitely be spelled out, but as far as brand awareness goes it's not meant to build that. It's a conference for IO and OB psychologists and after the event will cease to exist. Which as you stated is why it should definitely spell out it's full name somewhere, because I had to ask her a few times what it stood for.

Thanks for all of your tips. I didn't have a hand in this site's design as I said. It's mostly IO psych majors going for their masters degrees. Much of them with limited web experience and most with little to no design experience. Which is why I've offered to help, and asked GAF to possibly lend a hand on anything else I can easily adjust.

I definitely want to get a nice photo of the school where it's hosted for the banner.

Thanks again.


Devolution said:
I'd go with lowercase. Or convince them to.

IHdtD1Q.png


So much more character.
Click to expand...

I really like some of those font types. The design they liked of mine keeps in style with their idea of IO and OB being linked together. Which is why I have the two tone IO and OB so it can be read horizontal and vertical.

I really do like the lowercase though. I'm going to mess with that and have her choose a final color.
 
D

Devolution

Member
The ones I used from top to bottom

column 1:
bodoni
neutraface
DIN
Bookman
Conga Brava

column 2:
Caslon
Bell MT
Futura
Frutiger
Gill Sans
 
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