Studio website up

[Soundlurker]

UPDATED LINK: www.soundlurkerstudio.com

It's not quite finished and I haven't bought the domain yet, but getting some feedback would be helpful.

(old link=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1891957/Soundlurker/index.html)

I'll probably come up with a better logo and some more interesting buttons instead of text links but other than that I'm happy with how tidy it ended up.

Feel free to mention any incompatibilities with your resolution/browser/etc. as well.

 

[Ola Englund]

nice and clean.... looking good bro! I would probably skip the background pic or use something else. I'm allergic against small background pics looped.

 

[Soundlurker]

Yeah, I'll think about some other option. Thanks

 

[Clockwork]

Looks awesome man! I like how well laid out the first screen after the enter page is. Essential info on the left, clients on the right and some eye candy in the middle, sweet!

 

[crillemannen]

Really nice, clean and informative. Just as a studiopage should be I would skip the whole "enter the site" page. And perhaps do a all in one site like mine, www.studiohaga.net.

But it looks great. Good luck man

 

[Soundlurker]

You're all giving really nice suggestions. I was already wondering about some of the points.

I'll skip the introductory page, remove the background looping image and I'll try to sweeten things up in the main page without taking away the clarity. I'll post a new version tomorrow

Cheers

 

[Fbarre]

A few suggestions which might help:

Try using a smaller font on Home, Gallery and Clients and try removing the middle line while hovering over the links. Other than that I would suggest using a better background image with a bit more variation colours, since everything is very pale and could use more contrast. Otherwise nice page.

 

[~BURNY~]

Looks neat overall. Only thing I'd add to what have been already said is that the equipement section might seem a bit elusive. I guess it's deliberate but maybe it's better to use only the pics and not the headline. You run the risk of sending mixed signals while potential client might not even base their jugement on an equipement list unless you submit one.

 

[Steven Otto]

A few suggestions which might help:

Try using a smaller font on Home, Gallery and Clients and try removing the middle line while hovering over the links. Other than that I would suggest using a better background image with a bit more variation colours, since everything is very pale and could use more contrast. Otherwise nice page.

That are some good points.
But I disagree on the 'smaller fonts for home, gallery and clients' part.

• I'd make it a tad bigger. Same for the maintext. Just 1.1em bigger. Not sure though. Current size could work as well for the main text.
• Also, you could make the main frame a bit wider. It's currently 820 pixels wide and 900px would still fit on most screens.
• The transition from the mainframe to the background is a bit too edgy for my taste. Experiment a bit with some shadowing.
• The text is near the site of the mainframe. Try making the padding a bit wider. Reading the text could be a bit more comfortable it there were more words per line and not that close to the left

The site already looks very good, but there are some minor things that could make your site even more awesome
I hope I don't sound like someone that talks down on you, I'm trying give some advice and my bad English could make things sound a lot mor harsh than intended

 

[Soundlurker]

Awesome advice from all of you, is this a music production forum or are you all web developers?

Anyway, I've implemented most of the changes, I think it looks neat
www.soundlurkerstudio.com

Let me know if it's better in your opinion.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Really nice, clean and informative. Just as a studiopage should be I would skip the whole "enter the site" page. And perhaps do a all in one site like mine, www.studiohaga.net.

But it looks great. Good luck man

For what it's worth, your layout is kinda fucked up over here (2560x1440, Firefox and Safari, OS X): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1809705/haga.jpg

Might wanna give your designer the stick

 

[RLab]

There is something wrong with the facebook logo in the bottom of the page, we can't see the full button "like" but it's maybe just my navigator... The site looks really nice and clean, and I dig your recordings

 

[Soundlurker]

Thanks

Fixed.

www.soundlurkerstudio.com

 

[digitaldeath]

You defo need to make it easier for potential clients to contact you. Having a small "Contact us" link buried down on your page just isn't going to cut it.

 

[Soundlurker]

Fair enough

Updated.

 

[digitaldeath]

On iPhone at the mo, but I remember making a mental note that your outsourced mastering service, using the same HTML template, the studio pics are being cut off. Tested in Firefox (Win XP SP3).
I'll try take a longer look tomorrow and get back to you with further suggestions.

 

[Soundlurker]

Well spotted! I had forgotten to add a "target" tag so they don't open in the iframe. Thanks and fixed.

 

[digitaldeath]

Just a few notes:
1. The "Contact us" link takes you to Facebook...what if your client doesn't use Facebook...?

2. Email contact link should be <a href="mailto:soundlurker@gmail.com">soundlurker@gmail.com</a> if you want it to open in a users default email client. If not, just remove the link and people can copy & paste it into their emails.
I personally think that a contact page would be much better, perhaps with a form to fill out that will mail you their query, thus never exposing your email address as bots can skim your site and start to spam you seeing as your email address is so viewable. Plenty of PHP scripts out there to accomplish this (submitting a form etc.), but won't work until you take your site off DropBox and move it to a server with PHP support.

3. You shouldn't have to write:
Facebook: Link
MySpace: Link

Just make the Facebook & MySpace text links!
Or as I suggested above, move all of this info to a dedicated contact page.

4. Imagine I'm a prospective client, the equipment section tells me absolutely nothing...pretty pics though!

Personally, I'm not a fan of 3 page column layouts, I would have gone for a more "business/professional" look, or if you were going for the other end, a "grunge" template of some sort.

 

[Soundlurker]

You have a point. I've reworked the contact section. I'll start adding content such as a more detailed equipment list and so on soon. Thanks for helping out btw