XXX

[igeek]

XXXXX

[rosland]

The present site horrible!

Any change would improve it!



There's nothing fancy about plastic cutlery, but you can make a more relaxed eyepleasing presentation of it.
A simpler design (for G.. sake loose all the chopping rotating imagery).

The whole site is dark, and the low-resolution images adds to the low quality feeling.
The other major problem, is its mixture of non compatible elements. There are Dreamweaver template-Flash buttons combined with low quality imagery and black text on dark background. There's no consistency in design. Everything is a mumble jumble of different design elements that are poorely designed individually, and that through negative synergy, enhances the absolute failure of composition and design.


Make it simpler, use text and not images where feasible, make it lighter in overall presentation.
Include a picture of the factory or production hall (not intrusive) in the home page.
Make easy non-fancy navigation, and AVOID BY ALL MEANS horizontal scrolling!!!!!!
That is an absolute killer.

Have an image beside the each element in the order form, and loose the horrible default 'table-look' in the tabular data presentation area!
This latter might sound contradictory, but this is not an order form, it's a display case!

Without dwelling further on the past design, I'll advice you not to desperately think of fancyanizing the merchandise, through flashy presentation. People looking for these kind of products knows beforehand what their after. A piece of plastic fork stays a piece of plastic fork regardles of how you present it. What potential customers are after, are an easy way of seeing what products are available, how to order, and what the price regime are.

[mlseim]

I think products should be the first choice in the menu...

People are visiting to see their products.

Company Profile, Personnel, Customer Committment, Values should
all be under one page called: "about us"

None of those things will help me as a visitor to locate and select
the plastic utensils I need.

I don't care about their "values" ... they had better give me good
service, I already expect that. They had better be committed to
me, I already assume that.

Ordering information should be with the ordering form, so I don't
have to go back and forth to see what I might be doing wrong
with my ordering.

For a "look", you might want to go with a more "cartoonish" thing,
something light and fun, like plastic spoons and forks that look like
people ... cartoon spoons.

Get rid of all moving .gif's ... nothing moving, nothing scrolling.

.... that's my 2 cents.

[rosland]

mlseim made a lot of good points in his post.

1. Sounds like a very good idea!
2. It doesn't look familiar to me, but hey... Go for a new logo if you have a good idea!
3. Exactly!!
4. Exactly again! Make it so!
5. Not on the home page, unless it's a sort of logo that incorporates what this company is all about. Steer clear of product details until the potential customer reaches the product area. There you can post details or overviews.

[mlseim]

You could draw some and scan them ...

Your results may not look very good unless you have
some artistic skills.

You should hire a professional that will create the cartoon
characters for you. Images will look fantastic and professional.

Here's a guy (local to me) that I've used before.

http://www.tmcreations.com/

You can describe what you need and get a quote.

The prices may seem steep, but they are right in line with any
professional graphic artist, and he's really good. Any fees
incurred would be passed on to your Plastic Silverware Client.

... but shop around.

[mlseim]

Oh my ...

That is a "gazillion" times better!

I know who they are, what they do.
I can easily pick my plastic, order, call for quotes ...

You nailed it!

The only problem I see now is that your layout will be great for my
large screen at work (17in monitor), but at home, I will need to
horizontal scroll as the layout exceeds 800 pixels wide.

This may or may not be an issue... it's sort of a toss-up, whether
to trade a nice layout for inconvenience, and how many small browsers
compared to large browsers ...?

PS .. make sure you spell "weight" correctly


.

[mlseim]

With your latest image (800 wide), it's still a little wide on my screen.
The horizontal scroll bar appears and a tiny portion remains offscreen.
I think the horizontal bar would go away at about 780?

With CSS, you can set the minimum width. It all depends on how you
display your image ... whether its made up of several images within
<div>'s or whether it's a single image.

If you want to use Javascripting, you could do something like this:
http://javascript.internet.com/css/s...olution-2.html

... and if this makes you feel any better. This forum is not designed for
users with 800 pixel browsers. There is constant horizontal scrolling required.
Maybe they're onto something ... most users now use larger browsers?

[mlseim]

Let me guess ...

Your boss designed the original site?

Well, back to the professional graphics. Tell your boss they'll need
to spend a little money to get some unique, fun, colorful graphics.

Maybe a little Flash might be OK too.

I think you did a fine job compared to the original site.

[Jack000]

I think you have to be a bit more realistic about the fonts available to you. Unless all your text will be images, you're most likely not going to get that particular font, smooth antialiasing, or that narrow text thing you have going on.

[Haydss]

Maybe if you changed around the colours a bit, added a few marquee and blink tags... it might be more exciting for him j/k

Perhaps you need to explain to the "boss" that a successful design suits the target audience not necessarily him. It's fine to say make it more exciting etc but if the visitors do not buy/show interest in the product it is a waste of time.

I admit the design you came up with is definately not exciting by any means, but it was surely alot better then the current site.

Only "sensible" suggestions I have are to perhaps go for something with more contrast then your design (not too much), different colours that look more dynamic together, perhaps on a plain white background or similar and make better use of your space. For me your design looks a little crammed full of content, a little "white space" could do wonders. It shouldn't matter if there is not too much vertical scrolling to do. And to add the "wow" factor to get the boss onside.... it's amazing what a couple of simple effects in flash can do to an element on your page, just have a backup plan if the visitor does not have the flash plugin.

Gosh, i think i have crapped on for too long already

Hope something here helps!! lol

cheers
Hayden