Evaluation needed for my first non-personal content site!

[digitalchaos]

Hello everyone; been a while since I was active here.

I have been studying various forms of online commerce in recent months, and have produced my first significant content website. The main purpose of this site is to provide information to a group of people with specific interests.

As I am relatively new to web design; your input on the various aspects of my site design would be very beneficial.

If you can tell me what you think, I would greatly appreciate it! Of course, this site is still incomplete as I would like to test the idea before adding content and implementing navigation links.

Thanks;
Kevin

http://indoortomato.com/test.html

[Borografis]

indor tomato(e)s

It is a little to type heavy DESIGN wise. I see so much more you could be doing with the tomatoe leaves and the text. This site should be more organic. Get outside and look around. Once you do that you will have a better approach.

and have fun!
let me know if there is any other questions. I would like to help. This looks like a great portfolio project so make it count.

[digitalchaos]

Thank you for responding Borografis; your advice is beneficial!

I am pretty new at both web and graphic design so some of the underlying concepts are still very undeveloped for me. I would definately appreciate if you could further expand on your ideas and relay an example or two, this would help me put things into context better.

Additional responses would also be most welcome!

[shwinger]

I would play with the logo and try to avoid embosses and drop shadows as much as possible until you can use them more subtly (see the yahoo logo)
In my opinion, your website topic would benefit from a text title - much better for search engines. Your logo could simply be a small to medium sized tomato icon.
Web design can be frustrating because you have to keep so much in mind - pc users, mac users, colors schemes, search engines - but it could also be quite rewarding.
Your site seems like it'll be content driven. Keep that in mind when you design and create as much text as you can (your left navigation, for instance)
Best Regards...

[digitalchaos]

Thanks for helping! Based on your suggestions thus far, I have made some changes to the site. Please take a look and tell me what you think....

[digitalchaos]

Any more suggestions on the updated design would be helpful! Page is veiwable from the main address now, www.indoortomatoes.com

I'm thinking about making the main and nav fonts 1 unit smaller; sound acceptable?

[southernlady]

I'm unable to locate that site. What happened? Liz