Just finished building a new site for a client...

[89coupe]

Just finished designing/building a new site for a Company coming to Canada. Tell me if you like it or not?

To the designers...I don't want to hear your expert opinion on how it 'should' have been done...LOL

www.vkcanada.ca

[Goblin]

not bad

Text is "sazzy" enough.

The music needs to be on an inline frame, or frame of some sort so you do not need to keep on listening to it from the start for each page.

Get it?

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MAIN SITE HERE






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music frame (no sizable bars, keeps it clean)
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Thats really easy to do, i bet you allready know how.

[khtm]

Looks good...simple...too the point...not cluttered.

I'm not a fan of the Times New Roman on the splash screen or the Arial in your bottom menu, but that's just me...

[JAYMEZ]

Looks good , I just dont like the Text , but thats an easy change

[Lex350]

simple is always better

[kaput]

I would center it vertically and maybe make a border around it that fades to black rather than has a hard edge. Its tough to say without seeing it though.

[89coupe]

Originally posted by Goblin
not bad

Text is "sazzy" enough.

The music needs to be on an inline frame, or frame of some sort so you do not need to keep on listening to it from the start for each page.

Get it?

--------------------------------------------------------

MAIN SITE HERE






-------------------------------------------------------
music frame (no sizable bars, keeps it clean)
-------------------------------------------------------

Thats really easy to do, i bet you allready know how.

No, I'm not understanding? How could you do that when you are physically jumping from one page to another? I understand how to do it within one page and build the entire site within one flash file but that was not the intent for this site.

Please explain more?

[BebeAphrodite]

This site opens up really wierd in my browser.
It takes up only like 3/4 of the screen and it's positioned sorta funny. It's probably just my computer.
I'm also not crazy about the font but I like how the bottles under "drink it" are featured.

[EG_Civic]

good music

[van]

SPLASH:
- Do you have a preloader built in? I didn't catch it if you did, if not you definately need one.

- Your entire site should be centered both vertically and horizontally, it looks kind of funny when you have so much negative space at the bottom of your page and none at the stop.

- You need a link to the Adobe Macromedia site as well, the link needs to goto the setup for installing the latest Flash Player for your web site (Those who don't have it, will see a blank space and won't know why)

- Don't have 'ENTER SITE' in a fuscia font color, as well you should hardly ever have a link underlined unless the person is hovering over it. It's cheap, tacky and so... 1990's

- Finally, you should do some kind of a introduction to the main site if you're going to put up a splash for it. Especially with the fact that you are using flash, you should take full advantage of all the features that are given. It really spruces up the way the viewer is seeing your site. Especially for a site about liquor it definately needs that eye-catching schematics.


MAIN:
- I don't see the point of having a splash page if you're main page is going to be identical with the addition of the menu and the music player. The reason being is because you have absolutely no main 'content' on the main site, it's just the exact same picture as the splash page.

- If you're going to use a bottle of vodka, use a HIGH RESOLUTION bottle of vodka. What makes this site weaker than it could be is the fact that the quality of the image you used is so low. Believe me on that one, the higher quality the picture the better.

DRINK IT:
- Good creative idea and use of the different bottles. One thing though. You have one bottle with a shadow and the rest don't. I think you should take the time to add the shadow to each bottle to keep the consistancy of the site.

- I like your idea of having that ..what would the word be.. I don't know that kind of white flame thing going on. It's a good idea, but one thing I would recommend to change is the color. WHITE on WHITE some of the bottles you can hardly see it. As well, get rid of the top half! With the smaller skinnier bottles you can see the top half of the 'flame' and the rest you can't.

DO IT:
- Don't use Times New Roman for headings, Times New Roman is made for documents that need to be faxed/printed out. On the internet Times New Roman is very sore to the eyes and it starts to hurt trying to read it, regardless of how much or how little you have of it.

FIND IT:
- I'm not sure why you decided to slap on a map and then turn the transparency down on the VK logo/Vodka Kick and place it behind the map..

1) you've already established the fact that it is the VK web site / company.

2) by havng that logo there you are taking away a lot from the map itself (I'm sure the map is important).

3) The VK/vodka kick logo you have transparent, well the word VODKA KICK has a really tracky white outline around it, looks like you used the glow filter in photoshop, should get rid of that.

- All those countries or whatever that you listed on the map, you should cut > Edit > paste into in photoshop, into the map, just turn down the transparency a bit and it'll clean up the text and that map quite well. With how you have it right now, it looks like mumbo jumbo, to be frank, there's way too much going on for the average viewer to see. They will get distracted and the point of the page will have lost its appeal.

CHECK IT:
- The purple border around the thumbnails is a sore to the eye as well. It doesn't really flow with the rest of the site, the consistency isn't there.

- The titles of each picture would be more attractive underneath the photo than ontop of the photo. Most people when they hover over the image want to see faces not words.

- You can probably turn on the transparency a little bit on those pictures too, it's too white just looks really weird.

BE IT:
- Again, Time New Romans has to go especially when you are putting it with Arial/Helvetica/Verdana style fonts. It just doesn't look right and it puts off your site a lot.

SUPPORT IT:
- I think you can set up this page a lot better. I would even recommend building cells for each thing, like a dark gray cell with the persons name in it, about 3-5 pixels over have another cell with BIOGRAPHY and another 3-5 pixels over have another cell with PHOTO or even better yet put a photo up for viewers to see first hand without having to click on it.



EXTRA TIDBITS:
Like someone else said, why are they all built with different files? I think it would make much more sense if you kept it on one flash file and organized the site on one timeline.

Having a small animation dealing with the bottles of liquor will have a bigger appeal on your site for each page. Having the same background for every page kind of loses its appeal. You're trying to market a liquor that is supposed to be hip and cool, you need to innovate and be more creative in what you do with this site.

You should think about all those bottle images you have handy, just grab a good camera and you can get the images yourself. Having each page with a different bottle will make the site greater than it is.

Your volume button (is that a button?) I'm thinking it's suppose to mute the music? Well it doesn't, if it's not supposed to do anything it should. You should add a volume function on there, play and stop are fine.



hope that helps you, not trying to rip at you or anything. just giving you some heads up on how to improve the site and its look and appeal. ciao. have any questions PM me.

[89coupe]

LOL...wow...what a novel.

Logo provided by client
Font requested by client FYI not Times New Roman...LOL
Images provided by client
Photos provided by client

Client is always right

Personally I am very happy with the way it turned out, KICKS ASS!

Thanks for your interesting comments.

Do you design websites for a living?

[googe]

personally i recommend a non-flash option as well. a lot of people find flash sites to be a PITA and prefer simple and functional. the first things i always look for are the "skip intro" and "low bandwidth version" links.

[89coupe]

Originally posted by googe
personally i recommend a non-flash option as well. a lot of people find flash sites to be a PITA and prefer simple and functional. the first things i always look for are the "skip intro" and "low bandwidth version" links.

Cost is always a factor.

[roopi]

Why use flash? Everything here can be done in HTML can't it?

[89coupe]

Originally posted by roopi
Why use flash? Everything here can be done in HTML can't it?

I like using it

[SLR]

Originally posted by EG_Civic
good music

That is the only thing I dont like about it. Good setup though. Blend the main page graphic with the black border on the rest of the page. Text is fine to me..

Brad, you hate criticism.

Hey if you scroll across the bottles with your cursor.. you can make cool music!

Originally posted by 89coupe
LOL...wow...what a novel.

Logo provided by client
Font requested by client FYI not Times New Roman...LOL
Images provided by client
Photos provided by client

Client is always right

Personally I am very happy with the way it turned out, KICKS ASS!

Thanks for your interesting comments.

Do you design websites for a living?

Yah mighta done him a favour by consulting otherwise... direct him to this page

[shakalaka]

So I guess they don't have VK Vodka in Canada yet then. Well its a total poof juice...totally for chicks. Tried it a couple of times.

[googe]

Originally posted by 89coupe


Cost is always a factor.

true. most clients take "pretty" over what most internet users would prefer. cant blame you or them i guess. looks good though.

[/////AMG]

I'm not very picky, I think it looks good.

[Lexxan]

yep definitely need a new fonts.. other than that