critique, concept only

Hi everyone,

I have a concept that I'd like people's opinions on:

http://www.nrkn.com/carters/
http://www.nrkn.com/carters/carters.css

Please comment on whatever you see fit, but I am quite interested in what
you think of the green. Do you think another colour would work better?

TIA!

--
"Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million
typewriters, and the Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare!" - Blair Houghton
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
http://www.nrkn.com/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Nik Coughin wrote:

Hi everyone,

I have a concept that I'd like people's opinions on:

http://www.nrkn.com/carters/
http://www.nrkn.com/carters/carters.css

Please comment on whatever you see fit, but I am quite interested in what
you think of the green. Do you think another colour would work better?

TIA!

The fading green looks good to me.

I see divs nested five deep. Perfectly legal, but not exactly what I'd
call semantic markup, which is desirable. A flat green would be just
as good, if the fading has anything to do with your reasons for all this
divitus.

Do you really need two fonts (and an image) for "Carter's Law"?
It should be actual text in an <h1> header if possible. And, all the
baroque gaudy geegaws on the font used for 'Law' don't fit with the
modern, slick look of the rest of the page.

Overall not bad at all, though.
--
mbstevens http://www.mbstevens.com/

Nik Coughin wrote:

Hi everyone,

I have a concept that I'd like people's opinions on:

http://www.nrkn.com/carters/
http://www.nrkn.com/carters/carters.css

Please comment on whatever you see fit, but I am quite interested in what
you think of the green. Do you think another colour would work better?

I like it. Only thing I might recommend is reducing the outside
margins to about half of what they are now, thus allowing 800px users
more room for content.

The italic text in the middle column doesn't look too good. <g>

The "Carter's Law" logo is very nice.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

To me it's too generic. It doesn't communicate to me a "major" law firm
-- more like a one-man show, or a junior partner stepping out on his
own. Despite what you will read here, the large font sizes lend to
this feeling. So do the gradient fills. I would suggest losing them,
too.

The site should visually communicate the power and authority of a
silver-haired judge sitting behind the bench, gavel in hand, looking
wise, firm and fair. Go solid, dark colours. Navy and/or black are good
bases for legal brands. Or maybe dark pinstripes?

It's a solid first draft. Now take it to the next level.

mbstevens wrote:

Nik Coughin wrote:
http://www.nrkn.com/carters/
http://www.nrkn.com/carters/carters.css

I see divs nested five deep. Perfectly legal, but not exactly what
I'd call semantic markup, which is desirable. A flat green would be just
as good, if the fading has anything to do with your reasons for
all this divitus.

I know what you mean, but all that nesting is the only way to get the
desired effect. Hopefully divs are pretty neutral semantically anyway. The
fading doesn't add much code, it's the shadow around the outside of the page
that necessitates nesting of divs. The same thing happens if you want to
use rounded corners on something.

Do you really need two fonts (and an image) for "Carter's Law"?
It should be actual text in an <h1> header if possible. And, all the
baroque gaudy geegaws on the font used for 'Law' don't fit with the
modern, slick look of the rest of the page.

What do you mean by two fonts? I just have two images, one for IE and one
for .png compliant browsers. I get the "actual text in h1" comment a lot,
but the thing is, for text-browsers, on a company website, I would usually
expect the h1 to be the company name. Therefore if the company logo is
prominent and has the same text as the company name, I don't see the point
in doubling up. Just my reasoning, I can definitely see where you are
coming from as well

Overall not bad at all, though.

Cheers!

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Nik Coughin wrote:
http://www.nrkn.com/carters/
http://www.nrkn.com/carters/carters.css

I like it. Only thing I might recommend is reducing the outside
margins to about half of what they are now, thus allowing 800px users
more room for content.

Good idea.

The italic text in the middle column doesn't look too good. <g

This is true, would look better without it.

The "Carter's Law" logo is very nice.

Thanks. It's not mine, I just reworked their original logo:
http://www.carterslaw.co.nz/

"Nik Coughin" <nrkn!no-spam!@woosh.co.nz> wrote

it's the shadow around the outside of the page
that necessitates nesting of divs.

That is one mightily subtle shadow. I didn't even notice it when I looked at
the page before :-)

Nik Coughin wrote:

What do you mean by two fonts? I just have two images, one for IE and one
for .png compliant browsers.

The term 'font' is not limited in the way suggested -- an image of a
letter is still a letter, and that letter is likely to be from some set
of letters somewhere. The "Carter's" looks very different from the
"Law" however you want to talk about it. But, if this is taken from the
firm's logo and if they insist on having it that way, you're stuck with it.

mbstevens wrote:

Nik Coughin wrote:

What do you mean by two fonts? I just have two images, one for IE
and one for .png compliant browsers.

The term 'font' is not limited in the way suggested -- an image of a
letter is still a letter, and that letter is likely to be from some
set of letters somewhere. The "Carter's" looks very different from the
"Law" however you want to talk about it.

I get what you mean now, and also I feel extremely stupid because it's
pretty obvious what you meant the whole time (in hindsight).

tm wrote:

"Nik Coughin" wrote:

I have a concept that I'd like people's opinions on:

http://www.nrkn.com/carters/
http://www.nrkn.com/carters/carters.css

Please comment on whatever you see fit, but I am quite interested in
what you think of the green. Do you think another colour would work
better?

Move it up to the top a bit. No reason to have 2cm grey blank space up
top.
The green is bile-like, perfectly suitable for a lawfirm.

True, moved, thanks.