pre-launch comments

EDIT:

www.swankstudios.com

It's totally finished. Let your comments rip as I am uploading it in an hour or less.

looks good to me. very easy to navigate and i like the green and white.
the image at the very top could be more interesting.
how long has swankstudios been a design firm?

Hmmm I think about two years. The reason I don't remember is that I had Legionnaire Web Development at my Fallout Legion personal page before. And after that I had Nirvana Web Design.com for a bit. Now it's Swank Studios...

Still like it.
Nothing very big to comment on...
The header image could be a bit better quality.
Now it looks a bit like Win 98 logo with 16 colors...
Just kidding but you get the point.
Somehow it feels wierd when the navigation is just "floating" like that.
I usually don't like when you can se the bg behind in "the layout".
The portfolio could really use some a hrefs or something so that you can actually see the sites.
But I guess that's still to come right?
Well that's about all I can think about right now

Looks good =) The css positioning is a bit messed up in Firebird (linux version)....

Nice layout. Agree about the top image - it makes me think of snow right now and I'm already cold so...
I like the color scheme.
Also the contact section is a little messed up.
Why don't you use Lorem Ipsum?

Nicely done...Pic - seconds the already mentioned. Other than that=nothing. Like it. Like the colors...Keep it up.

Loving it. Pure sexy. Top image does need to be higher quality tho. :p

Not a great fan of the design.

It's a little dark and forboding and even austere. As a design company I would think that it is paramount to present you and by inference, your ideas as fresh, clean (and all that jazz).

The format is also a little too 'of the moment' if you get my drift.
Whilst I applaude you for your use of css, the code is not as tight as it might be and different browser checks reveal some flaws and errors in the code.

Whilst on the subject of css (kinda) Your layout is pretty common on css websites, as I am sure you follow the latest style trends and market shifts (as all designers are want to) you will have seen the sites that follow this format. I suppose it is part of the format of css that we seem to have layouts in the format A List Apart and other well known css sites (Zen Garden anyone?). I suppose it is a variation upon a well established and limited scheme (2 coloumn, 3 coloumn layouts etc). Not that I wish to offer a solution to the problem of css good tables bad, just suggest a middleground ;)

I will try and refrain from commenting on the content as far as possible as I realise this is on your dev server. Suffice to say, for each area of your business where you say you can do, or provide a service, you should offer relevant portfolio experience.

Not mad keen on the serif font choice either, but I can see your reasoning on this (if you want to be really design wank [yes I have done this] perhaps a style switcher?)

If you take no other advice from my post, please take this - remove the 'awards' section from your site. If and when you recieve a recognised award (and I think we both know that they generally only come when established or entering presigious shows) then by all means discreetly bigup your achievments and mention your brilliance. As a matter of course you should bigup yourself, but no-one is really impressed at web awards or the perceived equivolent.

Not totally sure about the resources section either - it seem's you are confusing your audience, you are pitching for clients not freeloaders and the design community. If you want a portfolio site that is seperate from your design site then this would be more acceptable on the right site.

I don't wish to have offended you or been too harsh on you and if you wish to seek recourse on anything I have said then I would be more than interested to hear what you have to say and be only too glad to modify my views if you convince me otherwise.

I have not emphasised any good points (I am aware of that). Not to say there are none, I just thought it might be of more value to tell you what I percieve are the weakness' rather than what are considered the positives.

Hope it all goes well anyhow

This is the kind of review I was waiting for. A million "good job!"s dont do me any good.

I stand by my font choice. I love the serif font and no one uses Georgia. I might consider a CSS style switcher (which would be easy to implement at any time because every is based off the CSS file), but not until I am totally finished with this layout.

I think I am going to remove the awards. It's kind of skimpy just to have one anyways :-P

I don't see any browser bugs. The menu is a little off centered (y-axis) in Mozilla but it's only a tiny bit and I don't really mind considering how few people actually use Mozilla (I use it, so don't get your panties up in a bunch about me bashing open source).

I see how my layout is pretty standard though, besides the white borders...

I check my layout in Mozilla, Mozilla Firebird, IE, MyIE2, Avant Browser, K-Meleon, and Opera. I didn't see any errors, but of course I don't have a Mac.

EDIT: Oh, and when I put up my wallpapers, don't even bother bashing them. I already know they are tutorially (if not 100% tutorial). I have to get around to making some more new ones.