Flashy or Simple Design?

I had a debate with my designers on whether we should have a big animated flash site or simple and classy one. I opted for the latter. What do you guys think?

www.cinesites.com

And what are your opinions on this topic in general? How many people are we disincluding when doing an intricate flash site?

Thanks.

This topic was discussed very recently on this forum already. But anyway...

Your reasons for not using Flash seem to be that you think it will alienate your viewers... So why do you have Flash for your splash screen? If people can't see that, how will they be able to get to your static HTML site? I think Flash can be good if it adds something to the site, but that rarely happens.

As for your HTML site, it looks nice enough I suppose. Except that you use frames, and the background doesn't extend to the edge of the pages. It just cuts off and there is white around the edges.

Your marketing jargon is a bit much though. You certainly don't look like much of a legitimate business. "We're the first website design company to cater to film makers and musicians." Yeah right... If I was a music/film exec with a lot of money, I would definitely not hire your company. Mainly because your content is just a bunch of buzzwords, and doesn't give out any real information; you have no real portfolio section; your site is surprisingly devoid of any real content; etc. etc. Overall, I get the feeling that this site was created by a 14 year old kid trying to make some easy money.

Now maybe you are in fact a kid, and this is just a 'for-fun' site. But that's not how you presented it, so that's not how I will judge it.

*and deker zings one by the little guy*

lol
take it easy heh, maybe little more "empathy" in that review
haha

Deker, on one hand, I should thank you for the review. And I do appreciate your honesty. However, I do think your manner is inappropriate. The concept for the site was to do something different. The white frames are suppose to be a distinguishable attribute. And we decided not to have a portfolio section because we lay it out on the main page.

Incidentally, large companies have thrown money at us. We've done the sites for Limp Bizkit and The Back Street Boys.

Remember, artists put their work up to have it judged by fellow artists in an attempt to get a constructive and professional opinion. We should support eachother.

Sincerely,
Tj

after reading these posts, i really want to see the site, but it looks like the pages are broken!

are they coming back?

They're broken for me too. And there are even more frames than I realized.

I am all for designers trying something different, but I don't really see how making white borders on the side of your site is being different. Mainly because it doesn't look like you tried to do it on purpose, it just looks like you thru something together.

Congratulations on doing Limp Bizkit's and the Backstreet Boys web sites. I would comment on them more, but I am at someone else's house right now on a 56k connection, and don't feel like waiting 2 minutes for each page to load.

I don't see how I wasn't being supportive... You asked for opinions on your site, and I expressed mine. Is that not what you wanted?

I like that your site is simple and not made entirely in Flash like all of your client's sites seem to be. But like I said before, why have a Flash intro, if you have decided to go with the simple HTML approach?

I wasn't trying to put you down, just give my opinion on your design, as well as the content and feel I got when visiting your site. Sorry if that offends you somehow. I just expected more from a company that has designed sites for such famous artists, and that's all I was trying to convey.

Amenranozira, I don't see how I was 'Zinging it to the little guy', because in this case I am the little guy. I mean he has big famous artists as clients, and I don't even get paid to make web sites anymore.

now i really want to see it!

deker is always zinging somebody. that's why we like him.

well...I don't know where to start.

Flashy sites are ok. If they are done correctly. By this I mean, optimized graphics, readable text and intuitive navigation.

Simplistic sites tend to lean more towards content driven other than pretty pictures. Generally, simplistic is not what you want to do if you are trying to impress your client with your graphic skill. But you need to be able to show them that you know how to make things flashy while allowing the user to focus on the content.

Now onto the question I have.

How is it that you or someone else that works with you has done all this work for such popular sites, yet you forget the target="new" for clicking on an external link?

As for the current design. I don't really dig the 'metal texture' you have as the background for all your content. Infact, it doesn't really fit with your header at all.

The page also looks horrible in netscape. The frameborder property i guess isn't properly supported by netscape like it is for ie. there is a 10 or 15 pixel white space between each frame. You might want to fix that.

i agree with deker and axiom and i have a few things to add...

-i don't think this site is going to impress anyone. it is too plain. it looks like is was built with frontpage templates or something. no color scheme, no metaphor, just some text, some logos and some buttons

-why do you need a flash splash page? if you are going to use flash...USE it. this splash page feels really amateur to me.

-if you are ready to take your site to the next level, you are going to need to decide on some link, alink, and vlink colors because this default blue and purple is not going to fly.

-frames are so 5 years ago. i have never seen a site built like this! this page is so simple the fact that it had to be built with 7 frames is scary! when i look at this, i see a table with three cells.

-i'd run a spell check on this before you launch it.

i think your attempt to go simple has not been very successful.

Thanks for the input, guys. This is exactly the kind of input I needed. The graphic designer did the page (not the web designers) so there are some obvious errors. We're going to get started on the changes when the team gets back.

Thanks again for the input. It's good to get these things taken care of before the launch..