What about this one

Click here

What do you think?

I say it's okay, I'm not too sure about the little gradient strips at the top and bottom though.

yeah i know, the content area is always my worst part, i really dunno how to make it look good, but ill think of something.

I suggest replace the gradients with a broken line for now. The way I design my content area is that I first think of what content is going there, and I then mould my design around the way I want the contents to be displayed.

Good idea

You seem to be pretty set on using this style, don't you?

Look at all the wasted space. Its not really all that pretty. Either use whitespace effectively, or fill everything up. The rectangular content area kinda clashes with the curved left side. And the black background really drowns everything out. And once again, its not really original ... this style has definately been overdone.

tom

You waste way too much space, when using a layout like that... it's not flexible at all, what if you decide to put a new section on your website?! You would have to squeeze another ball in there somewhere, which wouldn't really fit.

Quite frankly I think layouts like this are rather boring too, like... it doesn't seem to be so well thought out, just a navigation and a content area. There is nothing to hold the stuff together, the navigation is kind of floating around.

Don't use techniques for the sake of using the technique, try to implement this style into something better. Or better yet, try to evolve this style into something of your own...

you certainly have a handle on the orb and pipe them...that in itself is great work...

as alrady mentioned, you need to focus on texture and fullscreen elements...ie, target your clients needs with other elements in the empty space... hope thats incentive

cheers
heathrowe