http://www.scpower.org/musichq tell me what you think guys dont pay attention to the content it just filler the layout review is what im after.. its for a client of mine jsut need a lil feedback before i present it.. thanks

The first things that come to mind are that there's too much whitespace at the top (the black plus the image at the left), that background image looks like it's supposed to be representative, but more thought would seem to imply that it's abstract (this may be related to the first thing, as it looks like there's a title missing and my mind might be trying to fill that in by trying to interpret the picture), and the text is just all wrong -- there needs to be some sort of difference between the whitespace between the story and the link and the whitespace between the link and the next story. Some indentation might be the trick.

Edit: Also, if that's text at the lower left, then it's totally illegible. Is it supposed to be a disclaimer or something?

And the section titles as text looks a little odd. I'd suggest making them images, like the ones you have as prompts before clicking. In fact, you might want to get rid of those and just use that area as the section title.

Otherwise, it's very pretty.

just rip my heart out.. accully the unreadable text is suppose to by like that. not exactly sure what u mean by too much white space.. are u running netscape/mozzilla? i havent tested it in there. and ya it is abstract imagea in the background. about the content.. thats all pretty much meaningless at current time.. i ahvent mesed with that yet.. accully thank you for the critisium.. thats what i was looking for.. ill see what i can do gotta make the world happy.. il wait till tomorrow see if i can get some toher things.. i bet once this board gets thru with me it will end up just being a white space

By whitespace, I was referring to the uninhabited space at the top of the page. There's a little bit of image to the left, but, for the most part, it's empty. It looks like there's something missing. (Edit: I realize it's black. I meant ``whitespace'' to mean ``blank space''. I guess that's just a piece of jargon you didn't follow. Sorry.)

I think it's very artisitic. I would never be able to produce such a thing. I agree that there is too much border at the top. Otherwise, it is very attractive looking.

The colors are cool. But, having the menu hover items go from white to black is a little distracting. I think they should pop more, maybe to red or something,.

Definitely wasted space at the top, to the point of rediculous.

Looks like you have a lot of time into this and it looks great with few exception.

The top needs a logo. If you cut down the blank area it would still have an odd feeling, IMO. It needs a logo. Of course this means you have to rethink the positioning of the current logo on the left edge. Before adding anything to the top, try just cutting down the space. It may look ok after all.

Then I''d just slap a linked stylesheet to fix up all the fonts that are sitting with browser defaults right now (times (standard default) does not fit with the rest of the page - the text in the body of the sections).

Technically, I'd also move the jscript into its own file for caching purposes.

Other than that, looks fine. I think you should keep text, instead of images where possible. So don't replace the section titles with images if you can avoid it (saves loading time).

Change the alt-text for your left menu. Not really a design element, but might as well start cleaning up some other things before you forget about them. "FAQ Answers to Dumb Questions" - I'm not sure it's the questions that are "dumb" given that string... "FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions" would be more to the point and would actually be of some use to someone who ligitimately needs the alt text (image browsing turned off, text-to-speech engines....)

You might want to redo your home page though. Because that one is not fine. Only one tiny link at the bottom and the new window that pops up removes all browser features (that's a HUGE no-no in design).

I scanned through some of your links and I'd say be careful taking inspiration from some of those folks on those Pixel web-rings. Most of them don't know what they're talking about, and even though some can create some decent effects, their web design skills are suited more to a kiosk-style display than a globally-deployed website. Mainly because "skinning" does not equal good-for-the-web.

Bruno

Don't listen to these guys, Justin.

Blank space is an important part of proper graphic design. The areas you don't fill with text are just as important as the areas you do. I think the page has a great balance and is very pleasing to look at from a graphic design standpoint.

Blank space is important, but the space at the top is too much. It's begging for something.

And, Bruno, on my browser, it wasn't showing up as Times, but as some sort of sans-serif font, and it still didn't look right.

Obviously, these are all subjective points.

accully its what the client wanted :-P ive made other sites with a more professional look

www.scpower.org/birnberg

thanks for the comment tony..

How much do you typically get paid do something like that?

From an academic artistic standpoint, the negative space was not balanced by the positive.

Bruno

Former Art & Art History major.

What is a Memeber?

Very cool though.

is this site for #mp3hq on efnet?

I agree with what other people have been saying. That space at the top is a bit much. I'm always impressed with people who are able to successfully combine graphics with page layouts, and I think you did a good job there. However, the blank space ("whitespace" is also what I would call it) is too much. every link I clicked on, when the page refreshed, I instantly looked at the new page too high up, and that got frustrating.

I think a logo isn't what's needed. A logo wouldn't fill up enough space. I think perhaps the title of your page is too small relative to the section titles. Words like "SceneNews" are huge compared to "THE.NEW'MUSIC.HQ". Perhaps eliminating some space at the top and making that slightly bigger would be better.

I also agree on using stylesheets or just style tags. Have you used CSS before? You wouldn't believe how great it is. I agree that the main font doesn't really go with the rest.

And lastly, I agree that there should be an indentation of the paragraphs under the dates. Again, you can do this with CSS and class tags in more ways than you would believe.

Lastly, I must ask because I am curious. Do you write your Java, or get it somewhere? If you get it somewhere, what kind of places do you use?

Oh, and I'd also be interested in knowing how much they usually give you for such a job.

ya it is for mp3hq on efnet

Looks great!!!

Well, all the points that I would make have been made. Yes negative space is important, but the empty space at the top of the page is too much.

Also, the body text does need to be pushed away fromt he left side a bit, 5 pixels should do the trick there.

However, I do want to complement you on the coding of the pages...they work perfectly in both IE and Mozilla.

P.S. If anyone else out there is like me and always looking for another way to do image rollovers, check this out. If you're not concerned with pre-loading the images (sometimes not a good idea if you already have a heavy page...delays page load). I adapted this from the functions that are being used on the site we are all commenting on. This is way simple to maintain and to use.

--

// Image Rollover Functions
var RolloverArray = new Array;
RolloverArray['Img1_over'] = "overImg.gif";
RolloverArray['Img2_norm'] = "normImg.gif";

function changeImages(img,state) {
if (document.images) {
var Swap = eval ("document." + img);
Swap.src = RolloverArray[img + '_' + state];
}
}



Use:

<img src="normImg.gif" alt="SomeText" name="Img1" border="0" onmouseover="changeImages('Img1','over')" onmouseout="changeImages('Img1','norm')">

DiGNAN17....you have all the JS scripts you could possibly want...it's called "View Source"...lol. Seriously, if you see an effect that you like, view the source of the page, chances are you'll find what you are looking for. As for sites...http://www.javascript.com/ should hold you.

I dunno. I reckon the space at the top is fine, just need the site name a bit bigger. I'd put more space at the bottom too. I know most consumers still have their monitor set to 800x600 but I found the menu text a bit small.
The title should also go back to the 'home' page, IMO.

Neat work.

Haven't you guys figured out yet that the blank space at the top is sized perfectly for a banner ad?

Always preload the images, even if done by a call when the page is done loading. This way no matter the size od the rollovers, all users should see them quickly. Modem users have problems where they roll over an image and get the blank insert for seconds on end before the graphic might load.

True.

Drak, so have you given up or what? When am I gonna see an 8 at the end of your post?

I think Universal gave up actually, I haven't seen another CD from them like the ones I returned.

I also still haven't hit stores in Denver yet, no real need recently to drive up there.

Here's my imagerollover JS with image preloading.

// Image Rollover Functions
var RolloverArray = new Array;
function preloadimgs() {
RolloverArray['PlayBtn_over'] = newImage("over.gif");
RolloverArray['PlayBtn_norm'] = newImage("norm.gif");
}

function newImage(arg) {
if (document.images) {
rslt = new Image();
rslt.src = arg;
return rslt;
}
}

function changeImages(img,state) {
if (document.images) {
var Swap = eval ("document." + img);
Swap.src = RolloverArray[img + '_' + state].src;
}
}

Don't kid yourself about Universal giving up. They are probably the worst offender in this case. They will do everything they can think of to get copy protected CDs out there. They are the RIAA poster company for figthing P2P sites.

Sorry to bring this old thread, but that script did not work for me and I thought someone might know how to get it working.

I got an error on this line:

Swap.src = RolloverArray[img + '_' + state].src;