This site belongs to a mate of mine who I used to work with in London. My concern is that he paid a lot for this site, and as far as I can work out it looks like an afternoon's work to me. Please tell me I am wrong.
I realise this not a holiday rental site? and I am asking a lot? but if you could put my mind at rest, Sorry can't stand a rip off merchant.
http://www.englishgentorg.com/index.html
Calling all tec folk.
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Paul Carmel
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Calling all tec folk.
Cheers
PC
PC
It's definitely not rocket science, but perhaps there was a lot of time put into defining "the feel" of the site? It's clean and crisp and rather memorable. If that, and/or the logo, were included in the site design then it could have been quite pricey.
Nonetheless, the spelling errors are absolutamente unacceptable.
debk
Nonetheless, the spelling errors are absolutamente unacceptable.
debk
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Paul Carmel
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Hmm
The clients page border doesn't work for me.
It was done by these people http://stendahls.net and judging by their portfolio they are capable of better work. This is an example : http://international.husqvarna.com
BTW, I can't see any SEO presence. No obvious keywords, few meta tags, language set to Swedish, but text is in English etc.
Despite PR=3, the phrase "each artist is unique, and deserves to be treated as such" is not found in google.com, all languages or google.se.
Is it finished ?
Peter
The clients page border doesn't work for me.
It was done by these people http://stendahls.net and judging by their portfolio they are capable of better work. This is an example : http://international.husqvarna.com
BTW, I can't see any SEO presence. No obvious keywords, few meta tags, language set to Swedish, but text is in English etc.
Despite PR=3, the phrase "each artist is unique, and deserves to be treated as such" is not found in google.com, all languages or google.se.
Is it finished ?
Peter
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Paul Carmel
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It works all right for me, assuming the line dividing the logo from the text is supposed to be a fixed size. Could be some artsy thing.
The code is clean, but as Peter mentions, not much in the way of SEO.
On a related point, it took me about 45 seconds of reading and clicking to figure out what this site is supposed to be selling. That's not good. If I can't spot it immediately, neither will anyone else who doesn't already know what the company is, and more to the point, Google et al. may not spot it, either. True, it's in the title tag, but not everyone reads that right away. (I didn't.)
Definitely agree on the links to the competitors! No, no, no.
Did your friend say anything about what the back end of this site was like? By which I mean, will he have to go running back to Mr. Amneskog of Stendahls.net every time he needs to make a change? Or is there a fully-functioning administrative side which allows him to make changes himself? That could be worth paying for.
The logo, too, looks like it could have taken some major time -- though it's my understanding that logo design is usually done separately from web design, so that may not be a point in the designer's favor.
On the contact page, does it strike anyone else as a little weird that the site links back to itself? I mean, does that part need to be there? If they're on the contact page, they must know the site address.
Also, I noticed at first that the e-mail address on the contact page is not protected in any way from spam (unless they're using the method that Leoro uses, which my browser can't see but which apparently still works). Then I noticed that the mailto link doesn't work -- it's spelled "mailyo"!
That could be intentional, i.e. to disguise the e-mail address, but it's a silly way of doing it, because the link then doesn't work. Besides, given that the div containing the address has paragraphs with class="adress", I'm more prone to believe that the designer didn't spell check or test his links.
As for the curves looking weird at the bottom, I'm not quite sure I know what you mean. They line up well for me, in the sense that the line is continuous all the way around the box. The rounded curves just look off, though, on all sides -- sort of grayish rather than black, and you can clearly see where they end and the straight lines begin. That's because the curves are anti-aliased (as they should be), but the straight lines are not (they wouldn't need to be if they didn't meet a rounded corner). The designer needs to go back and reduce the width of the straight lines, then anti-alias them so that the total width is the same as what it was before.
The latter two points more than anything else convince me of a lack of attention to detail on the part of the designer. If your friend paid a lot of money for this site, he should be able to demand that the designer go back and fix the typos, fix the graphics, put in just a bit of SEO, and in general spend the amount of time on the site that the designer should have spent in the first place.
The code is clean, but as Peter mentions, not much in the way of SEO.
On a related point, it took me about 45 seconds of reading and clicking to figure out what this site is supposed to be selling. That's not good. If I can't spot it immediately, neither will anyone else who doesn't already know what the company is, and more to the point, Google et al. may not spot it, either. True, it's in the title tag, but not everyone reads that right away. (I didn't.)
Definitely agree on the links to the competitors! No, no, no.
Did your friend say anything about what the back end of this site was like? By which I mean, will he have to go running back to Mr. Amneskog of Stendahls.net every time he needs to make a change? Or is there a fully-functioning administrative side which allows him to make changes himself? That could be worth paying for.
The logo, too, looks like it could have taken some major time -- though it's my understanding that logo design is usually done separately from web design, so that may not be a point in the designer's favor.
On the contact page, does it strike anyone else as a little weird that the site links back to itself? I mean, does that part need to be there? If they're on the contact page, they must know the site address.
Also, I noticed at first that the e-mail address on the contact page is not protected in any way from spam (unless they're using the method that Leoro uses, which my browser can't see but which apparently still works). Then I noticed that the mailto link doesn't work -- it's spelled "mailyo"!
That could be intentional, i.e. to disguise the e-mail address, but it's a silly way of doing it, because the link then doesn't work. Besides, given that the div containing the address has paragraphs with class="adress", I'm more prone to believe that the designer didn't spell check or test his links.
As for the curves looking weird at the bottom, I'm not quite sure I know what you mean. They line up well for me, in the sense that the line is continuous all the way around the box. The rounded curves just look off, though, on all sides -- sort of grayish rather than black, and you can clearly see where they end and the straight lines begin. That's because the curves are anti-aliased (as they should be), but the straight lines are not (they wouldn't need to be if they didn't meet a rounded corner). The designer needs to go back and reduce the width of the straight lines, then anti-alias them so that the total width is the same as what it was before.
The latter two points more than anything else convince me of a lack of attention to detail on the part of the designer. If your friend paid a lot of money for this site, he should be able to demand that the designer go back and fix the typos, fix the graphics, put in just a bit of SEO, and in general spend the amount of time on the site that the designer should have spent in the first place.
Brooke
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Paul Carmel
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Oh dear- had to have a look . My daughter is in media and I thought I might show it her but it is so poor I haven't bothered.What a shame if he paid a lot for the work.Like others have said,when will the finished site be ready? 
www.thepetitmanoir.com
www.thepetitmanoir.com
The case for the defense, m’lud…
Jim Morewood is an International Booking Agent. When he meets new acts that he could potentially get bookings for, he explains what he could do for them. “Check me out on my website� he then says - this saves having to carry a brochure with him - a business card with his web address on it will do.
When he chose his web designers he gave them his excellent logo and four pages of his credentials presentation that were held on the hard disc of his his PC.
The designers have given him exactly what I suspect he asked for, it is a neat businesslike site with no fuss or nonsense – the acts can check him out at their leisure.
The site is professional looking, it majors on the one visual property that was provided - the great logo. It uses one typeface (font) and mainly sticks to one size, has a restrained use of colour and avoids all the naff traps amateurs fall into. The design does not show much imagination then neither does Jim see the necessity to reword his presentation for a new medium. As Voorje says it takes quite a bit of time for us who are not in the business to work out what he does. But does this matter? The site is not meant for us, it is for the Talent.
The site makes Jim look like a classy, no-nonsense, organized professional that can be trusted to deliver what he promises without bull sh*t. Not a bad result.
What kind of designer did he use? A freelance or a moonlighting professional might base their charges on £25 per hour. I work for a leading London design consultancy and my colleagues in the interactive team have projects based on a charge-out rate upwards of £100 – and they are well worth it.
My guess is that Jim’s designers were a professional team with a charge-out rate of between £70 - £100 per hour. (Designers on the fringe of the music business do not come cheap). He paid a lot Paul tells us - my guess is that Jim paid £500 - £1,000 and the site took about 8 hours to do including meetings and ‘relationship management’.
So Jim has a site that (I put it to you ladies’n’genlmen of the jury) is actually what he asked for. He shows it to his mates “What do you think?� He hopes for their praise. But his mates say “Is that it? Bit thin mate – not much going on�. Jim turns from happy to disgruntled. “What did you pay for that? I could have knocked it up for you in an afternoon�, they say.
That said - Paul’s comment that the links on the main page go to direct competitors is certainly a weakness and the designers should have warned Jim that the copy he provided had this inherent problem. Maybe the designers actually are actually design-for-print designers who got a tekkie to put the site up once they had laid out the pages.
Jim Morewood is an International Booking Agent. When he meets new acts that he could potentially get bookings for, he explains what he could do for them. “Check me out on my website� he then says - this saves having to carry a brochure with him - a business card with his web address on it will do.
When he chose his web designers he gave them his excellent logo and four pages of his credentials presentation that were held on the hard disc of his his PC.
The designers have given him exactly what I suspect he asked for, it is a neat businesslike site with no fuss or nonsense – the acts can check him out at their leisure.
The site is professional looking, it majors on the one visual property that was provided - the great logo. It uses one typeface (font) and mainly sticks to one size, has a restrained use of colour and avoids all the naff traps amateurs fall into. The design does not show much imagination then neither does Jim see the necessity to reword his presentation for a new medium. As Voorje says it takes quite a bit of time for us who are not in the business to work out what he does. But does this matter? The site is not meant for us, it is for the Talent.
The site makes Jim look like a classy, no-nonsense, organized professional that can be trusted to deliver what he promises without bull sh*t. Not a bad result.
What kind of designer did he use? A freelance or a moonlighting professional might base their charges on £25 per hour. I work for a leading London design consultancy and my colleagues in the interactive team have projects based on a charge-out rate upwards of £100 – and they are well worth it.
My guess is that Jim’s designers were a professional team with a charge-out rate of between £70 - £100 per hour. (Designers on the fringe of the music business do not come cheap). He paid a lot Paul tells us - my guess is that Jim paid £500 - £1,000 and the site took about 8 hours to do including meetings and ‘relationship management’.
So Jim has a site that (I put it to you ladies’n’genlmen of the jury) is actually what he asked for. He shows it to his mates “What do you think?� He hopes for their praise. But his mates say “Is that it? Bit thin mate – not much going on�. Jim turns from happy to disgruntled. “What did you pay for that? I could have knocked it up for you in an afternoon�, they say.
That said - Paul’s comment that the links on the main page go to direct competitors is certainly a weakness and the designers should have warned Jim that the copy he provided had this inherent problem. Maybe the designers actually are actually design-for-print designers who got a tekkie to put the site up once they had laid out the pages.
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Paul Carmel
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Gus, well put that learned fellow!
Comments from this thread were put to the said designer ( pls note, names were deleted and the utmost security was put into place) And as a result fingers have been pulled out and the site has had a revamp...............clicky refreshy and all will be revealed.
Comments from this thread were put to the said designer ( pls note, names were deleted and the utmost security was put into place) And as a result fingers have been pulled out and the site has had a revamp...............clicky refreshy and all will be revealed.
Cheers
PC
PC
Significantly better this time around -- page language has been changed to UK English, mailto link now actually works (though will still probably get your friend spammed unless they're using ASCII character codes for "m", "a", "i", "l", "t", "o", and "@").
So the question becomes: is that the primary purpose of the site, or is there a hope that the site will bring in un-referred new talent? If someone comes across this site without first speaking to the owner, I would think that not having a straightforward "what we do" first sentence dramatically cuts down on the chances that said person will stick around to seek representation.
I thought about that when I originally posted. I agree that someone who visits the site after being handed a business card will not need to be explicitly told what the company does.As Vrooje says it takes quite a bit of time for us who are not in the business to work out what he does. But does this matter? The site is not meant for us, it is for the Talent.
So the question becomes: is that the primary purpose of the site, or is there a hope that the site will bring in un-referred new talent? If someone comes across this site without first speaking to the owner, I would think that not having a straightforward "what we do" first sentence dramatically cuts down on the chances that said person will stick around to seek representation.
Brooke