Vehicle Design Website (feedback wanted)

dont make it looks so amateurish,put some creativity on it

why a beach in the background?

have played need for speed high stakes? that one have a nice visual style,well the playstation version does

anyway I dont know crap about web design
 
Your semi-transparent grey backdrop there doesn't work in IE6, by the way.

Looks rather ugly as a result, but it's not too bad compared to most sites with png transparency failing in IE6.

Other than that I'd say the site looks okay, if not a bit childish with the bright colors and corny 'zomg fast awesome' fonts.
 
Looks like a fairly nice site. But if I was on 56K and had to download a 350K image just to load the background on your page I'd be pretty pissed off right now.

There is absolutely no reason for that background there. If you really want a beach as your background set the background color to blue then use some css and photoshop effects to make a beach image hover at the bottom behind all the content while the sky blends in to the blue background. Not only will this look a lot more professional but the file size will be cut down by a huge margin.

You also need to incorporate your design in to your forum. This really isn't as hard is it seems. You are using phpBB so I would recommend reverting back to the stock style then modifying your overall_header and overall_footer files to make the forums match the rest of your site.

And finally, I am having a really hard time understanding what you actually do. After digging around a bit Im guessing you design body kit concepts? If that's true you do some impressive 3D. But what you do should be clearly spelled out on the front page so there is absolutely no confusion.
 
Hey I got an idea maybe you could use the word 'exotic' a little bit more often.
 
UPDATE: I just updated all of the vehicle pages (you may have to CTRL+F5).
--------------------------

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

IE6: That is most annoying! I'll try to script some conditional CSS statements and have a custom IE6 style.

Background: The background is supposed to “say” high-class, paradise, or exotic. I'll think about a non-transparency layout.

Info: I'm trying to keep it minimalistic, but informative and am updating the info page right now. I may put something on the home page.

Forum I like the layout and features of that style, and think it can easily be modified to fit the style of my main website. I haven't had time to update it yet.

Fonts I’m still working on the idea with the fonts; thanks for the feedback. Also the email is unreadable & I'll fix that tonight.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!
 
Two galleries are linked to one.
The Ronn Scorpion and Predator are the same, but the Ronn Scorpion won't load the four pictures.

Just a suggestion, but since this is a vehicle design site, why not use one of the vehicles you and/or your team designed as a background instead of the island?

I quite like the galleries, and am especially fond of the Nissan Altima, but you need more galleries. Also, the Corvettes seem to have been done to death and some of your other galleries (Enigma II) have a feel that they were just abandoned in the middle of work, and thus don't carry the same look as the others. (Like, some look like photographs while others, well, don't look as natural.
 
My suggestions:

1. Get rid of the mouse over effects. If you want an effect do something simple and not as common. Like putting a little line underneath the word when the mouse is over it. Glow effects are what highschoolers do when they're first learning dreamweaver.

2. Lose the background image. They almost never work well in any design, and only serve to make things more difficult to see or read. You have a lot of white text that ends up over a cloud or something making it hard to see. I'd just put a solid, neutral color for a background.

3. Put a space in between the words Gryphon Automotive in the logo.

4. Make the full resolution images open in a new window/tab.

5. Whats with the two resolutions written on the images when you only offer the 1600x1200 resolution? Is it supposed to open a different resolution image depending on what resolution you click on the thumbnail? If so, then it doesnt work at the moment.

6. A 40 meg quicktime movie is too big for a few second long turntable. Use Sorenson video compression at a medium quality setting.

7. I'd render a better turn table than those. Your camera's animation is too floaty and causes what me and my classmates called "camera sickness" because if you watch it for too long you get motion sick. Just make a camera, move its pivot to the center of the car, and just rotate it in y (or whatever the up axis is for your software) 360 or so degrees.
 
Change the beach background. Personally I dislike pages where the background is static and the page scrolls around it. Unless of course it's a solid background, in which case you can't notice.
 
Updates: Fixed Scorpion page, fixed email address (readable I think), rollover images now less annoying, upldated info page, and partially updated forum style.

Background: I like the tropical look; seems I need to try to do it without transparency. The main killers are PNG file-size and PNG incompatibility issues.

Corvette Galleries: I’m currently condensing them into a single gallery, so there will be less clutter and a simpler site.

The Video I agree & apologize. Hopefully soon I'll have time to convert it to flash.

Image Quality The images date up to 7.5 years old; while I've tried to update most of my site, there's still a lot of old content. I'm working on a tropical environment to re-render my cars in and replace 75% of my content. The image-resolution text on thumbnails is also left-over from old website content. In a previous version, you'd click on one part of the image for 800x600 & the other for high-resolution. That's no longer necessary & I need to finish cleaning out those old thumbnails.

Thanks again!
 
Just one idea, if there are going to be spaces in the thumbnails (like on the left and right of the bottom row), then you should put in place holder images rather than just show the background.
 
I like it. The coast in the background has a positive effect on the viewer which flows with the contrast of the menu's. Personally this made me feel quite relaxed whilst viewing, whereas if the colour and texture was black, it wouldn't have done so. It also has a more prospective and professional appearance with the dynamic background, which makes one spend more time viewing rather than having a couple of clicks, casting an aspersion about the company, then leaving.


If this is a legit business, then your business' contact details should be listed in accordance with appropriate norms...and every single contact detail (ie: details of yourself, general manager, staff manager, floor manager + opps if applicable) should be listed. Don't mean to be a nosy prick, but the customer is after your business so he/she shouldn't have to search your forums for contact information. People are generally lazy and need information to be laid out in-front of them or they'll lose interest and look elsewhere. You may lose business in this manner. Anywho, you've done a stirling job mate, well done! Looks refreshing, professional and productive.


One, question though. Where was the background pic taken? :p
 
Thumbnails: Interesting,I'll think about it and see what ideas I come up with. Thanks!

Background: I'm still working on the background; I think I need to remove transparency, but keep tropical elements as part of the main layout.

Contact Details: It's a 1-man business. I'm currently working a full-time job, but at night and on weekends I invest a lot of time into being an “Automotive Design Consultant.” Eventually “Gryphon Automotive” will become an actual business, gain employees, etc. So, there's only one person to contact, but I should make it more "professional" with my name, email, and position clearly listed.

Background: The source of the background is listed below; a royalty free stock image . . .

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/698760

Info Page: Sadly I wrote that late last night. I'm working on replacing it right now.
 
A few points to make:

There are quite a few images on there. It could have been my slow connection (it probably was), but it took a few seconds to load. Longer than it should have.

Secondly, when the images had noticed, the most noticeable thing was the background. It seems to serve no relevance to the site. Plus it's too short for my screen so I get a huge white gap. Two things I'd suggest is center the background image and then set a default background color or change the image to something which tiles.

The writing at the bottom is hard to read against the background, particularly the "Website Optimized for Mozilla Firefox" part.

I'd also recommend a css rollover on the thumbnails. Something like a border or similar when you roll over. Something subtle, of course.

As to subtlety, I don't think it has much.

Sorry this reply was so rushed - I have to go.
 
Just curious, what exactly do people hire you for?
 
Brief run-down of what to change:

- People already said it, but the background needs to go.
- Basically, main font is impossible to read with beach background without heavy focus. Most visitors? Not gonna squint and highlight to read every word. They'll just close the window.
- Suggested change to background? Gradient. Pick two complimenting colors and go at it--if you want tropical, choose bright happy colors! You don't really want a busy background and your logo has an image, plus the cars are images. Too many images = BUSY WTFUX.
- Lettering isn't bad, but a neat trick to use is capitals or different size letters. E.g., Gryphon Auto with the G and A both a few sizes larger than the rest of the text.
- Make the GA.COM in the font it is, but change the other fonts to a calmer sans serif for legibility and to make the logo stand out more.
- NEVER EVER just link to an image like you did for your galleries. Get litebox up in that shit and get a cool loading bar. I hate to link my shitty portfolio from 3 years ago but it's the only litebox page I have up atm: http://rheamonique.com/index3.php Litebox is god for image viewing.

Anyway you have a lot of promising stuff--I've always been a bitch about web design, so I'm sorry if I come off condescending. I don't think I'm any better and I always have people tear apart my stuff. It helps. Usually.

Good luck with the site and let us know your progress :)
 
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