New Site!

[dave_finlayson]

Well I figured it was about time I did one of these so here goes. Just launched our new printing and embroidery site, completely designed in house by yours truly. This is pretty much my first (designed from scratch anyway) Actinic site, although I have done all the coding and changes to the main site for years, this is actually the first time I have sat down and done one from scratch (the main site design was done by a designer).

Everything is controlled from within Actinic, with variables used for the price table, various blocks controlling the navigation and a bit of custom PHP for the rotating supplier images on the left hand side and the rotating adverts on the home page.

So, criticisms, abuse, cheek etc etc all welcome

www.printedembroidered.co.uk

[edit] I forgot to mention it is not a e-commerce site, just a brochure site. Actinic has been seriously stripped down to the bare minimum code needed to make it work. Essentially it is simply running as a content managment system [/edit]

[Pete Harris]

Hi Dave, your site looks and feels great. I've been a long time fan of your Sports Warehouse site and this is equally as impressive. Only negative is when I view in IE6 the main body displays below left hand side bar (fine in Firefox)

Pete

[dave_finlayson]

Thanks Pete, very kind of you. I did have IE6 working fine but it seems to have broken again, although can't seem to work out why! Any suggestions anyone? Don't have IE6 here unfortunately so can't work on it till Monday!

[leehack]

99.99% of the time when IE6 wraps an area underneath another it is a width issue. There is not enough room to fit the container so it is forced to wrap into the next available space where it will fit. Reduce the width of the central area and you will find it will slip backup. Multiples of 3 are usually your solution to reduce by. You also need to check your widths in actinic, ensuring you account for any cellpadding on list layouts etc. Suffice to say, it will be a width issue almost certainly.

[dave_finlayson]

Thanks guys, eventually realised it was actually the breadcrumb div that was slightly too wide and pushing the rest of the content underneath. Sorting that however gave me a couple of other problems but it looks sorted now, there is a little more padding on the left hand side of the main content than I would like in IE6 but I can live with it.

Lee, I would appreciate a designers thoughts on the site. I am considering redoing the main site to give it the same look and feel but am very wary of doing it as it is currently very successful and I would not want to change a good thing unless I was sure it would improve the site/sales.

[Duncan Rounding]

Nice site David. My only critique is that it doesn't say very clearly that you cannot purchase on the site and why. If I'd just landed on the pages I would've expected a way to purchase.

[dave_finlayson]

That's a good point Duncan, I will see if I can work something into the pages that will make it more clear. Thanks for taking a look.

[leehack]

Lee, I would appreciate a designers thoughts on the site. I am considering redoing the main site to give it the same look and feel but am very wary of doing it as it is currently very successful and I would not want to change a good thing unless I was sure it would improve the site/sales.

I actually like both stores Dave (prefer the new one slightly, but not much in it, just looks a bit cleaner and little less cluttered to me). I do think you are mad building for an 800 wide screen with any new design nowadays though. I know Dolly has his 40 examples of 800 wide sites, but there are 4,000 showing the trend is the other way. It's important to bear in mind with the 40 examples, how many of them would build an 800 wide site, if their site was being redesigned today? Very few if any is the answer.

You know when the BBC changes, given the size and the enormity of them doing anything, that the decision was probably a done deal 18 months ago. If you want to support 800 wide screens, i have no problem of course, but you must go fluid layout IMO. An 800 wide site build caters for the vast minority and alienates the majority IMO. It's a contentious area for discussion though. On my large screen both sites look really dwarfed and you have negated somewhat the money i have spent to give myself a larger viewing area.

Apart from that, they both look nice to me, the brochure page images have a weird outline appearing when you hover over them on the new site, but that's about all i could see. My first reaction when i hit the site was 'this looks good' and i think that is a key point in a review. I actually think your sports site would look even better at 1000 wide, try it and see for yourself, i just think it'd spread it and give some more whitespace.

One final point with regards to IE6 and margins, there are all sorts of bugs in IE6 where margins can double on floated elements, i notice you use margins a lot, i think you'd be better switching over to margin-less containers with padding applied instead, far less buggy and the one bug you do encounter is very easy to fix.

[dave_finlayson]

Lee,

As ever, excellent advice and I will take on board your margin v padding points.

I have been wanting to widen the SW site for ages now and that is first on my list of priorities when I get round to doing the redesign. As for the width of the other site there was no concious effert to keep it under 800px, probably more of an inheritance from the SW site. Frankly, I think we would have struggled to fill an extra 200px but maybe I should have a look at it again!

So, bit of work to do on the printing site before I redesign the other one I think!!

[NicolaUK]

Just a comment on the content, you don't mention the difference between transfers and printing, it's all lumped under 'printing' - assuming from your

B) Screen Charge

£10.00 ex VAT (Only applicable is Screen Printing is used)

I know what you mean by that but a lot of people will find it confusing IMO. You also don't say how many cols can be printed or embroidered - something I'd always look for.

Looks good though

[dave_finlayson]

Nicola,

Thanks for that, I will have a look at rewording it when I get a chance (after I get of the phone to our hosts, 25 mins and counting)!!!

Cheers for taking the time to have a look.