Design Blog Critique

Sovagraphics

Good day SuN people!

We are 8 months in to running our own graphic design and illustration
business and wish that we had discovered Startupnation earlier, it is a
really great community with tons of useful information and sincere personal exchanges!

I would like to ask for some feedback on our site from both
professional web designers and other people who might have used or will
use graphic design services.

Our studio is based in a remote location in Estonia, soon moving to
South of France to another remote area! So the main goal of our site is
to get us clients through the web. We need for the site to be effective in getting the customer to trust us from first visit. Of course we hope that they would like to come back again too.Sova Graphics site

First of all, I would like to say that we do not have a domain but a
blog on wordpress, we wonder if this is something that is negative for
our business? At this moment we do not have the finances to build and
host a proper site.

Could you please have a look at the site and tell me whether it looks
professional enough and makes you feel confident that we can do our job?

We used a simplistic template and took time to customized it
ourselves to get the information and feel of the site that we wanted to
share (clean, straightforward and informative, with thought and creativity). We feel that it is easy
to navigate and find necessary information, but what do the users feel
when they are there? Please share your experience!We are happy to provide a bit more insight to get the best out of your critique!Thanking you for your time.Kate & Ludo

Webline

The biggest problem I see is that, for a graphics-based website, you aren`t showing off anything graphical to the visitor when they first get to the site. You have a bit of text and links on the left, but if your graphics are the heart and strength of your business, show them off!
Think about it .... if you walked into a dealers showroom looking for a new automobile, and when you entered the only thing on display right away were repair manuals, would you really be very impressed with the dealer? You shouldn`t have to ask the dealer to take you out back to see the cars; there should be some on display to get your interest, and more available to browse through.

vwebworld

As Webline noted - any viewer going to your site would expect to see a more graphic intensive presentation. You certainly have some work (in your portfolio) that could be used.
 
The use of bold and colored text on your home page is a little confusing... I`m not sure which of the lines is a "headline" and which is not.. maybe none of the lines are???
 
You should get your own domain / URL. The price is not that expensive. Also, host a blog like yours should not be expensive either.
 
~Roland
 
 

Webline

Yes, you definitely need a new header as well .... my point wasn`t to put all of your portfolio images on the front page, but a few of them so visitors can immediately see samples of your work.

Sovagraphics

Hi Webline and Roland!

Thanks for taking the time to comment on the site.

It sounds like it might be a good idea to put something on the front
page, I am thinking to may be change the top banner and add something
more "graphic" to it. Would a banner be a solution?

But other wise I think that to show our work the portfolio page should
do that (somebody suggested that a different gallery display might be
more user friendly).

I wonder if the website with the information it offers (in text) passes
on the message we want to give to the people visiting our site? Our
message is that consistent and well developed visual identity is like
water to a seed in a fertile ground.

Roland, you were asking about the bold, it`s a sort of emphasis on why
a professional visual identity is important (from our experience). Do
you think the bold is confusing and the message in fact is not
transmitted?

No one else has said anything, I`d like to put the question another
way, do you like the web site all together or not? It might be that it
just doesn`t work.

Roland, we will move to a registered domain as soon as we have moved
our selves to our new home We do realise how important it is, and
more flexible... Right now we are really tight, unless a good strong
project comes up and we can commission some one else to take on the web
site project...

Thanks again guys. Really appreciate your thoughts.Kate




















Sovagraphics2009-3-25 16:38:39

vwebworld

It sounds like it might be a good idea to put something on the front page, I am thinking to may be change the top banner and add something more "graphic" to it. Would a banner be a solution?But other wise I think that to show our work the portfolio page should do that (somebody suggested that a different gallery display might be more user friendly). I wonder if the website with the information it offers (in text) passes on the message we want to give to the people visiting our site? Our message is that consistent and well developed visual identity is like water to a seed in a fertile ground. Roland, you were asking about the bold, it`s a sort of emphasis on why a professional visual identity is important (from our experience). Do you think the bold is confusing and the message in fact is not transmitted? Kate
 
Kate,
A couple of representative samples of your work on your home page would be good. Certainly, not all your work. You could even use 5 images and have them appear randomly each time someone visits your page.
 
The top banner is an important part of your site. So it should "communicate" your important marketing message (in graphic terms and in text).
 
Re: the bold and colored text on the homepage - Typically bold font is used to highlight a message or to identify a heading. Bold and colored text the same. Also, line spacing can define importance and relationship of text content. For example, a bold paragraph  heading followed by normal text paragraph presenting the content related to the paragraph heading.
 
~Roland

jumbopanda

I agree with the rest of the group.  Your design work is beautiful, but people need to see it.  It might work better if you went for the "WOW" factor.  You don`t have to over do it, but adding a few pictures so the front would allow you to entice users and get them to want to spend time looking around the site and what you have to offer.  If you can get site statistics, perhaps through Google analytics, you can monitor all kind of statistics.  One in particular that is good is "bounce rate".  This rate goes up when people come to your site, and leave without clicking a single link on your site.  You want that rate as low as possible.  A site that entices people to keep looking around would lower the bounce rate, and hopefully, more importantly increase sales. The "what is a logo" section is blank.  If you don`t have anything to display there, you should take it down.  If you can, try to utilize the bottom half of the page more.  Hang in there.  Having a beautiful site that brings in customers might not coem easy, but well worth the effort.