Help! I don't want to do fiery logos!

[urstwile]

Okay, just a little backstory here:

A couple of months ago, I put together this quickie site, which could sure use lots of improvement, design-wise and otherwise (as in the photos I was given were crap quality). Got the site up and running. Here's the link, take a look, it's not the most beautiful thing in the world (I didn't design the logo, by the way), but I think it doesn't totally suck. Feel free to tell me what you think could improve, by the way, I'm getting more into design at home, less into production like I do at work. Anyway, I blather on, here's the link: Il Forno Pizza Ovens (http://www.ilfornopizzaovens.com)

So that's not the point of starting this thread. They actually want me to um, do the following, and I quote:

I though something moving would like good and draw attention, like a burning fire behind the logo or the oven-arc with moving fire logo bar, I just don’t know if this is possible. We also thought about a bar at the bottom that has a text line in it that moves around.
http://www.freesmileys.org/emo/scared002.gif (http://www.freesmileys.org)

I have absolutely no idea what to do to steer them away from this. I mean, burning logos on fire, ticker tape type at the bottom, isn't that um, so early Interweb? Am I wrong here?

Oy. I signed on with these people to try to get some stuff in my portfolio. I'm getting paid through a barter system, which is actually pretty cool, no, it's not spec, lest you think it is. I trade them for concert and show tickets and lots of other stuff, but man oh man alive, what the hell is this burning logo fixation that people have?

Okay, done with my rant. I have to come up with some alternative ideas to make the site more dynamic in their eyes, obviously, but I so don't want to do a burning logo. Or that ticker type thing at the bottom either, for that matter. Calgon, take me away!!!!!!!!!

P.S. The woman who is my contact there is Swiss, speaks English as a second language, so don't fault her for bad grammar or typing, she still knows one more language fairly fluently than I do.

[Riya]

Animate the shot of the oven so the flames inside move? That might be just enough to make them happy while keeping it realitivly tasteful.

[urstwile]

Would I avoid cheese factor safely by doing that Riya, do you think?

I just shudder every time the words flaming and logos are paired together. LOL. :D

[EC]

It might be possible to do something really subtle with the flames, but I wouldn't. You can blame research and usability studies. People find reading on the web generally uncomfortable, especially compared to print. Anything blinking, flashing or generally distracting to the eye makes reading on a monitor even more difficult. The more difficult and uncomfortable it is to read, the sooner they leave the site. They simply won't read it if something is flashing out of the corner of their eye. Tell her to remember that she may be highly interested and familiar with the text on the page, but people coming to the site for the first time are completely NEW and are looking for information, they need to concentrate. The design needs to faciliate reading, not make it more difficult.

PS your site looks different in firefox than it does in ie, the background isn't the same. just thought I'd let you know even though you didn't ask. ;)

[urstwile]

PS your site looks different in firefox than it does in ie, the background isn't the same. just thought I'd let you know even though you didn't ask. ;)
Actually, I did ask for feedback as well, so thanks for that EC. I'll check it out. This was built pre-me learning about CSS, and definitely on the fly. So I was wanting feedback as well. Thanks!

[urstwile]

It might be possible to do something really subtle with the flames, but I wouldn't. You can blame research and usability studies. People find reading on the web generally uncomfortable, especially compared to print. Anything blinking, flashing or generally distracting to the eye makes reading on a monitor even more difficult. The more difficult and uncomfortable it is to read, the sooner they leave the site. They simply won't read it if something is flashing out of the corner of their eye. Tell her to remember that she may be highly interested and familiar with the text on the page, but people coming to the site for the first time are completely NEW and are looking for information, they need to concentrate. The design needs to faciliate reading, not make it more difficult.
And thank you for that as well. I will bring that up. I did send what I hope was not too offensive of an e-mail saying that I was really hesitant to incorporate flaming and moving things of the type she requested, due to the overdone nature of that type of thing, and the unprofessional look. They're pretty happy with my work, so hopefully I didn't burn a bridge. :rolleyes:

[peder]

Fire works great. Proof:

http://borat.tv/images/wow.gif --> http://borat.tv/

[Drazan]

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/ghostrider/ watch this trailer and you'll understand that latest fixation with movement and trailer.

3D studio max is capable of something like this.

Flash is your friend for moving text. That has a stop script so it doesn't loop forever and look cheezy like gif's do.

[amiart]

I would try and have them get you better quality images, rather than trying to make a "Silk purse out of a sows ear" as the saying goes.

[urstwile]

Yup, Amiart, that's exactly what I think too.

[MD]

ewwwww - Brush Script, are they open to a logo redesign? Maybe you could incorporate some sort of subtle flame or charred element into it.

Also I don't think the pictures are that bad, But some of them really need some color correction and a couple of filters to get rid of the grain. Open up the curves adjustment in photoshop and play around, you will be amazed at what a little tweaking & cropping can do to crappy photos.

I think that changing the background and nav bar color would really help. Make it more earthy, pulling some colors or maybe a texture from some of the fireplaces.

The only other thing that really pops out at me is custom designs page is an absolute mess.

[urstwile]

MD,

Thanks for all of your comments. You've given me lots of good food for thought.

In terms of the logo, that's a great idea, I will suggest that they need to rework the logo. I totally agree, Brush Script, arrgh. That's what I was supplied. This was a very quick turnaround project. I had to do a print ad and design the website in under a week. :eek:

In terms of the photos, I told them that I'd like to spend some time working on the quality of the photos (they were in a hurry to post the site, so there wasn't time), but I was told not to worry about working on them, as they had plans on doing a photoshoot. The photos on the site now, for the most part, were scanned from grainy inkjet prints that had been printed on some type of low quality paper, so the originals had a lot of grain that was picked up from the paper. Next time I talk to them, I'm going to ask about the photos again, if there's no plan to do a photoshoot, then the photos will be going into Photoshop and getting worked on.

I also agree about the custom designs/installations page. Initially, that one page was two separate pages, which I thought worked much better, but they wanted it combined into two pages, and were very explicit about the placement.

Good ideas on the background and nav color. I think I might do some proactive stuff on that and show them what I've come up with. Would it be considered spec to do that? Technically, they are a client of mine, so I think it would be okay.

The good news is that they do plan on making revisions to the site, so that will be an opportunity for me to suggest some design revisions to the site.