Intro animation or not ??

[nickee]

Hi all, another newbie here hoping for a bit of general advice

- i am currently working on a personal website ( http://www.brand-genesis.fr ) and i was planning on having a flash animation intro with the option to skip the animation

- i realise that these can sometimes become a bit annoying for viewers, which is why it isn't too long, and was wondering what the general thought is about these intros?? sometimes it's the easiest way to show that we can do animation to prospective customers!!

- as i already said the site isn't complete, but any criticism ( or praise !!) about logo design, colours etc. would be very much appreciated

thanks in advance

[morea]

when you say you're a "newbie", do you mean to design or to web design?

It strikes me as odd to see a self-proclaimed "newbie" selling "design and multimedia" services.

As for the intro, I personally hate them. When I go online I am generally looking for information, and I absolutely hate having to sit through animations before finding what I am looking for. If it is a site that I browse to at random, I close it and try to find the information somewhere else. If it is a site I have intentionally gone to I will switch to a different tab and do something else until the animation is over.

[mac.FINN]

To be honest, I wouldn't have an intropage period; animated or static.
Splash pages aren't really useful and a lot of people hate them. I'd just lose it altogether.

Definately not animated.

[nickee]

morea - i meant a newbie to the forum !!!

[morea]

lol, there are so many types of newbies (and a surprising number of people do indeed attempt to sell graphic design services as newly-interested-in-design-newbies). Welcome to GDF.

It looks like the purpose of the site is more business than personal. I think that you can get away with more on a personal site because your main viewers will be friends, family, or others who share your interests... but on a business site, I would definitely keep everything simple, straightforward, and sans bells and whistles. It helps people to find what they are looking for as quickly as possible, and then they can look into the site in more detail if they are interested. Hope that helps some.

[nickee]

the site will be personal until i manage to get optimisation and rankings high enough to warrant spending more time on it - it takes soooooo long!!!!

morea, did you sneak a bit of French into your reply (sans) ???? impressive!

so how can we show viewers our flash skills if they never get to the portfolio??

[Ned]

One big problem with splash pages, is content for search engines. Chances are, you want your index page spidered first. When you throw your website name around the interwebs, it's usually the default page. If your default page doesn't have good content, relevent to your description, you won't rank as high in the search engines. Not having a splash page will alleviate this problem.

[nickee]

thanks for the reply Ned - this was one thing that I had thought of - seems that most people are against this intro page - perhaps I just leave it until the site is finished

so i repeat - what's a good way to get viewers to see what you can do if they don't look at the portfolio?


Any comments about my colours, design & logo anyone??? please???

[urstwile]

Well, just because you have an animated intro page, that doesn't mean that people are going to assume you've done the animation. Plenty of people who have no clue about doing animation have animated intro pages.

So you should perhaps refocus your attention on building an index page that is designed to draw people into clicking on the portfolio, rather than assume that they'll see animation and assume you've done it.

Just my 2 cents. (Not sure what that converts to in Euros). :)

[Tea]

I liked the design. I'm not a fan of the butterfly once the flash animation is completed, but maybe there is a reason for it being there?

[nickee]

"Well, just because you have an animated intro page, that doesn't mean that people are going to assume you've done the animation"

urstwile - never thought of that - i guess it's us designers who create the intro pages for the others!!!!!

thanks

[nickee]

tea - the butterfly was supposed to relate to the name - Genesis being the beginning and the butterfly being the beginning of it's second life!!

i was think along the lines of metamorphis

perhaps a bit too subtle???
A frog replaces the butterfly on the error page and on the thankyou page after form submission!!!!

[Tea]

tea - the butterfly was supposed to relate to the name - Genesis being the beginning and the butterfly being the beginning of it's second life!!

i was think along the lines of metamorphis

perhaps a bit too subtle???
A frog replaces the butterfly on the error page and on the thankyou page after form submission!!!!

Oh...that makes sense. Duh. I see the butterfly overused in my classroom, so don't be afraid to dismiss my opinion. I just missed it. Probably need more opinions on that than my one.

[Exodus]

No offense, but I wanted to hang myself while waiting for the intro to finish. I vote no animated intro. Like Mac said, I wouldn't have an intro page at all. You could always have an "info" or "about" page on your website.

[morea]

^ I'd second that... the 'info' or 'about' page is a good idea for people who want to see it, without getting in the way of impatient people (like me, cough, cough! ;))

And yup, you caught me. I speak a little french, but I'm not terribly good at it. :D

[nickee]

no offense taken Exodus - I prefer to accept it as productive criticism!!!

thanks