Critique, Ideas? PLEASE HELP!

[jondoe0069]

The company I work for is redesigning our website and our first task is to create a home page that links to both of our geographical divisions. I'm a coder and I suck at design... but our graphic design dept. isn't really coming up with anything for me. Can someone take a look at this and tell me what to do to make it look good?

http://meeks.com/samplehome5.html

It needs to prominently link to the Western and Midwest Divisions somehow. An area to put some text would be nice as well. Also I need to somehow label each division.

Any ideas/ suggestions would be very very appreciated! Thanks!!

[keith1]

Not bad as for the layout/navigation is concerned. My biggest critique would be the extremely blinding yellow & magenta colors. I would definitely tone those down a few notches or use some muted colors/earth tones.

[keith1]

The missouri/arkansas is a much better layout BTW.

[jondoe0069]

Yeah, the Missouri/Arkansas site was just completely re-done. We're re-doing our site once we get the home page situated... but the one that's there now is like 10 years old.

I agree with toning down the colors. I'm going to do that tomorrow. Thanks for your input!

[kevincdg]

I agree with keith.

The second site is MUCH better. I don't like navbars on the right, unless it's a very clean, simple site. I've only seen a couple designers do it well.

And yea, tone down the colors. My boss would LOVE them, but then again, he's color blind. :)

He made me make one of the sites i re-did for him pure yellow....:( it looked so much better in dark grey!

Good luck.

[jondoe0069]

Haha. I'm color blind too. I'm definitely going to tone down the colors.

Like I said though- the Missouri/Arkansas site just went through a redesign and the california/Nevada site is like 10 years old. I had nothing to do with that site. We're redoing it once we get the home page in order.

Right now, we're just looking to settle on a design for the home page.

[Testerdahl]

I don't know if there is anything you can do about this, but your graphic designers should take another look at the delivery truck in the field pic. If the truck is driving on the field, why is there concrete below it? And what happened to the lower left part of the trailer? It doesn't look as crisp as the rest of the truck. And why is the truck driving toward trees? What kind of message does that send, "We as a company are driving into a forest, probably head on with a tree, instead of the bright blue sky because we don't think enough about our visual images."

T

[jondoe0069]

I don't know if there is anything you can do about this, but your graphic designers should take another look at the delivery truck in the field pic. If the truck is driving on the field, why is there concrete below it? And what happened to the lower left part of the trailer? It doesn't look as crisp as the rest of the truck. And why is the truck driving toward trees? What kind of message does that send, "We as a company are driving into a forest, probably head on with a tree, instead of the bright blue sky because we don't think enough about our visual images."

T

HAHAHA. Good advice! Honestly though- that's not my division so I had nothing to do with that site. I haven't even worked on the West site yet, but I'll make sure not to use that image.

[jondoe0069]

And by the way- it looks like they cropped that part of the image off and now it's transparent... so that's not the bottom corner of the trailer- it's the grass behind what was supposed to be the bottom corner of the trailer.