A New Website

[ZachBG]

Hi folks:

 

I finally got around to updating my animation web site after over a year. Please check it out if you're so inclined:

 

http://www.hash.com/users/zachbg/

 

Comments and crits on the web design are actively encouraged. Comments and crits on the films are also welcome, but they're all finished work, so I'll be listening, but not implementing.

 

Thanks in advance and Happy Thanksgiving to the folks from the States...

[jamagica]

I think Duck Sauce needs remaking..lol jk.

 

The web design is quite good...what might look good is if you make the hyperlinks bold..

[zacktaich]

Looks great Zach. I look forward to another 48 hours in 2005.

 

jamagica:

I think Duck Sauce needs remaking..lol jk.

 

Shove it.

 

just kidding...

[starwarsguy]

I love Ctrl+Alt+Delete in ESC!!! GREAT WORK!

[dhartman]

I especially like your choice of fonts. I do website design some too, and there's something to be said about them simple fonts like courier. Great job.

[jon]

i have a longlasting love of san-serif fonts, so no points there. ")

 

seriously though, you might consider revisiting the navigation:

• the home page "featured films" is listed third -- people will invariably click that link and wonder why nothing happened.
  
• old stuff is a dead-end - i understand why -- it's an old page -- but will your visitors?
  

nothing critical, but you axed. ")

 

-jon

[ZachBG]

jamagica:

I think Duck Sauce needs remaking..lol jk.

 

Shove it.

 

just kidding...

Yow! Down, fellas!

 

I love Ctrl+Alt+Delete in ESC!!! GREAT WORK!

Thank you! And don't forget, you can see that very same cartoon this Sunday at 10 PM EST on Nicktoons (plug, plug, plug)!

 

the home page "featured films" is listed third -- people will invariably click that link and wonder why nothing happened.

Hmm, I see your point. Do you think it'd be sufficient to move "featured films" to the head of the list, or should I change the link to "home"?

 

old stuff is a dead-end

Meaning, there's no link back to the main page? Good catch, I'll fix it.

 

Thanks, y'all. I did axe, so keep the axes chopping.

 

Oh, and P.S.:

I look forward to another 48 hours in 2005.

What are you, drunk?

[jon]

i'd move the "featured film" link to the first position as a quick fix, but you might consider creating a true home page with a synopsis of who you are, what you do, and what you've done.

 

when i clicked your link, it felt like i jumped into the middle -- not the start -- of the site.

 

i'm guessing the primary purpose of this site is to get you more work?

 

-jon

 

ps: congrats on the nick gig!

[zacktaich]

What are you, drunk? 

 

Maybe just a little bit of that... *swerves and hits a wall*

[robcat2075]

That's a lot of great content on your site. Content is king, they say.

 

My complaints :

 

The text notes on each film don't seem visually connected with their picture. I think center justifying them is what's doing it. They're sort of saying "I'm by myself, pay no attention to the picture tagging along onthe left." Also the fact that all the text is the same size (the title is no bigger than the date of the film, for instance) prevents the eye from easily distinguishing one film's info from another.

 

And to do varying text sizes, you'd have to ditch the Courier font. Courier is rather retro, but not in a good way. I think you should go with some san serif font that works with the one you've used for "Featured Films".

 

Just from a web standpoint, I'd wanna redesign the page so that no scrolling is needed. Aside from the enabled scroll bar on the right of my browser window, there was nothing to make me think the page had anything below "Duck Sauce" on it.

 

My first thought is to design an interface that just shows the pictures, and when they roll over the picture the pertinent info for that film is displayed in some comon area on the page. Clicking on the picture would take us to the actual film.

 

There are lots of different visual metaphors that could embody that concept. Each film could be a position on an old-fashioned TV channel knob. The info could come up on something that looked like a "TV Guide" listing. I'm sure there are even cornier ideas than that.

 

Whatever, the idea is to get the whole design visible in one window. Yes, web users know how to scroll, but don't make them scroll if you don't have to.

 

Your films are so good, we don't want any of them to get missed.

 

BTW, "Duck Sauce" is an "Official Selection, Portland Indy Animation Festival". Put that between two laurel leaves in the "awards" spot.

 

Disclaimer: These opinions are coming from a guy who for two years did all his Flash work in gray tones, just to see if anyone would complain.

[ZachBG]

Wow, good idears...

 

Courier is rather retro, but not in a good way. I think you should go with some san serif font that works with the one you've used for "Featured Films".

 

But... but... I'm trying to reclaim Courier from Drudge!

 

It sounds like the general consensus is to ditch Courier. Oh well.

 

My first thought is to design an interface that just shows the pictures, and when they roll over the picture the pertinent info for that film is displayed in some comon area on the page. Clicking on the picture would take us to the actual film.

 

That's a good idea. Is there any way to do that in plain-vanilla HTML?

 

BTW, "Duck Sauce" is an "Official Selection, Portland Indy Animation Festival". Put that between two laurel leaves in the "awards" spot.

 

But then what would I put for "Star Wars 1.5"; "Officially Sued by Lucasfilm"?

[robcat2075]

My first thought is to design an interface that just shows the pictures, and when they roll over the picture...

Is there any way to do that in plain-vanilla HTML?

I'm not an HTML guru but I suppose the HTML work-around would be to display the icons in one HTML frame and have clicking on one load the related info into a nearby frame. DHTML, java or javascript would probably come closer to the behavior i was thinking of, but there are compatibilty problems across browsers.

 

Flash is really the way to do stuff like that now. It's great for graphic interfaces. Everyone and their dog has the plug-in already.

 

BTW, "Duck Sauce" is an "Official Selection, Portland Indy Animation Festival". Put that between two laurel leaves in the "awards" spot.

But then what would I put for "Star Wars 1.5"; "Officially Sued by Lucasfilm"?

"Really Nice!" - Mom