• I am finally getting my new site up and running with wordpress for the first time.

    I am running a technology news, automation, gadgets website. I have just finished getting everything up and running. I am still working out the kinks, and some layout items.

    Also still working on getting all of my wish list stuff working. I want to try and keep the site from feeling like a blog.

    I have not posted much content yet, still in finally debug stages.

    I would really appreciate it if you guys could review and give me your thoughts!!! Much appreciated, please leave ideas as well.

    http://www.sunfirenet.com

    you can give me feedback at info AT sunfirenet DOT com

    Thanks in advance

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • it’s not bad, and it seems decently coded, but I’m not so sure about your color scheme. It’s not horrible, but it just doesn’t have a really nice blended feel to it the way it should

    Personally, I think the color scheme is fine. The design seems like a fine “tech blog’ feel. I will say though, if you are going for a non-blog feel, the design you have isn’t the direction, IMO.
    Interesting choice to not have a footer.

    I didn’t catch the “i don’t want a bloggy looking site” line. Yeah, in that area you have not succeeded. It looks as much like a blog as any site I’ve been to.

    as far as the colors, at the very least I’d change the gradient. as a general rule it looks better and more natural to have it going light to dark from top to bottom. going from dark blue to light looks a bit odd

    I disagree on the colors – I think they look fine as they are.

    I do agree though, that it’s VERY “bloggy” looking. Try using more pages than posts where you can, and try having a static front page… there’s a plugin for that, or you can just take index.php and save a copy up as home.php, and replace what’s inside the content div with your static content…

    Thread Starter sunfirenet

    (@sunfirenet)

    Thanks for all the replies so far, i will try playing around with some of your ideas, and let you know what changes i made for review.

    Thanks

    Appreciate all the comments.

    I will try the more pages, and static home page!

    MIKLB– Do you think it’s a bad move to not use a footer?

    Thoughts please

    You need a footer, and you also need to resize the search input, which has the button under the search input. See the sidebar.php file and alter the size to 12,13 or 14. I think it is sized 15 by default and so, in FF at least, I’m seeing the button below, but I’d lay odds IE7 will do the same and IE6, so altering that would make you seem neater. The size 15 is a hangover from people who adopted themes from the original WP themes which have bigger sidebars and therefore allow the size 15 button to appear right after the search input.

    If you want less of a blog theme, you can lose the posts and just do pages, which will make it seem like a website and not a blog. I think the content will decide that also, but you could alter a few aesthetics to make it seem less blog like.

    The colours seem ok to me, nothing too harsh on the eyes but maybe you could add some image or something to the header, which personalises it more and gives less of a blog theme.

    Saying that, it is a neat header.

    One other thing I’d also do is perhaps use the textured pattern you put into the banner, to do the body or whetever div you have the blue gradient in. I think resiny might have a point on that after looking again at the site. I think if you use the blackish textured banner pattern and maybe take it a shade down – it would look better as your body background image repeated.

    Personally, I don’t have a problem with no footer. It’s just that there’s a sorta “movement” to have *big* footers.

    I just use the footer because its easy to put any copyright there and, in the case of a WP site, a small notice that its powered by WP. I suppose it is not really needed, but I tend to like the old style newspaper layout to be emulated in a blog so think the little footer looks good

    I would never use a big footer and dread to think what that could do to a website or blog.

    Still, footer or not, big or small, it is better than the dreaded floating footer, which hovers like some pop up that does not know whether to pop up or just annoy you by hanging around.

    Thread Starter sunfirenet

    (@sunfirenet)

    I am not sure if everyone has overlooked this or if everyone is just used to the footer being at the bottom (of course the name footer ) But i have included the footer information for say, which is underneath my right sidebar. I was trying to go a different route with this. I do not always following the majority. Just a thought.

    Thanks again for everyones, feedback it is greatly appreciated, and i am continually working on the site. I plan i playing around with a few of your guys/girls ideas.

    Thanks Again

    The color scheme is okay but you could try desaturating your blue and cooling it down a bit so that it’s not so loud. It sort of competes for attention for the content, which is not so good.

    I like your site alot, great work and keep it up. I wouldnt be surprised to find i was a regular at your site. What do you think of myne? Its focused on design, css, and web development, oh and maybe a little bit of music LOL..

    http://www.joeblog.ca/blog

    Thread Starter sunfirenet

    (@sunfirenet)

    Hey Joey,

    I think your site is pretty cool, i like it… It seems pretty original. You need a contact page, know one can contact you.

    Thanks for the support. I signed up on your blog…

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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