Give me Your Honest Opinion

[friscofrankie]

As a long-time engineer I've rarely built websites. This one is all hand rolled by me, no templates or cut & paste just straight code. As an engineer, I know my graphics design is not up with the many pros, and non-pros, out there and I would appreciate your input.
er-- maybe if i put the url? it's 1:00 Am folks, sorry
the URL:
http://www.isaanimports.com

Thanks,
FF

[JPnyc]

The link is broken.

[friscofrankie]

Uh.. sorry abou that. What i get for posting inthe wee hours.
I fixed it and am posting it here. as well.
little typo.
http://www.isaanimports.com

[kevey]

Very interesting reading concerning the Hill tribes...I think it adds alot of great information to the site.

As far as design I think it would look better if the logo were centered in the greenish background, and aligned with the left margin of your text. The free shipping info can go to the right...this is just personal preference. I would also make the top nav bar options change on mouse over....also personal preference...not a deal breaker.

I am very glad to see you using CSS. Nice work and a great history lesson. I very much enjoyed reading through your site.

[AuctionMan]

I really like the design and the information is great, the only thing that I do not like is your font size. Its not overly big but in 800*600 it is still quite large and gives me an 'amateurish' feel (even though I know its not).

Good work...

Mike

[friscofrankie]

Thanks for the reviews folks I have had a few miserable days. My host server was down for over 24 hours. I was able to bring up a mirror and then moved the main site to a new hosting service. just got back to to see what folks had to say. I changed the menus and text to another color to brighten up the page a bit and changed the title image (still on the right, I'm afraid).
I'm gong to try some scripted/css solution to the major difference in how the page displays in 800x600 wow! what a difference! I thought that using pt Would give me an even appearance across the resolutions I am now going to have to edit the style sheet for a fixed (in/mm) font size.
Might also try moving the logo, but to be honest the background image(my backyard) is darker on the right side guess I could use a brighter pic just like the misty mountain look. I also gave thought (and originally had) to bolding the menus on mouse over didn't like the way the menu moved around. Had drop down menus for a few of the menu choices and removed it. The site is supposed to load (1-hit.com speed checker) in little over 9 seconds. Want to keep it fast. I now have more bandwidth to play with so I'm going to add clickable catalog photos so users and see detailed pics.
Gotta work on the content too i have 27 pages of notes to add to the history and notes on silver. Lot's to do. Check up on me once n a while see how the site evolves. This evolutionary process is going to take some time....

Thanks again
FF

[justinpowell]

I like you site and found it very informative. Kudos on 'hand rolling' the site yourself.

A few thoughts: I agree with the earlier post that you should consider making your body font smaller. I like the image in your header, but there's not enough contrast between the clouds and the black text. The logo for "Isaan Imports" and the text "Hill Tribe and Sterling Silver Jewelry" is also a little fuzzy.

Otherwise, your site looks good!

[friscofrankie]

I changed the fonts and all to a dark red (maroon?) I agree that the contrast was just not enough I think the site is understated (one of my goals). After moving to the new host I found that enters www.isaanimports.com i got the old black one and by entering isaanimports.com I got the new maroon one. Contacted the interim host and had them flush me from their DNS and now all is well there.
The hand made graphics do look a bit fuzzy and I am definitely NOT a graphics designer. I'm working with The Gimp and not sure I am utilizing it's full power. i did go in and edit pixel by pixel to clean it up but the anti-aliasing just is not giving the results I had hoped. Any suggestions?