Dietriffic.com Redesign
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how I was in the process of redesigning Dietriffic.com. The old typical blog design didn’t offer enough possibilities of pointing people to older posts, so we had to come up with something intuitive. I don’t exactly have years of web design experience under my belt, so there are probably better ways of achieving what we need but I’m fairly happy.
The design was finished almost two weeks ago, however we hit a problem which I didn’t realise was as bad as it was until today. You might wonder why I ask for feedback, but it’s critical. There are so many variables which you have to watch out for; so many different browsers and screen resolutions which have an impact on how a site will look.
Sadly, when I thought I was finished Dietriffic, I had no idea that in IE6 and small screen resolutions, the site messed up badly. Thanks to Derrek Semmler who contacted Melanie with a few issues he could see, which made me go and check the site a little more thoroughly.
After looking at the code, I was a little confused. I couldn’t figure out how to fix the issues, and actually contacted a few designers and asked for a price. One of them got back to me this morning with a price of $150 to rewrite the code. Not bad, but more than I’m willing to pay. When you kinda know how to do something, you become more reluctant to pay for it to be done. So I started with some fresh code, and began to add in the required divs, rework all the styling, and alter the positioning and now….I think I’m finished!
Please critic, and let me know of any issues. Dietriffic has had some good success recently, and hopefully it will go on stronger with the new design.
Looks great Armen, I’m running FireFox 2.0.0.6 1024×768 (laptop)
I know what you mean about paying to get web design done - I just keep sticking at it until I finally get it right. Some people can ‘cut of their nose despite their face’ and end up with something that they really should have paid to get done “professionally”, but I think you made the right choice doing it yourself.
Good job.
Nath - Thanks brother. I checked out BrowserShots, and the only main browser that doesn’t seem to work is IE5.5. If anyone is still using it they deserve sites to not work properly!
It would need to be something really big before I’d pay for a design. I’d pay out faster for a logo design I think.
Armen, I’d pay out for a logo design for sure. If it was something that needed really good branding that is. I can only muster up stuff that is pretty basic. For my blogging purposes my skills are enough, but I could do a better job if I had Photoshop/Illustrator etc. I only have Gimp so I find it really difficult to get anything created that is above ordinary. I really miss the vector capabilities that are in Illustrator and the sheer simplicity and high power of Photoshop.
Nath, you may or may not have heard of/used Inkscape. I can’t vouch for it’s usability these days as I haven’t had a decent play with it since it’s early beta versions, Gimp does all the basic stuff I need, when I need it (which isn’t often these days).
There’s also GimpShop if you want an interface closer to that of PS. No firsthand knowledge of this one though as I’ve never had a real need to use PS over Gimp.
Nath, you may or may not have heard of/used Inkscape. I can’t vouch for it’s usability these days as I haven’t had a decent play with it since it’s early beta versions, Gimp does all the basic stuff I need, when I need it (which isn’t often these days).
There’s also GimpShop if you want an interface closer to that of PS. No firsthand knowledge of this one though as I’ve never had a real need to use PS over Gimp.
Already commented with this (here)… but could you give another download location. It doesn’t appear to exist over at wordpress.net.