New Website is Live! What do you guys think?

Aug 17, 2010
411
4
Nicely done - just a couple of things caught my eye.

"the perfect blend of youth, charm, talent and amazing close-up magic" should be "the perfect blend of youth, charm, talent, and amazing close-up magic"

(While the use of a serial comma is a style issue, it's favoured by everyone except newspapers, as they are always looking to save space.)

"He has performed for thousands of people living in Upstate New York" should be "He has performed for thousands of people living in upstate New York"

"Steven has the perfect repertoire of tricks, presentations and skill" should be "Steven has the perfect repertoire of tricks, presentations, and skill"

"Don't leave the success of your next event, on chance" should be "Don't leave the success of your next event to chance"

"Stevens magic is of the highest caliber" should be "Steven's magic is of the highest caliber"

"The best part is Steven is affordable and willing to work within your budget" consider using "The best part is that Steven is affordable and willing to work within your budget"

"Steven Brundage provides close-up magic entertainment fo corporate events, festivals, outdoor events, private parties and weddings." should be "Steven Brundage provides close-up magic entertainment fo corporate events, festivals, outdoor events, private parties, and weddings."

"Tell Me About your Event. *" should be "Tell Me About Your Event *"

Also, there are a couple of instances where the length of sentences could be varied - similar sentence length gives the writing a sort of monotonous feel.
 

RickEverhart

forum moderator / t11
Elite Member
Sep 14, 2008
3,637
471
46
Louisville, OH
Stephen, this is by far one of the best sites I've seen come across our boards. Well done with fabulous pics. The testimonials will be huge once you get them. JButterfield has already given you some recommendations on grammar so you are well on your way. Thanks for sharing as it will give others something to aim for.
 
Sep 1, 2007
1,395
8
38
Belgrade, Serbia
On your home page, the main big picture of you at a table, there is a text "Close-Up Magic" and then something underneath. It's not visible at all since the font is white, and the table is white and napkins are white. So either change the color of the font, or put a black outline around the letters to make them more visible.
 
Nicely done - just a couple of things caught my eye.

"the perfect blend of youth, charm, talent and amazing close-up magic" should be "the perfect blend of youth, charm, talent, and amazing close-up magic"

(While the use of a serial comma is a style issue, it's favoured by everyone except newspapers, as they are always looking to save space.)

"He has performed for thousands of people living in Upstate New York" should be "He has performed for thousands of people living in upstate New York"

"Steven has the perfect repertoire of tricks, presentations and skill" should be "Steven has the perfect repertoire of tricks, presentations, and skill"

"Don't leave the success of your next event, on chance" should be "Don't leave the success of your next event to chance"

"Stevens magic is of the highest caliber" should be "Steven's magic is of the highest caliber"

"The best part is Steven is affordable and willing to work within your budget" consider using "The best part is that Steven is affordable and willing to work within your budget"

"Steven Brundage provides close-up magic entertainment fo corporate events, festivals, outdoor events, private parties and weddings." should be "Steven Brundage provides close-up magic entertainment fo corporate events, festivals, outdoor events, private parties, and weddings."

"Tell Me About your Event. *" should be "Tell Me About Your Event *"

Also, there are a couple of instances where the length of sentences could be varied - similar sentence length gives the writing a sort of monotonous feel.

Thanks! I went and did all the changes about grammar that you recommended!
 
On your home page, the main big picture of you at a table, there is a text "Close-Up Magic" and then something underneath. It's not visible at all since the font is white, and the table is white and napkins are white. So either change the color of the font, or put a black outline around the letters to make them more visible.

Yeah, Google is using that phrase when it crawls my site. That text is what shows up on the google search. I made the text transparent. So google still uses the text but it dosent clog the site.
 
Sep 26, 2007
591
5
Tokyo, Japan
Code looks clean for the most part.

Design comments:
The overall width of the site is quite large, and is typically used for site with a sidebar (following the golden rule with ratios). Because of the lack of the sidebar, you are filling up the top page with photos and videos that are quite large, which is ok, but the large font is actually quite a negative point. The font-size for the content should rarely (if ever, except in some very specific situations) be larger or the same size as the Headers or Navigation Menu.

I would suggest reducing the overall width of the site, so that you can use a smaller font without ruining the balance of the overall site.

My suggestion for home page would be to make the video inbed code for the play window the same size as the photo used in the testimonial section (at the bottom). If you are using a direct half/ half split for the testimonial section, you should use the same ratio for the entire page, unless you are considering a widget area footer or widget area directly below the featured image at top.

On the Entertainment Services page, the header - "Entertainment Services is nearly the same size as your name (logo), and should not be. However, the font size used for the description of the page and the font color is great, and I recommend you use the same font size/ color for the font on the home page as well.

About the pictures:
I notice that you are wearing the exact same outfit for the home page featured image, the Corporate Entertainment, and Wedding Magic section. And, in fact, the customer in the background for the Corporate Entertainment and for the Wedding Magic picture (the guy in the glasses with the blue shirt), is the same... and thus, obviously you got the pics from the same event and same table. This is minor of course, but very easily noticeable. Was this event a corporate wedding ? Hehe.

One way you can sort of get around this is... to take away the Entertainment Services menu page (the page with the 4 images in a grid), and just make the top menu a hover drop down menu that shoes the four types of services when the user hovers the mouse over the menu. All you are doing is adding an extra step for the user when looking for important information. A lot of sites have this extra menu page, but is most often than not, unnecessary.

Again with the font size. Make is smaller! =)

Lastly, some positive points.

You have a lot of links to your booking page, and you have your phone number listed a lot! Which is great. It is easy to follow and good for directing your customers to the most important page - BOOKING!

Therefor, make it even better for them when they actually get to that page!

Have more pictures of your audience enjoying themselves and more testimonials! (even if you have to make them up).

Also, the rubik's cube doesn't exactly sell "magician" and the quality of the image is quite low (blurry).

On the actual contact page, you have your email address actually typed in with the mail:to link. I would suggest making a low res gif / jpg of the email address with the mail:to link, as this will cut down on possible email spam.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.
 
Code looks clean for the most part.

Design comments:
The overall width of the site is quite large, and is typically used for site with a sidebar (following the golden rule with ratios). Because of the lack of the sidebar, you are filling up the top page with photos and videos that are quite large, which is ok, but the large font is actually quite a negative point. The font-size for the content should rarely (if ever, except in some very specific situations) be larger or the same size as the Headers or Navigation Menu.

I would suggest reducing the overall width of the site, so that you can use a smaller font without ruining the balance of the overall site.

My suggestion for home page would be to make the video inbed code for the play window the same size as the photo used in the testimonial section (at the bottom). If you are using a direct half/ half split for the testimonial section, you should use the same ratio for the entire page, unless you are considering a widget area footer or widget area directly below the featured image at top.

On the Entertainment Services page, the header - "Entertainment Services is nearly the same size as your name (logo), and should not be. However, the font size used for the description of the page and the font color is great, and I recommend you use the same font size/ color for the font on the home page as well.

About the pictures:
I notice that you are wearing the exact same outfit for the home page featured image, the Corporate Entertainment, and Wedding Magic section. And, in fact, the customer in the background for the Corporate Entertainment and for the Wedding Magic picture (the guy in the glasses with the blue shirt), is the same... and thus, obviously you got the pics from the same event and same table. This is minor of course, but very easily noticeable. Was this event a corporate wedding ? Hehe.

One way you can sort of get around this is... to take away the Entertainment Services menu page (the page with the 4 images in a grid), and just make the top menu a hover drop down menu that shoes the four types of services when the user hovers the mouse over the menu. All you are doing is adding an extra step for the user when looking for important information. A lot of sites have this extra menu page, but is most often than not, unnecessary.

Again with the font size. Make is smaller! =)

Lastly, some positive points.

You have a lot of links to your booking page, and you have your phone number listed a lot! Which is great. It is easy to follow and good for directing your customers to the most important page - BOOKING!

Therefor, make it even better for them when they actually get to that page!

Have more pictures of your audience enjoying themselves and more testimonials! (even if you have to make them up).

Also, the rubik's cube doesn't exactly sell "magician" and the quality of the image is quite low (blurry).

On the actual contact page, you have your email address actually typed in with the mail:to link. I would suggest making a low res gif / jpg of the email address with the mail:to link, as this will cut down on possible email spam.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Thanks for your option.

I changed the font-size for the home page and i do agree the smaller font is more attractive. I will keep on playing with font and font-size til i find something extremely appealing.

About the lack of pictures.... : ) Next event im performing i am going to bring my own photographer to take a bunch of good pictures.

I do like the wide width of the webpage. The nice thing is the webpage is dynamic! So if they have a smaller screen size the webpage will fit on their browser... no matter what dimensions they have.
 
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