Just reopened site

[ffholy]

Hi,

http://ffholy.com

It's a powweb hosted site :)

I just reopened my site after 2 years and went all out. My forums are not ready yet all, but most of the site layout I've been working on. It's a gaming fan site for final fantasy and did pretty good back then. Anyways, just let me know what you can suggest. I already know to:

1. fix the blue bar on the lefthand side
2. fix the middle part with the drop downs (that is just temp)

Thanks,
Eric

[Kitchensink108]

The banner could use some work. Right now there's too much negative space. I also don't like the really small images inside the banner, as they just don't look good. They're also covering the ends of the text, which given the amount of unused space in the banner, shouldn't be happening. I'm not entirely sure what direction you should go in changing the banner; if it were me, I'd probably use more of the large, higher-quality characters. but that's just me.

In Firefox, email.jpg and section.jpg have like 6px of space on their left and right sides. The other headers have extra space only on the right side. It looks best when it's fit perfectly to the cell it's in, as it is in IE. This might be a box model problem, I haven't looked at the code yet.

"Copy the Code to Ur MySpace, Blog, WebSite, and Forum Signatures!"
Don't use "Ur," it looks really bad.

There doesn't appear to be any link back to the homepage.

Be careful not to overdo advertising. You've four sets of Google ads. The one under "Welcome to FFHoly.com" is particularly bad because it uses different colors, contrasting and drawing attention away from the rest of the page. The one under "UpTo 1GB Storage!" also looks bad as it makes it look like you're trying to squeeze ads into every nook and cranny you can find. I'd probably get rid of those two and leave just the top and bottom ones.

The nav with the image links (for forum, video, etc.) near the top might want to be looked at. It's redundant, given the leftnav has the same thinks, but also it takes up a lot of space. It pushes the content another 140px down the page, which combined with the size of the banner, means the actual content doesn't begin until like 2/3 of the way down the page in my browser. I think if you want to keep those links, make them take up a lot less space.

Personally, I think the leftnav should have higher priority than the email login, as it'll be used a lot more often, so I'd switch the placement of the two.

That's all I'm going to say for now. On the whole, right now it's not bad per se, it just seems cluttered and unorganized.

[ffholy]

Thanks, I'll work on that

[ffholy]

I appecriate your advice. I changed some of the site as you suggested. Also, I will development subtemplates so the links change on the left hand side for navigation. On the top, I'll have the home link. I know I could change the banner, but I made it for older ff fans. I really could change it alot, but what do you guys think. I mean, I can make a more stunning one...

[ffholy]

Hi,

I worked relentlessly over the last 3 days to implement your suggestions and well, I stunned myself including the banner. I know it can never be perfect. It appears fine in firefox. The only problem I'm having is putting a jump menu in the navigation. Well, everytime I do it, it adds this extra space below it. Other than that, just let me know what you think. My friends love it.

Eric

[Kitchensink108]

You might want to put a dropshadow or stroke on the text in the lower right of the banner, as it's really hard to read right now. Other than that, looks much better.

[ffholy]

Ok, I just lightned it and restructed the template. Still have kinks to work out.

Thanks,
Eric