Thursday Rambling of the Week (Us poor out of work designers)

There is a breed of people out there.  They are a strange people...  They fear the sunlight.  They are pale.  They tend to spend long, long hours fixated on an object of value...  They often go hungry for their chosen profession.  Who are these people?

Designers...  Photographers...  Artists...

We often work by night, fixating for hours over details on the computer such as web sites that we just have to have up by the end of the week.  Starving artist is not just a saying it is a lifestyle...  And we are obsessive to the extreme.  (You try getting that absolutely perfect idea for something in your head and then try to sleep.)

As an artist I have something to say about the horse industry in particular but I'm sure this goes for many others as well...

If you have a business...  A real honest to God business...  Yes breeding horses is a business.  Once you call yourself a breeder that's simply what it is.  (Which is why I have only 2...  They are not a business they are my babies and the only children I will ever have)  Anyway point being if you have a business POST A PROFESSIONAL LOOKING WEBSITE!

It won't kill you.

I understand how expensive it is to have someone build one for you.  When I build a web site a very basic one starts at about 1,200.  That my friends is actually very cheap because no matter what you might think, putting a web site together is very time consuming.  I've spent hours on a single page and still didn't entirely finish the thing.

That being said there are programs out there to help you!  Geocities has page builder.  Freewebs has a very basic and simplistic style and while yes they bombard their page with advertising you can become a registered member and all that will stop.  Go that extra mile!

While on that note, Freewebs has some very good web designs.  I've used them before when I needed to throw something together for say an RP I wanted to throw together and didn't want to spend money on a site until it gained a following.  (I don't spend time or money on RP sites unless it has at least 10 loyal followers.  Until then it's freewebs and freeboards for all!)  But when using freewebs...  Don't replace they're suggested backgrounds with horrible pictures of something odd...  May it be your horse or your dog solid backgrounds are not overrated!

So...  With that in mind...

Show us the not to do's!

D and D Stables  -->  Rule number one.  Don't put photographs as your background.  Period.  You can work them into your design...  But for the main background solids and muted patterns are your friend.  Busy makes text get lost and we don't like lost text.  Lost text doesn't even like lost text.  This one has a box for the text to find a home in but the background is still just to loud.

Three Hats Farm  -->  I just can't even start to touch on all the things that is wrong with this site.  I like the solid background colors but...  Their links are getting lost and why is there an animated gif as their heading?  That's just distracting and tacky.

Dangerzone  -->  There is something wrong with these people.  There really is...  Not getting into a match about Pitbulls...  I've known some very nice Pitbulls...  I saw the cutest one the other day that was trying to pose as a tough dog.  Their pictures are horrible and while yes they have changed their site to be more muted...  (A week before everything was this blinding pink that hurt my eyes)  It still screams 15 year old did it.  For that matter...  Don't let an unproven 15 year old touch your business anything...  For that matter if you sell horses but you also breed dogs...  Put the effort in to give them each a separate page.  Link back all you want but give them their own pages!  Also first impressions are hard to get back.  Take decent pictures of your horses so that a person looking at your horse doesn't get the wrong first impression.  Since they can't lay hands on the horse at first this is often what is primarily judged in the first few seconds of contact.

Stone Face Stables  -->  Yeah...  Free webs is ok for a temp fix.  I like freewebs I really do.  But this page says to prospective customers...  "I don't really care, just wanted to throw something out there so I could make lots of money"  Put a little effort into your site!  Freewebs has hundreds of layouts that would be perfect for a horse ranch and you chose that one?

Sunspot Pintabians  -->  Alright Pintabians is one of those breeds like a Goldendoodle.  It's a mutt with a fancy name.  I use to have one of those...  He was a pinto crossed with an Arab.  We called him a mutt.  But he was still cute and I used him in beginners riding lessons when I was a kid.  He was sort of a baby sitter back then.  Again...  We called him a mutt.  That however is not what I'm going on about today.  This site actually isn't bad.  It's not great...  But it's not bad.  I actually kinda like some of the graphics and headers.  However...  If you have a business...  Keep things to that business.  Don't sell your useless junk on a web page.  Then it's just a train wreck.

So there you have it.  Maji's crash course to web pages.  I swear I'm gonna write a book on this stuff...  I shall call it...  Web design and photographs for people who should not reproduce.

Think it will catch on?

Oh!  And if you're wondering just where I dug up all these websites...

Fugly Horse of the Day

They say "Oh My God look at that horse!"

I say "Oh dear lord... Look at that website!  And those pictures!  Dang!"

So anyway, stop by there if you love horses.  It's always good to keep up with it.