I would really appreciate some feedback on this site. This is the initial redesign of the site. My client is going to an awards conference in April for voiceover actors and one of the award categories is website design. She’d like to enter her site for that award category. I’m not sure my work is at that level yet, but would just like to not get too embarrassed 
. Some of the guys that have won this category in years past are really great designers!!
1 Like
How about:
-
The blue MENU text washes out (for me).
-
The home page weighs over 12Mb. Images are not optimised ( 700Kb plus for one)
-
The multicoloured band on the top adds nothing and suffers from line-height conflict with the body area which results in a couple of pixels gap at top which impacts looks quite badly.
-
The blue scroll down widget looks cheap and nasty.
-
Footer text is too small to read and also washes out.
-
[console] Cross site cookie issues.
-
[console] Various blocked by client errors [googleads].
-
The labels under the videos frames are unreadably small.
-
Is the main banner image a photo of your client? What does that image convey? To me, a model.
-
Email addresses are exposed in your HTML. Your client will get spammed.
-
Loading JQuery 1.8.2 AND JQuery 2.2.4 - why so?
-
I may be wrong…and I hope I am, but you appear to be exposing an Account ID (of some sort) in a javascript comment…maybe want to look at that…
-
Why does ‘editing’ and ‘gear’ have “…” after them?
-
The more I’ve looked at the site the more that ‘on air’ thing annoys me and why would you have that on the cookie and privacy policy pages? It just makes the content harder to read
-
The menu links apart from the ‘home’ link don’t seem to work ( Chrome on Win ).
1 Like
The menu only seems to work well for the Home link, since the page gets reloaded. On the other links the menu overlay does not close and if I manually close the overlay, some of the links get to their anchors but some do not. This was on Safari Desktop.
Thank you. @thang the menu site is only designed on the home page at this point, so the menu is just blank html pages that don’t work yet. Appreciate the remarks.
OK - glad it’s not a problem.
1 Like
The account ID is the VoiceZam player. It’s needed to link their player to the website.
In a comment in the JavaScript? You sure…
I think so.
Fair enough, glad you know what it is 
1 Like
When will you know if you won?
The convention is sometime in April. I’d like to at least finish the design of the homepage by the end of the month.
Oh boy… well: you asked. It’s garish. When Postscript type fonts came out decades ago, people started using 14 different fonts on a page. (3 is pushing it.) This site reminds me of those days. Being a web designer is as much, or more, about marketing as it is design. Every web designer is between a rock and a hard place: pleasing the client’s self-interest, and doing what is right for them - aiming at satisfying her visitors. If a site is not structured for the benefit of the visitor, everything else is just a waste of time.
So: you’re always finding a balance between design aesthetics and customer service.
If her clients are talent agent professionals, looking for VO talent, then you need to understand that they deal with literally thousands of artists and wannabe’s every year. They can tell a pro in about 5 seconds. They are not interested in how the site looks (although they expect it to look professional.) They are not remotely interested in navigating all over hell and back trying to find the key things they want to see first: audio samples; big name clients on the resume; a quick way to contact the artist.
The big, pretty (and fake) face tells them nothing. IMHO you have wasted the splash screen. The javascript box of her recordings looks cheap and is too small, and seems startlingly out of place from the rest of the site’s design. It’s obviously a drop in.
Honestly, I’d have her record one sentence welcoming visitors that plays automatically. I’d put audio samples big and in their face. I’d have a list of famous clients right along side. All this on the splash screen. No scrolling involved at all. That’s what a talent agent wants: no mucking about. Then they can scroll down for the more folksy human stuff. Quotes from satisfied clients. All the warm fuzzy stuff your client wants.
I’d also suggest tightening up the design and toning it down a bit. Take a look around with Google. For example: http://www.kbvoiceovers.com/site/. This site puts everything important right up front: demos; phone; email; resume. Here’s an other: https://www.ricklancestudio.com/
Finally, do not limit email to “contact forms” - no professional is going to sit there and fill in a form. They are busy. Give them the live linked email address : bill@greatsound.com. They can click once and launch their own email, and capture the address or reply when they have time.
And yeah: lose the multi-colored bars. Please.
Said you wouldn’t like it, but this comes from 25 years of website design, and 40+ years of marketing… You were brave enough to ask, and I applaud you for that. Now go make your own decision!
5 Likes
Fantastic feedback and insight there, top notch.
Let’s see whether the OP has the stones to at least bother to thank you for it
Good reminder that websites are to serve the intended audience to achieve a desired outcome …
Thank you for the feedback @tvalleau, garish is what we were shooting for. 
@indridcold stones is nothing I lack and I mostly disagree with the the suggestions of @tvalleau, but I do value other’s opinion as it helps me to dial in the message we’re shooting for.
1 Like
Thanks for your courteous reply. Best of luck with the contest. Let us know how it goes.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.