Critique my site.

[Oneslowz28]

This will be a running post where I will post the new designs and additions to my site. So pleast tell me what you think.

Today is the main page header image.

http://cjganttphotography.com/drupal/index.php

EDIT: The bride photo looks a bit small. I can change that later. I will be replacing that photo for the release anyway because its not one of mine.

[SgtM]

Looks really cool so far. Can't wait to see what else you have in store.

[Killa_Ape]

I just looked at the frontpage, I have a similar background on my linux machine ;p

And the wedding picture with the flowers is very eye catching and makes me want to see more!

[Oneslowz28]

To be fair the overall theme is StyleShout's Colourise. I just modified the header image with the 2 photos. I was making this on my laptop this morning at my mothers and did not have any bridal shots on it or in my photobucket so I grabbed that one from a free stock site.

How do you guys feel about the torn edges?

[Zephik]

Well, it LOOKS pretty good. But it kind of smells funny toward the bottom left corner. I don't suppose you have any lolcats do you? Might want to clean their litter box...

lol I really don't know. I think I ate something funny at dinner. I knew that steak tasted like clown...

[BuzzKillington]

I feel torn edges belong more on the sepia/b&w photos but they could work if they were done more realistically. No offense, just constructive criticism. :)

Perhaps you could go the sepia route with the baseball photo? Definitely would fit in my opinion. Also, the placing of those photos would work perfect. The b&w over the cold colors and the sepia over the warm. Maybe get rid of the red on the left and ummm... I dunno how to say it... make the graduation of colors more subtle? If that makes any sense. I could be way off base but ideas usually spark ideas regardless.

[Oneslowz28]

Thanks for the CC buzz. I will give that a try tomorrow. I like the idea about the B&W over cool and sepia over the warm. That's very Zen thinking on your part.

[Oneslowz28]

I took Buzz's advice and converted the softball photo to Sepia. I also added a nice brush stroke line under Charles J Gantt. I also changed the font to Trojan Pro which is what was used when I trade marked my old logo. I just think its a very professional and clean looking font.

I also resized the stock bridal photo (which I will replace with one of my own) and aligned it better to match the softball photo's distance from the center.

Updated front page. http://cjganttphotography.com/drupal/index.php

Just in case you missed the original
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s187/CJGanttphotography/bgBU2.jpg

and the new sepia, and brush stroke line.
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s187/CJGanttphotography/2-1.jpg

and the Color with the brush stroke line.
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s187/CJGanttphotography/3-1.jpg

[Drum Thumper]

First off....having your site point to the /drupal folder can be problematic, if not very professional looking. I imagine you have a 301 redirect of some sort pointing to your /drupal folder on your website.

Personally, I would reinstall. However, I am pretty sure there are ways you can work around this, OvRiDe would be the one to ask though. I'm also sure that he told you to check out mustardseed media for tuts and whatnot.

Edit: This is my personal opinion, but I would edit either your page.tpl.php file or your footer.php file and remove this:




Original Design is StyleShout's Colourise. | Ported to Drupal by Webzer.net.



I imagine it is in the page.tpl.php file, but it could be lurking in your footer.php file.

So far, it looks great!

[billygoat333]

the header looks great! I like the sepia. the middle of the header is lacking something...

maybe do a CJG in cool lettering or something? I dunno. just feels like it needs a company badge.

I agree with DT, get rid of the drupal generated garbage. if you have to cite the template you used, do it in the code in a comment in the header. :)

[Oneslowz28]

First off....having your site point to the /drupal folder can be problematic, if not very professional looking. I imagine you have a 301 redirect of some sort pointing to your /drupal folder on your website.

Personally, I would reinstall. However, I am pretty sure there are ways you can work around this, OvRiDe would be the one to ask though. I'm also sure that he told you to check out mustardseed media for tuts and whatnot.

Edit: This is my personal opinion, but I would edit either your page.tpl.php file or your footer.php file and remove this:




Original Design is StyleShout's Colourise. | Ported to Drupal by Webzer.net.



I imagine it is in the page.tpl.php file, but it could be lurking in your footer.php file.

So far, it looks great!

I'm just using this as a sandbox right now. Once everything is finished and ready for publishing I will take down my existing site (http://cjganttphotography.com) and do everything the way it should be done.

[Oneslowz28]

the header looks great! I like the sepia. the middle of the header is lacking something...

maybe do a CJG in cool lettering or something? I dunno. just feels like it needs a company badge.

I agree with DT, get rid of the drupal generated garbage. if you have to cite the template you used, do it in the code in a comment in the header. :)

I didn't see any disclaimer saying I had to cite the source. I will check in the read me files that came with the theme. If not then I will just remove that all together.

[Drum Thumper]

I didn't see any disclaimer saying I had to cite the source. I will check in the read me files that came with the theme. If not then I will just remove that all together.

There usually isn't. It's not a bad idea to give credit where credit is due, but not on every damn page lol. Open Source FTMFW in my book.

[Oneslowz28]

OMG I hate hosting accounts with tech support facilities in India. I have been in a chat with a tech rep for 3 hours now trying to sort out why 5 out of 5 data bases are being used when I only have drupal and word press installed. The tech rep keeps telling me I am using 5 out of 5 but he can not tell what is using what. I told him the only install I have that use data bases is Wordpress and drupal and there still should be 3 free.

FML!

[Drum Thumper]

OMG I hate hosting accounts with tech support facilities in India. I have been in a chat with a tech rep for 3 hours now trying to sort out why 5 out of 5 data bases are being used when I only have drupal and word press installed. The tech rep keeps telling me I am using 5 out of 5 but he can not tell what is using what. I told him the only install I have that use data bases is Wordpress and drupal and there still should be 3 free.

FML!

Hmm...I just checked: Wordpress and Drupal = 3 databases for me.

[Oneslowz28]

ok so I have the basic pages set up. So what now? Do I design them like you would a normal html page and just insert the code into the "body" form or is there something else I am missing?

I also have no idea how to use the modules. I have installed, Views, CCK, shadowbox, gallery, and panels. I have read the docs and am still lost.

[DaJe]

Heh, I thought about making a thread like this a few weeks ago. Then I decided my site was too underdeveloped and still more of a concept and decided not to (link is in signature if anyone is interested).

Aside from that, I'm also trying to put together a photography portfolio website for myself right now, but I'm still in the designing phase, and really have no inspiration as to how I want it to look (maybe I'll make my own thread so people can tell me if they like it).


And with all of that, I too, use Drupal for running my sites. It's very simple and easy, and a great base to start building something off of, because it comes in such a simple package. I'm not sure if you're able to just type up the html and paste it into the body area when creating a page. I haven't had to do that in a while, and aside from that, with all of my modules, I have a visual editor which I can make a page in, as well as a mode with it to type html. So I'm not really sure on that at the moment (veeery tired, should talk more about this tomorrow). And really, there are tons of modules out there, which can add all sorts of features for you to use. At the moment, I don't have any specific recommendations, but the Drupal community is pretty friendly.

If you need any help regarding these matters, let me know, and I'll perhaps try to help. Once I sleep though.

[Oneslowz28]

I will take you up on that help offer tomorrow night if that is ok? I have a pretty lady to meet up with in 1.5 hours and still need to do the 3 S's. Today has been a day full of beautiful women. I got to spend the day shooting 2 Beautiful twins. Was an interesting shoot and fun.

[nevermind1534]

I got to spend the day shooting 2 Beautiful twins. Was an interesting shoot and fun.

You have been sigquoted

[Zephik]

Haven't checked to see if you have decided on anything yet, but here's my idea. I like to try to keep things simple and as non-cluttered as possible. Take it with a grain of salt. I just thought I'd throw it out there for the heck of it.

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/4915/idea2o.png

Also, you spelled galleries wrong. ;)


You have been sigquoted

I'm glad I have a 22" monitor, otherwise your sig would take up half my screen! ;)

[Oneslowz28]

Guess I need to make the statment that by "shooting" I meant Photographing.

[billygoat333]

Guess I need to make the statment that by "shooting" I meant Photographing.

hahaha

[Oneslowz28]

Worked on the gallery page some last night and this morning. I also changed the header image a little. I may go back with a sepia toned softball photo. (tbh I forgot to save the last revision psd and had to start from scratch last night) I think I am finally getting the hang of drupal. Going to try and figure out the views module tonight.

Check out the galleries page and the gallery that is in it. I am having a problem with the Image module scaling some photos and cropping the others. I have a post about this on the drupal forums and will see where that goes.

I am also having trouble getting the shadow box module to work right. It should darken the screen and load a full size view of the image you click on. If anyone has an idea why this is happening let me know.

http://cjganttphotography.com/drupal/index.php

[Oneslowz28]

Spent even more time late last night on the galleries page. Had a problem with the shadowbox module not working. OvRiDe suggested that I try a similar module called lightbox2. Got it installed and could only see the effect while logged in as an admin. So me and OvRiDe spent the better part of an hour trouble shooting what was wrong. We finally built a new gallery and it worked. OvRiDe looked at the original gallery's code and noticed that the shadowbox script was still present. We came to the conclusion that when uninstalling the shadowbox module it did not remove the code from the image nodes like it should have.

I uploaded some more images and am still working out a few bugs but its coming together nicely. Check it out. http://cjganttphotography.com/drupal/index.php