Freelance Design Agency website

nathanbunn

New Member
I have been working on a Wordpress powered website for my friends freelance design agency and have got to the stage where I am happy with the design. I am putting it here for critical review. Not insulting, not belittling, for critical review. Comments that just insult will simply be ignored. Ive joined other forums and designers have been unnecessarily harsh to people just wanting a little help. Whilst I've been designing for years, I still remember how I started out, so I like to show others that same respect. (Thank you for your attention on that)

The address for the beta site is http://dharmadesigns.nathanbunn.co.uk/

The site is in active beta and will be updated as and when feedback is given. Please give specific feedback, and if possible, a compatible solution. Whilst it is for my friend, I am working for the agency on a freelance basis, so it is done by the agency, just only me as the designer.
 

Phreaddee

Super Moderator
Staff member
it is quite messy.
30 scripts
13 stylesheets
stylesheet in the head
inline styles

overcomplicated divitis.
4 h1's
images not optimised.
make your menus with ul's

the design is OK, but you need to trim the fat with the code because it takes an age to load!
 

nathanbunn

New Member
Without sounding arrogant, how can I trim the fat? I'll admit that I've nested divs to within an inch of their lives and that my menu is made with divs and not a ul and my images could well be optimized (they are PNGs exported straight from Photoshop via "Save For Web And Devices"), but in terms of the rest, I have used just 10 scripts and 4 stylesheets. Some link to external files (Google, jQuery and AddToAny) so can't really be touched, and maybe the stylesheets could be combined, but the rest is all controlled by the plugins I have used. As I said, it's powered by Wordpress, so my contribution to the design has been the theme and nothing more. My own H1s are in the content pages and limited to there only. So, from what I can see, there's little other fat that I can cut. Once I upgrade my plugins, I'm back to square one. Granted, that's may of the items on your list, but the ones I have great control over are the divs, the menu, and further optimization of the images, but only a third of the stylesheets and scripts. Do you think that the amount I have control over would make considerable difference?
 

krymson

Member
"Created using WP Portfolio by the WordPress Doctors" - why use a portfolio viewing plugin???? why not code it yourself, trim the fat get rid of a pointless plug in for a web designer. What's in that that you cant do yourself?
 

anna

New Member
I'm just wondering why a freelance designer who doesn't use templates to design websites uses a Wordpress template??
 
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