New travel blog: How's our Design?

[ECHBlog]

Hi everyone, we just set up a new travel blog and were looking for opinions on the design. Any opinion would be appreciated, but if you can answer some of these questions too it would be very valuable to us:

http://www.endlesslychanginghorizon.com

1. Is the height of the banner too big? Should it be shortened so that more of the content appears above the fold? Or does its size catch your eye and draw you in?
2. Is the background too 'busy?' Should we go for a cleaner design?
3. Is the text too small?
4. Is the grey background of the posts too dark?
5. Are the pictures contained within the post an appropriate size?
6. Is the title in the banner easy to read?
7. Is it easy to navigate?
8. Are the social media icons on the right side attractive?
9. Overall, does the website look professional?

 

[leroy30]

1. Not too big but it isn't very clear. And if you view it on a larger widescreen resolution it becomes off-centre to the right hand side. Maybe try a white font to stand out better?
2. Yes, I find it too busy and distracting. Perhaps make the content area a transparent white? Kind of like you have done except a more opaque and white or something.
3. The article text maybe 1pt too small?
4. Not necessarily but your link text isn't contrasting enough. Make the links darker, or make the background lighter.
5. Entirely up to you! I'm not fussed really.
6. No.
7. I guess so.
8. Not really. They might be if the rest of the background didn't look like that. Everything is blending too much.
9. To be honest it could do with improvement. If you were selling this to someone it wouldn't be up to scratch in my books. If it's your own blog as a hobby then sure, it's fine for now. *However* keep working on it because there's always room for improving ones skills!

 

[Phreaddee]

Is the height of the banner too big? Should it be shortened so that more of the content appears above the fold? Or does its size catch your eye and draw you in?
the banner is quite large. on a 19" widescreen I zoomed out twice to a more comfortable position. then it was right aligned like leroy said.
300px! I barely scratch 100px these days for a header.
way to large in my opinion.

Is the background too 'busy?' Should we go for a cleaner design?
I like the idea with the grid but it is very busy. it doesn't tile well at all on larger screens. it is very dark.

Is the text too small?
no, although there is a font conflict with your nav normal and hover states. and the left column is outrageously large. (plus the "countdown" invokes a scroll bar occasionally which is a little jarring.)

Is the grey background of the posts too dark?
a little, however the overall theme is very dark.

Are the pictures contained within the post an appropriate size?
they could be optimised. they take a while to load.

Is the title in the banner easy to read?
yes, but I would redesign it.

Is it easy to navigate?
easy enough.

Are the social media icons on the right side attractive?
?? well they're noticeable.

Overall, does the website look professional?
no, not really. sorry.

 

[bowenac]

For your header image I would just do like what you did with your #wrapper...

.blogtitle.right {
margin: 0 auto;
max-width: 1200px;
min-width:600px;
width: 90%;
}

That should match the size of your other content.

Then remove the float:left from .blogtitle

 

[ECHBlog]

Thanks for the feedback, those were the sort of answers we were expecting we might hear, but we weren't sure.

leroy30, I hadn't noticed that the banner right aligns like that. I should have tried zooming out more, I don't know why I didn't.
Also, Phreaddee, what browser are you using? I haven't seen the scrollbar on the countdown that you mention.
bowenac, I will try that when I do have time to start redesigning. Thanks for the tip.

Overall though thanks for the suggestions, I'll probably work at implementing most of them, I'm sure-- maybe I'll try a few banner designs. I may even try go for a large redesign with a lighter color scheme and see if that looks better.

Thanks again, cheers

 

[DamienDarwick]

Is the height of the banner too big? Should it be shortened so that more of the content appears above the fold? Or does its size catch your eye and draw you in?

Its too big IMO, but some sites do very well with large header/banners.

Is the background too 'busy?' Should we go for a cleaner design?

YES! I'm running a PC with 3.10 GHZ Processor & 12 GB of ram and it took a few seconds to come up for me where as most sites do not take long at all. So your extensive background and images are taking away from your load time. That is a crucial point if you want to keep readers coming back.

Is the text too small?

I would make it a bit larger myself. I can see it fine....with my glasses on lol.

Is the grey background of the posts too dark?

No

Are the pictures contained within the post an appropriate size?

Not sure since it looks like they were automatically re-sized in wordpress. Perhaps they are not and I'm just missing it.


Is the title in the banner easy to read?

No

Is it easy to navigate?

About as easy as a WP theme usually can be. No real problems in navigation that I see except the clear graphic background could stand to be a little bit darker for the "Bucketlist" drop down or the font color changed to be more catching where it can be seen better.

Are the social media icons on the right side attractive?

Those I really like, they are nice


Overall, does the website look professional?

Sorry but no, it does not. But its a really good start. I think if you took out some of the distracting graphics in the backgrounds & header and did a bit of a redesign on those it would surely help heaps.

 

[Lizyd Design]

Perhaps a little off topic, but I really like those social icons...