Trying to break away from simple - too much?

[notarypublic]

At long last, I'm working on getting my own website up, to start doing freelance work. I don't want to put my site up for critique in the website review forum, because there's still a lot of work to be done before I would call it "done."

I'm trying to get past "simple/unfinished" designs, is this a step in the right direction? If the image background is too much, I'll change the design to work better with just a dark background.

Also, the background is loaded with jquery - I wrote a script that waits until the content of the page loads, then the background is loaded and is 'gracefully' faded in. From what I understand, it's put into the browser cache by loading it this way, so it should only cause a delay the first time the image is loaded.

Let me know what you think!

Edit: Also, I'll point out that this uses CSS3 for opacity and rounded corners, I'll make it older-browser friendly once the design is finished.

 

[d a v e]

background took a long time to load and your links look the same as standard text

not really much else to comment on. why that choice of background picture?

 

[notarypublic]

background took a long time to load and your links look the same as standard text

not really much else to comment on. why that choice of background picture?

I just wanted to try the script I wrote, so I pulled an image off google images for now. I have some ideas for professional pictures in mind, as well as my own photography, but for now this is just a proof of concept. I wanted to try something more interesting than a typical solid color/texture background. Obviously a 3mb background image is not something I would use in an actual website design

The links are the same font, but they highlight when you mouse over them. Experimenting with colors over a transparent background, trying to find ones that are easy on the eyes. I think Grey is a pretty safe choice, for now.

 

[d a v e]

yeah but the links aren't obvious

 

[DHDdirect]

It looks nice. The links would look more like a nav menu if they were spaced a bit more. I don't think the forward slashes help it look like links but any web minded person can figure it out

 

[che09]

background took a long time to load

This is also my concern. It does take so long to load. It will make anyone's interest down low.

 

[shovenose]

The images loaded about 20 seconds later...

None of the links work, and it's hard to distinguish links from normal text. But I really like the concept!

 

[brandontw]

I too love the idea, but as others said, the background image took a long time to load, and the links arent clear enough.

im personally not really a fan of the // after your link names either, i tend to like the | between links, but thats just me.

 

[Pheno]

Obviously a 3mb background image is not something I would use in an actual website design

Probably should have sorted that before posting here because I bet 90% of responses will mention it