New Design - First Page delivered, your thoughts?

[PH-Kev]

Hi,

We got our first page delivered of a website overhaul today and the next 20 odd come in a few days but myself, im on 2 sides of the fence with it, so i wondered if others could take a look and maybe tell me what they are thinking too.

The design is to have mileage for a year, please have these thoughts in mind when reviewing:

The big blank grey space is a month-month space for advertising/seasonal advertising

The snow... will disappear in Mid-January and was for launch.

The Large White boxes are from an earlier review where someone suggested changing hue... please, if you see them.. dont take them into account if you can manage to ignore them for the next 40 mins

[PH-Kev]

Sorry... the link would help, its http://prontohost.net/v2/

Thanks folks

[JohnN]

not bad, but i dont like the seasons greeting bit, the text looks sloppy.
also the packages boxes need a change.

the rest is pretty good, got some great potential.

[Kwek]

It looks OK overall, but the colours seem to be a bit dull though.

[J J]

not bad, but i dont like the seasons greeting bit, the text looks sloppy.
also the packages boxes need a change.

the rest is pretty good, got some great potential.

The "Seasons Greeting" also ruins it for me, if you could change that, perhaps it would look better!

[PH-Kev]

Thanks!

OK, so seasons greetings get taken off.
The colours are pretty dull, i found that myself but when consulting the designer he said there is a nice mix of contrasting colour to keep it with the theme.

Can i ask, does anyone else think it just looks like a christmas card? thats my worry lol

[Richard]

I do agree, the colors are very dull, and boing to look at. I know everyone keeps going on about a "simple" and "clean" webdesign, but that is just too simple for me.

It looks like something you could get free off Zymic and other such sites. The only good part for me, is your logo.

[PH-Kev]

Hi Richard, thanks, its a little worrying you say the logo is the best part...that was a placeholder :P

I cant say i can agree on too simplistic, it does have the information needed and possibly its not enough for a landing page, perhaps if you viewed it in a few days as a full site it would seem a little more informative.

The colors are Dull and im wondering if its the tone of the text with the background? or the page as a whole? if i get word on these things, i can pop off an email to get them improved and hopefully stall the whole site arriving like it is now.

Also... Its not free by any means.. well, the designer isn't :P

[Richard]

I'm not sure what it is.. It just looks... Wrong.

Its very basic, not alot of work went into the designing, and it shows. I know it was not a free design, but it looks like a free design.

There are not alot of "effects" or "features" to the design, which would make it stand out, the colors kill each other by the sudden change, a boarder/gradient/fade would tone down that, but there is nothing.

I'm sure your designer(s) is(are) very skilled, but this looks like it was coded by someone with limited skills spending 20 minutes maximum in photoshop.

PS: Yes, you can tell it was created in Photoshop.

[AdamJ]

^I agree entirely. I was bored by the design, rather basic but then nobody can be perfect. Er, best thing is sack whoever designed it and ask somebody like JohnN to design you something, highly recommend him ;)

[TaoPhoenix]

I'm not sure what it is.. It just looks... Wrong.


I'll add the comment that the basic design could be marketed as inclusive to older 800x600 users... up until the QuickLinks at the top are off-centered forcing a scroll!

Also, web users are becoming more adept at handling compact page layouts. The entire front page contains three pieces of information, yet in such an advanced terminology that I have no idea what services you are offering! (What's a VPS? Do you host any "regular accounts" at all?)

I also do not place any weight on testimonials. If you like them, put them behind a link. Between that and your minor news updates, you have run yourself out of the entire front page.

[Richard]

Kev,

Thats better :P The header anyway. But still, the main content is totally wrong ;) go more like the header, and you will have a nice design.

[Schmarvin]

Nice rip PH-Kev.
The template belongs to Steadcom.
http://www.steadcom.com
Its been on their site for about a month, and the creator still has the PSD. :)

Please remove that template from your site immediately.

[Eclouds]

I am going to say this once. And only once. You have 24 hours to remove both the menubg.png and the menubg_hover.png that you copied from our website.

In 24 hours from now I will be taking appropriate actions against you and your company for copyright infringement.

Make the wise choice.

Edit: Proper documentation has now been filed. A 24 hours deadline has been set. Don't even try to say you didn't copy as even your stylesheet is copied directly from ours with the same settings.

[PH-Kev]

Hello Sir,

Please do not be so quick to flatter yourself, the images on your site and on ours are, sadly, freely availably on the net.

Anyone can have a dark gradient and pin stripe menu bar, do you honestly think that is unique to the WORLD WIDE WEB?.. give yourself a break.

[Schmarvin]

Hm, I wanna know something. Even though I'm not an expert in photoshop, I still have numerous skills with it. And I'd say that if you made a gradient, you'd match the top and bottom colors of it to the rest of the page. Yet, the background you use it a dark grey, and the gradients bottom is white/light grey.

Now, I'm not going to argue that it may be yours or someone else's. But, I will say that the site, if designed by you, would use the right colors to blend with each other.

[Eclouds]

Actually, "Sir"

Those were made by me in person via Adobe Fireworks. I find it interesting how your stylesheet is copied from us as well as the sizes + hover menu. Do I need to take screenshots of the template I made that includes the menu you blatantly copied from us?

I strongly suggest you do not play these games with me "Kev" as copyright infringement is not taken lightly.

I see you are not cooperating. You will hear from us shortly.

[Eclouds]

Here you go Mr I get everything free on the internet.

http://steadcom.com/violation.jpg

The SteadCom website is not a source of "freely available" images. Take it down before this situation gets worse.

[PH-Kev]

Sir please check,

no copyright, if you see anything else that seems like yours, maybe a font or word, a box that might be in the same place, a similar web color, a font size and weight that may just happen to be similar or even our slogan colors, please do not hesitate to contact us and our datacentre again so we can get that taken care of.

..|.

[Eclouds]

Kevin,

I highly suggest you stop playing smart. You copied the images and that's the bottom line. If you were smarter you would have at least resized it to not be the same size as ours. Anyways I am done with this in public. Your DC has been contacted as well and that will be no problem. You will hear from our legal representative soon. Fortunately for us, you have property in the US ;) Best of luck to ya

I am not talking about boxes, I am talking about your menu that you stole from us. Done.

[PH-Kev]

The Css includes a seasons jpg image noone liked.... was that in your css sir?

i highly doubt it was included in your acclaimed css, yet its the css your blaming us of according to your designer.

Could you and your designer collaborate first, get the story straight and then... please by all means, get back to us with, what seems to be yours, what isn't, what might look like yours, what you want but isnt your's and what you might just want for the heck of it?

Also.... Sir, if you would like to contact us and consider legal representation, please ask your designer to go through yourself and your lawyer and not contact ourselves direct on sales lines, we still operate business channels when you dont.

[PH-Kev]

After discussions with our datacentre, we will be bringing our original website back online. Any further matters will have to be proceeded by legal claims and documents sir.

My contact email is Kevinc@prontohost.net

[Schmarvin]

PH-Kev, I'm not his designer, lol. He is his own designer. And I am my own. :) Please carefully read whats posted. I'm not getting dragged into the claim. Don't even attempt, I'm just a witness who spotted it.

This conflict is between you (PH-Kev) and Eclouds.

[PH-Kev]

Sorry,

i have not claimed you are the designer, unless you contacted ourselves on a sales line.

This complaint comes under David Swatton and Dimitri Huyghues-Despointes

[Schmarvin]

Oh, then sorry for that. But, I thought you were talking about me. Again, sorry for that assumption ;)

[Eclouds]

After discussions with our datacentre, we will be bringing our original website back online. Any further matters will have to be proceeded by legal claims and documents sir.

My contact email is Kevinc@prontohost.net

Thank you for your cooperation. Copyright infringement is not taken lightly in the United States. As for bringing your old website back on, I believe it is a better idea as it will save you the cost of a plane ticket to Florida ;)

[PH-Kev]

Sir,

the website brought online is the original you complained about.

please review and inform me of where the infringing material is http://prontohost.net

[Eclouds]

Okay. You can keep playing dumb all you want. However you will soon realize that you messed with the wrong person and you should stick with your old design that you ripped from someone else as well (Yup, it is all in WHT).

Matter will be dealt with out of these forums from this point on.

PS: PH-Kev, you might want to reconsider the ultimatum before the time runs out. It will get costly.

[J J]

Just as an FYI, Kev, you did not have that navbar there originally otherwise, I would have known that it was from StradCom. ;)

[JohnN]

check the headers of the image, you can see what it was created by, should be fairly simple to see if its a straight rip or not.

[Eclouds]

Just a small update to everyone. Prontohost finally decided to comply after a Cease and Desist letter was sent.

Apparently their web designer is a "new designer" and was "inspired" by our design. That doesn't explain why our images (which PH-Kev kept denying SteadCom's ownership) were coded and placed on the site.


" I must apologise on
ProntoHost's behalf, i did use your header for inspiration as a new web
designer..."

This just goes to show their ethics and childish behavior. Anyone reading this should be very careful when considering them.

On a good note, everything is fine now as the infringing content has been removed.

[Keagle]

Jesus. This is the second thread recently we've had here, with a ripped template from another known FWS member, in the last couple of days.

[Eclouds]

Yup however the previous one, the offender actually admitted to his wrongdoing.

In this case here, this stubborn little being tried to make us (the owners of the copyright) believe that it wasn't our copied work.

Ridiculous but true.

[Cam.]

Wow, That was interesting, Good to see that it was taken care of though ;)

[Skylar]

Yup however the previous one, the offender actually admitted to his wrongdoing.

In this case here, this stubborn little being tried to make us (the owners of the copyright) believe that it wasn't our copied work.

Ridiculous but true.

Would have thought they saw what happened when I ripped mine and decided not to do that... Ah well.. you win some and loose some.