# New website - rebranding for 2011



## Rcon (Nov 19, 2009)

Since there seems to be a lot of these types of threads in the pool right now, I figured i'd jump in there myself :jester:

It's that time of year again, when things slow down and theres lots of time to spare to start polishing up the marketing materials, websites etc. 

For me, 2010 was about getting an on-line presence and starting to re-establish myself in the marketplace. For 2011 i'm focusing on market positioning and branding. I think i'm making the kind of statement I want with this, but as always, it's best to check with a few people and get some outside opinions. 

This is the new site - new design/branding - comments, critisisms, suggestions welcome 

This is just the layout, the links aren't active yet (even though the hover states are working). Don't bother clicking the hyperlinks on the page you'll just get a 404 error. 

Cheers


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

Looks sharp, man. I love the general layout! (Is it from scratch or a template?)

Re the "search" function in the top right. I don't see many folks looking for painting services using it....it makes more sense for a news site or a large blog. I think a phone number would work nicer in that space.


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## Rcon (Nov 19, 2009)

y.painting said:


> Looks sharp, man. I love the general layout! (Is it from scratch or a template?)
> 
> Re the "search" function in the top right. I don't see many folks looking for painting services using it....it makes more sense for a news site or a large blog. I think a phone number would work nicer in that space.


Thanks Y. I designed that from scratch. Took me about 3 days with all the javascripting I put in there. You might be right about the search - but (imo) it works in the space. Might make it a bit smaller though. But I wanted to keep the header clean (lots of whitespace).


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## aaron61 (Apr 29, 2007)

I like it....what goes in the middle white space??


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

aaron61 said:


> I like it....what goes in the middle white space??


Seems to be a issue with seeing the pictures with IE. Take a peak at his site with either firefox or google chrome. 

Real nice, If I remember right you last site was real dark looking? You're new one is sharp, very professional looking. 

All you guys re doing your sites makes me want to re do mine.

Pat


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## Rcon (Nov 19, 2009)

aaron61 said:


> I like it....what goes in the middle white space??


Ya see - that's why it's a good idea to seek out others opinions!! I never remember to check with IE (I hate IE) so I never would have caught that the slideshow wasn't showing up. 

What version of ie are you using aaron?


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

Nice job from scratch man! I remember last year when you were talking about learning about putting a site together...and now look at you!


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## aaron61 (Apr 29, 2007)

I try chrome every now & then.Hate it!


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## Rcon (Nov 19, 2009)

aaron61 said:


> I try chrome every now & then.Hate it!


How can you hate Chrome? It's lightning fast and you actually get a full screen instead of 5+ bars on the top taking up all the real estate. Then again, i'm not much of a fan of firefox either for the same reason. IE just sucks for too many reasons to get into. :jester:


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## aaron61 (Apr 29, 2007)

I'm old!


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## aaron61 (Apr 29, 2007)

Rcon said:


> How can you hate Chrome? It's lightning fast and you actually get a full screen instead of 5+ bars on the top taking up all the real estate. Then again, i'm not much of a fan of firefox either for the same reason. IE just sucks for too many reasons to get into. :jester:


Why do you have 5 bars at the top?? I only have 1.


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

Rcon said:


> What version of ie are you using aaron?


Seems you have it working nicely for version IE8. Tested it on IE6 and it seems to be a distortion issue. Your links right under RCON PAINTING looks like a stair case stepping down. 

Pat


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## Rcon (Nov 19, 2009)

PatsPainting said:


> Seems you have it working nicely for version IE8. Tested it on IE6 and it seems to be a distortion issue. Your links right under RCON PAINTING looks like a stair case stepping down.
> 
> Pat


Yeah I noticed that too - might be something to do with the html5/css3 markup - i'm working on the ie patches right now --- then again I might just put up a notice visible only to the older browsers that they need to get with the times :jester: :thumbup:


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## Workaholic (Apr 17, 2007)

Looks very nice in firefox Alec, I liked the one that you paid a designer for too. Did you make this one in Dreamweaver?


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## Rcon (Nov 19, 2009)

Workaholic said:


> Looks very nice in firefox Alec, I liked the one that you paid a designer for too. Did you make this one in Dreamweaver?




Thanks work! Yep this is done in dreamweaver cs5 - I believe the cs4 can do the html5/css3 markups as well with the extension pack, though i'm not 100% certain of that.


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## George Z (Apr 15, 2007)

It looks really nice.
I like it a lot. 
I agree with the phone number on top right corner.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

I like it, the colors are very nice, they compliment the pictures (or vice verse).
Nice job!


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## Seattlepainting (Jun 8, 2010)

Clean design Rcon; cant wait to see it up and all the links..


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## jack pauhl (Nov 10, 2008)

Not a big fan of the arrow next to call us. Also maybe use different color like a burnt orange instead of red for "Warm Colour". I cant pinpoint exactly what I want to say but I got the feeling my eyes were being pulled in every direction on the main page. Part to that arrow, part to the red letters and part to those amazing photos. 

Maybe I was just trying to look at too much all at once.


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## Rcon (Nov 19, 2009)

jack pauhl said:


> Not a big fan of the arrow next to call us. Also maybe use different color like a burnt orange instead of red for "Warm Colour". I cant pinpoint exactly what I want to say but I got the feeling my eyes were being pulled in every direction on the main page. Part to that arrow, part to the red letters and part to those amazing photos.
> 
> Maybe I was just trying to look at too much all at once.


Thanks Jack - you're right...there does seem to be too much going on there. I'm going to get rid of the extra stuff and clean it up some more to make it less distracting. Thanks.


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## Mod Paint Works (Jul 2, 2010)

Your site looks great! Very simple and clean.
I think your pics could benefit from a black border or bground for contrast. Also, maybe move the contact form to the right side of the pics as "our" eyes are "trained" to read from left to right. Your pics should be the attention grabbers and my eyes keep going straight to the contact form. JMO.
I'm on IE8, which is by far the best IE there is for translating CSS in general. The later versions have many bugs. Everything is lined up on IE8 and looking good!
Nice work!


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## Pressure Cleaning (Nov 1, 2007)

Your site looks good. I noticed that your page title on staining and cabinets are to long and you should remove the word *and* & *in* out of your title as they are considered stop words.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

Alec,

looks faultless with Opera.

BTW man, you got some good design talent there. I like the way the content is laid out and balanced (without being "symetrical")

Let us know how the "Let's talk" feature works. That's a new one to me. I can see it being a double edged sword.


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## Rcon (Nov 19, 2009)

daArch said:


> Alec,
> 
> looks faultless with Opera.
> 
> ...


Thanks Bill! 

Not sure what you mean there by double edged sword? I figured having a small contact area on each page makes it more likely that it will get used - which of course is exactly what I want :thumbup:


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## BC_Painter (Feb 14, 2010)

Love the new site! You've definitely gotten good at this!

One day I'll have mine laid out, but for now I'll concentrate on healing first


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

Rcon said:


> Not sure what you mean there by double edged sword?


I think what Bill means is that when you make the contact feature very easy to use and uber prominent, more folks will use it (+) but more unqualified folks will use it as well (-)?

For a while, I tried out a live-chat feature on my website provided through a 3-rd party service - it was really obvious and out there on my home page. I since discontinued using it because while more folks contacted me (using that feature), many more were unqualified when compared to the regular contact form.

I think it's a balancing act - just have to find what works for you.


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