OK, here's your chance to nitpick ME

[squillo]

I think the site fits the bill quite nicely. Since Mr. Commer appears to focus on print ads for local businesses and not web advertising, the block-color, slightly-retro style seems appropriate and welcoming for his type of client.

squillo

[Andilinks]

If I were designing a site for an ad agency I'd study the competition.

http://www.andilinks.com/bus.htm#52044

[Joe]

No problems with Safari, Mozilla or Firefox on the Mac.

Favicon visible in all three browsers.

I'm with Sheila in liking uncluttered sites.

Nevertheless, the lightbulb-clutching man is possibly a little cliched.

Dictionary.com has both pizzazz and pizazz, though I prefer the former.

All in all I liked it.

[Andilinks]

the block-color, slightly-retro style seems appropriate and welcoming for his type of client.

I'd agree if it fits well with the type of ads he produces. Perhaps a stodgy approach would work well with his particular clientele. But I'd give him another option and let him pick so he can't have buyer's remorse. It is odd, but many people shop around after the purchase.

Andi

[Randall]

Folks, I'm having a really stressful month, and my sense of humor is starting to wilt. Focus on nitpicking and browser issues, and lay off the 1998 stuff, OK? Thank you.

your favicon.ico looks very much like a Naval Services' rank insignia for Ensign, which seems rather far afield from the subject matter of the website.

Yeah, I wanted something relatively uncluttered and abstract for the favicon, but the naval effect didn't escape me. (I wanted a different color scheme for the header, which would have eliminated that problem. But the client liked everything else, so I can't complain.) The favicon was a bit of an afterthought, so I'm probably better off without it anyway.

According to Word pizazz is spelled "pizzazz,"

Oops.

The client did spell it correctly in the printed flyer, so I can't blame it on him. This was before I had EditPlus's spell checker installed, of course...

The contact form looks really sharp. Maybe that seems a silly point to complement, but I see sooooo many default forms out there that are just . . . .blech.

Which is why I left the form to the very end, and tried to put it off as long as possible.

It doesn't look nearly as good in Netscape 4 (some unresolved issues there), because you can't make a nice looking form without CSS. The fact that NS4 reacts violently to styled forms probably explains why you see so many "blech" forms.

I'd emphasize "We are a full service advertising agency" rather than make it just another item on that list of we's under services. And all those we's look a little amateurish.

That's part of his style. But I agree that the last line needs more emphasis -- I'll run it by him.

There's inconsistent capitalization and punctuation (!) for "The ad works." Maybe that's intended, but I noticed it.

I know, I know, it throws you a bit. But that's the way he likes it.

No problems with Safari, Mozilla or Firefox on the Mac.

Good to hear. Thanks!

Randall

[Andilinks]

Originally posted by Randall:
[color=indigo][i]Folks, I'm having a really stressful month, and my sense of humor is starting to wilt. Focus on nitpicking and browser issues, and lay off the 1998 stuff, OK? Thank you.

Sorry, nits are louse eggs, I forgot. I thought you were asking for a critique, my bad.

Andi

[Randall]

I thought you were asking for a critique

I already know the limits of my talent, such as it is (or isn't). But thank you for the honesty.

My mistake for posting this when I'm so @#$% tired.

Randall

[Andilinks]

...the limits of my talent...

Randall, you are one of the most talented people I've met and recognizing that there are limits to all talents is an asset.

Successful collaboration requires a brutal honesty that you won't find at a polite afternoon tea. I don't claim to have any special talent for designing websites, but the particular cross that I've chosen to bear in the cyber-struggle entails a rather grueling regimen of viewing and navigating hundreds of sites daily. These are mostly top-flight, high-ticket technology sites that are intended to impress savvy customers and investors.

So perhaps I'm just a bit spoiled in that regard. But an artifact of this path that I've chosen certainly is a knowledge of trends in web design. I surf these sites to extract information, not to critique their designs. So you could say that I'm one of those "in the trenches." I do have an appreciation for aesthetics but my job involves using those pricey designs. Usability is the most important aspect of web design, but an ad for an ad agency does put you way out on the edge--needing to dazzle and impress...

Andi

[Mandi]

Hey, maybe if you inverted the colors of the favicon, it would still match the site, but not look so naval. I personally would leave one - the existing one, or a new one - I think it looks like a really thoroughly done job, when I encounter it on a small businessperson's site.

[Randall]

Hey, maybe if you inverted the colors of the favicon, it would still match the site, but not look so naval. I personally would leave one - the existing one, or a new one - I think it looks like a really thoroughly done job, when I encounter it on a small businessperson's site.

Hmmm... I could also do something entirely different using those two colors -- inverting them will probably break that link with the header design anyway, and it would put too much emphasis on the yellow part.

an ad for an ad agency does put you way out on the edge--needing to dazzle and impress...

If it were that kind of agency, yes. But Dick Commer has been doing this since the 60s, and he still retains some of that era's qualities in his work and outlook. I believe it would be a serious mistake to shoehorn him into a flashy modern ad agency web site, and he doesn't promote himself that way offline. The profile section that I'm still working on will make that clear enough.

If there's a failure of imagination here, it's probably that the site isn't retro enough. I worry sometimes that I've imposed too much of myself in the color scheme (the illustrations are all taken from his work, but most of them were black and white), and the header doesn't really derive from anything he's done aside from the logo itself. That was one of my few concessions to "web design" here, and perhaps it wasn't the right move.

I make no apologies for the use of white space, on his behalf or mine.

And if I could replace Verdana with the idiosyncratic fonts he likes to use in his ad flyers, I would.

Randall