Art Website redesign - HELP... please?

[Roxie Faye]

[color=#9933ff]I've been made co-webmaster (mistress?) of my University's equestrian team website. I asked the captain if I could do a redesign, and he said yes (basically). The problem is, I'm at a loss for how to re-vamp it, design wise. (I just know it's icky and needs to be redone)

So, I came to the art forum to ask if anyone has a good design idea for the site. I'm not asking for coding help (although if you want to make a pre-made layout for me, go right ahead. XD), I just want your opinions/suggestions on design. (I figured this belonged in art because it was most about appearance than coding, but if the mods move it, c'est la vie.)

I want to make the standard font verdana size 10 (along with our "logo" font Monotype Corsiva), but am afraid it would be too small since everything on the site right now is size 12 and up and verdana looks awful larger than size 10. One fo the Franklin Gothics I was thinking of, or Tahoma (the cooler version of verdana). Suggestions for standard fonts welcome (try to pick fonts most computers would have.)

I also like the way the links are set up at the top. However, the table they come in is not so cool.

And what should I do with the background? 'Cos it needs to go. I was thinking to put everything on the site in a cool looking table (?) to make it look more "framed," like the way this lj is "framed": [url]http://community.livejournal.com/_ansatsusha_[/url] .

And here's the website I'm re-designing, so you can see it: [url]www.rider.edu/~equestrian[/url]

Please keep in mind that our school colors are dark red and white. Also, no recommendations for insane stuff that requires flash or javascript or php. I don't know them. lol.[/color]

[James]

[color=#606060]I think you have good basic ingredients for a redesign here.

First of all, yes, I'd change the text font. The font they have chosen is a little difficult to read - but my recommendation would be to remove the centering and keep the text left-justified. Centering looks messy and is difficult to follow.

I think one of your biggest hints relates to the existing logo with the horse and the little flourishes that come from it. It's actually quite a nice logo and it's under-utilized in this design.

What I'd do is re-draw that logo in a much bigger size and use it as a feature on the design - perhaps even as a big faded image in the background. It's the only real design flourish on the page so I'd take full advantage of it.[/color]

[Boo]

[quote name='James'][color=#606060]It's the only real design flourish on the page so I'd take full advantage of it.[/color][/QUOTE][size=1]Good point. Using the horse a bit better would be great.

I also agree on the text. Being a big fan of Tahoma 10 myself, I'd choose that, but a lot of people might think it a bit hard to read, so 11 points should work, I think. You can also give them the option themselves to choose between "medium, big, bigger" caps, somewhere in a corner, if necessary. I'm not sure how bad the eyes of some of the visitors are, so I don't know how big an issue this is.

Though the fact remains: the font has to go. And the centering of the font too. I'd go with smaller divs/tables anyway, because e.g. the About Us part has quite a lot of information and now it's just too frightening to read. It's not organized at all. You need clearer indication (Titles, bolding and perhaps even seperate subpages) and a smaller surface. Divs/tables of 800 in width would do fine (with some padding around the text, too), leaving enough room for a picture and the load of text you plan on putting in it. I wouldn't seperate them, though, unless you have a sidebar menu which would keep the site together.

There are some links on the main page that are really unclear and messy (this is not Wikipedia, you can't just throw links everywhere you please :whoops: ). You might want to make them look a bit more neat and make it clearer that those are links. In most fonts, just [u][b]bolding and underlining[/b][/u] them should do the trick (you know you wanted to click that phrase). You could also turn them a different colour, but I'm not a huge fan of that myself. Maybe if you hover over them, like OtakuBoards has.

And please keep the same header on each page...

Euh, [url=http://www.boris.vain.nl/][color=blue][u][b]here[/b][/u][/color][/url]'s a site I had to quickly make for my last study a year ago. It's dull, but it's clear, I think and it has some basic principles that a neat site should have. :P[/size]