Website for Review
http://www.thesculpturesgallery.com

Additional Comments
This is a sculptures site and slowly this shall be transformed into an e commerce site where sculptures will also be available for sale. It is still in the designing stage and visual appearance and content are most important now.
Please provide your valuable feedback.


23 JUNE,
I have made the modifications in the gallery and someone did the flash work for me...
I do not know how to modify it now, Can anyone help me with a btter gallery?
coz it is the first thing anyone would like to see in an artists website.

also there ar many artists websites here in SR, care for a link exchange?
PM me or mail


Regards,
Cipher

Looks like you definitely need some type of title banner or header on top.  I keep trying to scroll up because it looks incomplete on top.

On your gallery page, I'm seeing an error: "[an error occurred while processing this directive]".  This is occurring inside your iframe.  The page number menu is also running across your picture instead of below it.

I notice you're using Verdana (font) on your index page, but not on other pages.  I would suggest using Verdana on each of you pages for the main text as it's easier to read than Vrinda, though I don't believe all the text needs to be bold.

Otherwise, it's a good start

G'day cypher.

Site is looking great!

When you get your header graphic it may contain some site ownership. Otherwise you need a paragraph or heading making a statement about who's art it is and who is making the claims that follow on the home page.

Maybe some subheadings in the home page content.

Consider getting a friend who's primary language is English to proof read your content. Some parts don't flow too well or quite make sense. Overall, though, it's well written and self revealing; obviously from the heart of an artist.

I think the way you have the content and images set out on the home page is great. With this type of set out you need to consider what will be the result if someone resizes the font in their browser.

Best wishes with it, Mate.

Regards,
Laurie.

lovely clear looking site

as you will be progressing with e commerce  bear in mind that pay noe buttons or what ever form the shopping side takes can change the look quite conciderably -know form my own bitter experience - and i would also provide more contact information on the contacts page - I will not by from a site that I can not telephone

Good luck

Hi Cipher,

What an interesting site.  Love the art work.

Now maybe what I'm seeing is being altered by this ancient machine - but here is what's registering for me (I'm on a dinosaur Mac)

The Home page has lots of white space - which is great, but no detail or description of any of the artwork.  I do love that you can click on the image to see a larger version.

I'm having trouble loading other pages - many of the images aren't loading period (again-may be this bohemoth of a computer)

As far as the links at the bottom of the page - (ie About, News, Search, Designer etc...) I'm only seeing advertisements come up on those pages.  Maybe they aren't finished yet?

I'll try to take a look tomorrow when I'm on a more up-to-date Mac.  Things may load better then.
GL!
Basket Lady

laurie_m wrote:

Consider getting a friend who's primary language is English to proof read your content. Some parts don't flow too well or quite make sense. Overall, though, it's well written and self revealing; obviously from the heart of an artist.

Thanks Laurie,
Yes the content is written by the artist herself, I will try to get her into writing more and accurate. I'll try out friends or professional content writers to proof read the content.
I did not get the point, what if the viewer changes the font?

Will be going through some major modifications soon... as a bit of the work is unfinished, (the bottom links as Basketlady mentioned).

Thanks Allenion for bringing out the fact to my notice, I would certainly add my contact info there... I actually never thought of it.

Rest of the suggestions will also be worked out by the next update.

Cipher,
Wow, you have done a great deal of work since yesterday.  The site looks fantastic!
Basket Lady:)

I like your site and appreciate how difficult it is to put art on the net. Good front page and generally I like the way things are laid out. You should consider a slideshow for your art and add PayPal for selling. Also some links to other art sites will help your rating.

Finally include some articles.

Good luck

Margaret wrote:

You should consider a slideshow for your art and add PayPal for selling. Also some links to other art sites will help your rating.

Finally include some articles.

thanks for the lovely review Margaret,
The idea of scroller is very good... see for yourself.   ;D
I'll try to add paypal in the next update, and articles and e books are next in line...

How will the links to other art sites help me get a good rating? Are you talking about link exchange or just links to other art sites?

The site looks great and definitely well laided out. I don't have any suggestions, I read the replies before me and you have taken each and incorporated them very nicely on the site. I think it is a job well done!

I been following this and things are looking good.

Of course I do have two things to point out.

Shame on you, tsk, tsk.
1. No DocType declared
2. Only 13 code errors on the home page.

cipher wrote:

How will the links to other art sites help me get a good rating? Are you talking about link exchange or just links to other art sites?

Not Margaret but hope this helps.

1. IBL's are great
2. Link Exchanges are OK as long as the sites are related
3. Providing links to other art sites helps in adding authority to your website.

ColoEagle wrote:

1. IBL's are great
2. Link Exchanges are OK as long as the sites are related
3. Providing links to other art sites helps in adding authority to your website.

What does that mean,???
and what is tsk tsk?
;D
For the gallery purposes I have asked someone to build a flash gallery for the site... hope that has a better look.

G'day cipher. I've been away but back home now.

I did not get the point, what if the viewer changes the font?

It's not changes the font, it's resizes the font.

Click View>Font Size and you'll see what I mean.

I set out some of my pages just as you have done but usually leave an extra couple of lines of text to flow under the image. If the font is resized, the change to the page will not ruin the look.

It's not necessary to do this. Just give it a try and see how the change affects the look of the page. Then decide if you have an issue.

Regards,
Laurie.

Oh I got it, you mean CTRL+(+/-)

tsk tsk -- just a little tongue in cheek humor.

When you provide links to other art sites this gives the visitor the availability / access to more information. The se's follow this link from your site and find the site to be a related site. This is seen as information and the result is that your site is then interpreted as an authority site. You do have to be careful as you don't want to overdo this or the results will start to back fire.

Hi just wanted to say that ColoEagle is right about working out these code errors, alot of robots will back away when there are errors on a site. Definitely want to get those fixed as soon as you can. Every search engine is different, but alot of robots will not crawl your site if these errors are present. Hope this helps!

Can't do much about the code errors as I am not much familiar with the coding part....
I am just using frontpage and assembling codes from here and there...

cipher wrote:

Can't do much about the code errors as I am not much familiar with the coding part....
I am just using frontpage and assembling codes from here and there...

Don't be concerned that because you use FP that you have to live with code errors. Fp is tool, you just need to learn how to use it. I use FP and have no problems. You do need to know coding to make things easier.

When you have the page opened in FP just go to the view code side and work on the code directly. By looking and playing around with the code this will increase your knowledge. As your code knowledge increases it will be beneficial down the road as you learn more and more about building and maintaining a website.

Code errors, font size, product text..... meh.... small beans compared to what the real problems are. You're trying to sell art, which is very difficult to do online, so you gotta buck up the images as much as possible. Here are some suggestions.....

1) The overall image sizes on your front page are relatively small, so you got good room to go there. Got access to an SLR camera? I would seriously consider making the boxes for the images twice as wide. Then, I would put in the box only a PORTION of the art.... like a small cropped area. This is enough to spark the interest of the user to say 'what the heck is that'... giving you a better click through rate. Using photo's from an SLR will increase the quality of the picture a 100 fold.... just scale down to size to keep your file size down to maybe 50-100k per photo. Hi resolution is what we're after.

2) You need something in the images that will give the user an idea of how big the art is. You'll need something common, and artfull.... maybe a really old book. For god sakes, don't stand the book on it's end tho... .just have it laying there at an off angle.. .you know... artistically. This will tell the user immediately if the thing go's on the coffee table, or the corner of the dining room. If you're selling paintings, perhaps hang the painting with candles on each side (OOO... another good reference object - Candles!)

Finally, I noticed that I could click on the images in the scrolling bar across the bottom.... but it didn't take me to any product pages. Is it suppose to?

I'm running FF 2.0 in 1024 x 768, and on the gallery page, the number bar ran through the bottom of the pictures. I'm assuming it's not suppose to do that.... let us know. On top of the image, it also tells me "An error occurred while processing this directive".... what's suppose to be there?

You have a toolbars page.... what's that all about? Doesn't seem to fit the site, with the exception of the first one. Also, when I was on that page, none of the menu worked to get anywhere else. Looking at the URL that's suppose to pop-up, I'm guessing you forgot the dots and trailing slashes.

When I visit the artists page, you should have a link somewhere that lets the user see all the works of art submitted by the given artist.

Other than that, I'm not sure what to think of the grey. Typically, I would use dark colors like this if I want something on the page to 'pop' out at ya, but in this case, most of the art is done with darker natural colors.... allowing them to blend with the page a little. If it were me, I'd use slightly opaque earthly colors around the site, and a white content area, with high resolution pics of the product. This would allow the art to grab the users attention.

Shweeew! I think thats all. Hopefully I didn't hurt your feelings.....

Hello Stitch,
That is a very helpful review you have given. Thanks a lot for that, Except for the colour theme I'll be working on every suggestion you have made. (doing the colour theme again would be like scrapping this site and starting over again)

# The scroller images will be linked to their repective art pages... that is to be done soon.
# The toolbar section is added just for the sake of promoting the toolbar, you are right, it has not much to do with the site, only thing is that the toolbar has a link to the art gallery. I am hoping that some people visiting this site will opt for a toolbar download. Is it really going OFFBEAT?
# The gallery script is not working properly, I have asked a friend of mine to make a flash gallery of the images and give it to me. Till that time I just have to work with this one.
# This is a site for one artist only so I didn't think of adding the asrtist work link to the page. If anytime I include other artists into the scene, I will defeinitely try to add it.
# The URL errors will be corrected by the next update.


Thanks a lot for the help again,
hope to have your support and guidance often.

Cheers and Regards,
Cipher