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30 Posts
Well, this feels weird to be posting... I've been reading these forums for nearly a year trying to soak up as much information as possible, and yet this is the first time I've ever posted. I just want to say that I absolutely love you guys on these forums... most of you are so helpful and kind. So hi everyone 
My name is Nate and I own a clothing company in Chicago called Head Vs. Heart.
As I'm in the middle of a most frustrating experience with my screen printer (seriously... 2 weeks to respond to an email? Not returning phone calls and messages? Not giving a quote despite approval of my artwork and multiple requests both over email and the phone for a quote? I will take my business elsewhere, thank you very much... grrr), I've had the last week or so to program my upcoming site.
A few things before I ask for your advice... First, right now the site is most definitely a design in progress. What better time to change things than while it's in the middle of being built? I'm still playing around with the placement of things, the fonts, etc. Please keep that in mind. I know that right now there is very little content, and I haven't set up my shopping cart yet (I'll most likely be using Substruct... I've searched high and low for reviews/thoughts/opinions of it on here and haven't found a thing... it's a free open source Ruby On Rails cart, for those of you that are interested). So any comments about lack of content, SEO, meta tags, etc are much appreciated but are preaching to the choir, so to speak, because I'm well aware of those remaining issues (geez, I'm a bit defensive, aren't I? I suppose I'm just nervous to show my work)
I've also never designed a website ever in my life before. I decided to not use a pre-made template and learned how to program it all line by line myself... though I haven't much of a clue about what I'm doing. The reason is because I don't want my site to look like every other t-shirt site that uses a similar template, and I feel that coming up with an original site design may be a good way to do that.
A bit about my target market... I will be marketing my company as a high end t-shirt company. Luxury t-shirts, if you will. It will be geared towards the urban artsy crowd and people who are willing to spend money on clothes that make them look good. I'm shooting for the 18-30 year old age range. I want to visually convey my company as being a hip, young, high end company.
*whew*...
ok. So. I'm looking for reviews not of the content of the site right now because it's nearly non-existent (but will be soon, I hope). Just look at the contact page for example... It's just fake info for now... I'm going to wait to put up my pertinent information until the real site is up and I move on from this test site, since this test site isn't intended for the public. So I'm looking for general reviews regarding the layout, usability, and functionality of the site. I basically just want to test out the programing and CSS on you all right now. I'm an Apple computer user, and have been able to test the site in Firefox and Safari, but have no way to test it in Internet Explorer. So I'd like feedback from you IE users especially regarding the layout and usability.
Also, I know the layout is a bit unusual... Is it too weird? Too distracting? Too heavily skewed to the left? Or does it all seem cohesive and to work together?
I own my company's domain name of headvsheart.net, but am not using it right now. The link I'm posting is my own personal domain that I'm using to test the clothing website on... so here it is: http://www.natehinners.com
And if you're curious about my designs, you can view Flickr pictures of them here: First Production Run - a set on Flickr
Hmm... this may have been my first post, but I seem to have made up for it by writing a small novel... Thanks for your endurance and patience
My name is Nate and I own a clothing company in Chicago called Head Vs. Heart.As I'm in the middle of a most frustrating experience with my screen printer (seriously... 2 weeks to respond to an email? Not returning phone calls and messages? Not giving a quote despite approval of my artwork and multiple requests both over email and the phone for a quote? I will take my business elsewhere, thank you very much... grrr), I've had the last week or so to program my upcoming site.
A few things before I ask for your advice... First, right now the site is most definitely a design in progress. What better time to change things than while it's in the middle of being built? I'm still playing around with the placement of things, the fonts, etc. Please keep that in mind. I know that right now there is very little content, and I haven't set up my shopping cart yet (I'll most likely be using Substruct... I've searched high and low for reviews/thoughts/opinions of it on here and haven't found a thing... it's a free open source Ruby On Rails cart, for those of you that are interested). So any comments about lack of content, SEO, meta tags, etc are much appreciated but are preaching to the choir, so to speak, because I'm well aware of those remaining issues (geez, I'm a bit defensive, aren't I? I suppose I'm just nervous to show my work
)I've also never designed a website ever in my life before. I decided to not use a pre-made template and learned how to program it all line by line myself... though I haven't much of a clue about what I'm doing. The reason is because I don't want my site to look like every other t-shirt site that uses a similar template, and I feel that coming up with an original site design may be a good way to do that.
A bit about my target market... I will be marketing my company as a high end t-shirt company. Luxury t-shirts, if you will. It will be geared towards the urban artsy crowd and people who are willing to spend money on clothes that make them look good. I'm shooting for the 18-30 year old age range. I want to visually convey my company as being a hip, young, high end company.
*whew*...
ok. So. I'm looking for reviews not of the content of the site right now because it's nearly non-existent (but will be soon, I hope). Just look at the contact page for example... It's just fake info for now... I'm going to wait to put up my pertinent information until the real site is up and I move on from this test site, since this test site isn't intended for the public. So I'm looking for general reviews regarding the layout, usability, and functionality of the site. I basically just want to test out the programing and CSS on you all right now. I'm an Apple computer user, and have been able to test the site in Firefox and Safari, but have no way to test it in Internet Explorer. So I'd like feedback from you IE users especially regarding the layout and usability.
Also, I know the layout is a bit unusual... Is it too weird? Too distracting? Too heavily skewed to the left? Or does it all seem cohesive and to work together?
I own my company's domain name of headvsheart.net, but am not using it right now. The link I'm posting is my own personal domain that I'm using to test the clothing website on... so here it is: http://www.natehinners.com
And if you're curious about my designs, you can view Flickr pictures of them here: First Production Run - a set on Flickr
Hmm... this may have been my first post, but I seem to have made up for it by writing a small novel... Thanks for your endurance and patience
