Please critique my site so far

Hey, can I get some opinions on the site that my brother is building for me?
I already know about the gallery issues that pop up with IE and he's resizing them and fixing the issue somehow. In Firefox you are able to zoom in on the pictures, but IE is wonky with that feature. So, tell me what you think so far...? Be gentle...

www.imaginastic-facepainting.com
Imaginastic Facepainting

I'm afraid I couldn't get the page to load in either Firefox or IE...

It came up fine for me in Firefox.
There are two photos on the gallery that don't come up....they show text from a hosting site when you try to enlarge them

Jeanette! I'm tickled that I got to see what you look like! And painted too! So pretty!

I like the overall look. It's my personal opinion that pics look better on a black background... forces your eye to the image. So I really like how the dark is in the center of the page. I think the design looks very professional. Yep, the gallery images were wonky.

2 Notes:

Grammar thing. When listing 3 things, use a comma. On your home page and Why Imaginastic.....
Whether it's a mainstream event, a private party, or antything in between, Imaginastic Face Painting can add that extra element to make your event a fun and memorable one.
Stringent hygiene, safety standards, and practices.

On the home page... you say Please take a moment to click on the Portfolio button... but your gallery isn't titled Portfolio. Nit-picky, I know, but It's something I notice. Mabye, Please take a moment to browse my gallery?

Looks good! Go Girl!

Hi Jennifer,
I had to giggle a bit because you pointed out EXACTLY what I have on my list of corrections. My little brother is quick to point out to me that I am the English Lit. major and HE is the graphics designer. He's supposed to be giving me the password tonight so I can get on the site and edit the text, he didn't dare while he was setting up the graphics though, for some reason he felt that I would break something! Where would he ever have gotten such an idea?!!!

I agree with the black and I'm glad that he went that route because I wasn't sure about it and left the color scheme up to him.

Yeah...about that picture, I'm not sure how I feel about having my mug on the site...if I could face paint as the invisble woman I would, but oh well. That face was part of a joke that I sent to my boss who called me a cougar because a male waiter was flirting with me at our last luncheon. I honestly didn't know that it was in the zip file of images I sent him!

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm going to have him look at the programming again because I have both IE and Firefox and IE is struggling with opening the pages whereas Firefox smokes through it!

Ahh, little brothers...haha.

Very nice! I like the logo/purple and black combo.

I used Google Chrome and the gallery page loaded - but most of the pix only showed a corner of the photo after clicking the thumbnail. And yes, those last two aren't showing up at all.

it looks really nice to me... the only thing I would change is that your email is not a link. The customer has to copy and paste the address into their email software. I know it cuts down on spam in theory, but I've not really had a problem with spam from it and it makes it much more convenient for contacting you JMHO

I think you should have your "mug" on there, you hot cougar, you! You are the face of your business. You are selling your personality as well as your talent... it's the entertainment business! And you look so pretty!

Yep.. I have old IE, and I got the corner of a larger pic.

But I think it looks very professional. Kinda exciting,isn't it?

Perry, I never thought about that! Thanks! I have to tell my brother about that.
Krystal, I don't know what the deal is with the pictures...of course, that's probably why I'm not a graphics designer... The pics are like that because they are, in real life, high res pictures. Initially, they were supposed to automatically rescale to fit the window and feature a little zoom feature for those of you who like to check out the pores of the people in the pics, lol.

Hot Cougar? Woman...stop! I've been called a lot of things in my life, but HOT hasn't been one of them! I have to agree that it is exciting...well up until I got to the CONTACTS page, but I'll get over it and myself... I don't actually have to visit the contact page, so in time, I'll just forget...I hope.

Lady Jayde wrote:Hot Cougar? Woman...stop! I've been called a lot of things in my life, but HOT hasn't been one of them!

It is now, get used to it! You should for now on walk around like you believe it too! Like a little high hat is tapping in the background with each step:
tss, tss-tss, tsssss, tss-tss, tssssss

You KNOW that's how I get around!

I got the corner of the pic when I touched a gallery pic too. (Older version explorer on my main laptop.)

It looks good!!! Great color! Clean and clear to navigate! Contact Info easy to find! I am too tired to proofread and others have been thorough there.

Own it Girl!!! MeOWRRRR!!! JBax I like the high hat soundtrack visualization.

I have seen couple of the sites that do not allow you to right click a picture and save that picture to your hard disk. Presumable this is a extra protection of copy right, and content especally if you have photos of kids painted. These protections can always be gotten around by a tech savy person, but they help. You may want to watermark your photos is some way too.

Don't know if you are interest in these issues but you should at least consider it.

I actually prefer when the e-mail address is NOT a link (or have the option for both) as usually I do not use outlook or other such default e-mail systems and I have to copy/paste the e-mail address manually anyways.

I like the look of the site- very professional and clean. I was able to see the gallery pictures just fine with firefox 3.5.7, though I would love a way to navigate through the thumbnails a bit without having to click on each individual picture...

the only other thing I noticed (aside from what has already been commented on) was how little that was actually said on the site. It may have been done purposely, but it made it difficult for me to get any sense of your personality. Just my two cents.

Overall it is a LOVELY site! Good luck!

Well, hubby informed me that the reason your site won't come up for me is because we have K9 installed on all our computers- everything goes through that before coming to our computer and evidently K9 is filtering your site, but it usually tells me and lets me override with my admin password. He's looking into it for me. We have kids in the house so we filter everything just in case, but I had forgotten about that.

It's probably that darned cougar picture that's setting off the alarms, lol!

I'm going to ask my brother about disabling the right click ability. I should've thought to watermark the pictures...duh! Well, I will from now on! Thanks for the reminder! I'm all flustered about the cougar thing.

Moonprints, thanks for looking and commenting. The site is sparce right now becasue I'm sitting on a lot of text files that I haven't had the heart to give my brother yet. I was hoping to get him to let me put the text in myself, but he still thinks I'm going to mess it up...he seems to easily forget that I can take him...even if he is 6'5.

As far as the clicking, I hate mouse overs, but it is something to consider, since not everyone is like moi.

It appears that the latest IE and Firefox are the only ones that can handle the site. hmmm...

JBax wrote:

Lady Jayde wrote:Hot Cougar? Woman...stop! I've been called a lot of things in my life, but HOT hasn't been one of them!

It is now, get used to it! You should for now on walk around like you believe it too! Like a little high hat is tapping in the background with each step:
tss, tss-tss, tsssss, tss-tss, tssssss

You KNOW that's how I get around!

I can totally see you strolling through the produce isle tsss-in your every step...
Me...not so much...
I'm more of a badump-badump, badump-badump, type of person...

Colorful, easy to navigate, and informative. I like it.

Sorry for being late to the topic. I am, as well, as web designer during the day. Everyone has covered the basic things I would have asked about. Number one thing right now, disable the right click AND watermark the pictures if you are just posting the pictures (meaning no player needed). The print screen button will still work even with the right click disabled and anyone can still get the pictures that way..... not that I have ever done that (he he he).