30 Minute Redesign: Week 48 Vote
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Week 5: Motel Cisne
Motel Cisne is a motel website, providing details on rooms and VIP areas:
In the space of 5 minutes I can identify some of the key strengths and weaknesses of this design, and sketch out a mockup.
STRENGTHS:
- Clear and prominent logo
- Design is generally clean and professional
- Clear and prominent navigation
WEAKNESSES:
- The color-scheme is not particularly appealing or relevant to the site’s content or the theme of the motel (romance)
- There is an unnecessary repetition of content. The logo is repeated, and the menu is repeated down the left side for no apparent reason.
- Photos only appear on the inner pages, meaning that the homepage lacks a personal touch.
- The menu font is hard to read, it’s too small and squashed.
- The background behind the left menu makes this text even harder to read.
- The page layout, whilst clean feels very boxy. It needs some rounded corners and more white, open space.
My Redesign
As always, I was limited by the 30 minute time-frame, but I tried to improve upon several of Motel Cisne’s features, adding a few design flourishes and a clearer layout that promoted content over wasted space:
WHAT I TRIED TO DO:
- Replace the unattractive colorscheme with a fresh, lighter colorscheme that fits better with the theme of the company.
- Cut out the repetition of content, leaving only 1 main menu, and getting rid of the duplicated logo image.
- Integrated a section with relevant pictures, instantly establishing the theme of the motel and site.
- Made the content more legible, through font/color choices and padding/spacing.
- I redesigned the logo to make it clearer. Rather than textually displaying the web address I just displayed the company name, allowing me to use a larger, more attractive font. I also change the logo’s colors in order to make it milder (given the nature of the company)
- I input ‘call to action’ buttons, drawing the user further into the website.
Comparing the 2 Designs:
Here is a quick comparison between the original design and my 30 minute redesign. Sure, my design could be more polished, but I believe that a lot of the basic elements have been improved upon, creating a more pleasant browsing experience.
How and Why To Enter Redesign Saturdays
You can have the chance to have your website redesigned in next weeks post. All you need to do is leave a comment to this post with your website address and why you think it needs a redesign.
The Benefits of Getting Your Site Redesigned Include:
- Most obviously – a FREE redesign job!
- Your website gets exposure to PSDFAN’s thousands of readers
- You understand how to improve your website. This isn’t just a redesign, it’s a lesson in design.
- You will get emailed the .psd of your redesign and can do whatever you want with it!
So please, leave a comment today for a chance to have your website redesigned next week!
Download Source File for this Tutorial
About the Author:
Tom is the founder of PSDFAN. He loves writing tutorials, learning more about design and interacting with the community. On a more interesting note he can also play guitar hero drunk with his teeth.
12 Comments:
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Wow! This turned out great. I was curious on what you would do but it looks amazing. I really enjoy seeing the end results. I’m inspired by what you do and think you are amazing for helping other site achieve perfection. I would love to see what you could do to mine but I will have to wait for my turn I guess haha. If you have some ideas on you would like to share with me about mine or some opinions that would be great. I’m currently reworking it now so I was hoping to see what you would create (if I had won last weeks). Anyways, I don’t want to ramble on so as usual excellent work and I look forward to next weeks redesign.
Thanks Mike! Feel free to resubmit your design for next week’s redesign.
This is my web page: http://escuelarapsodia.com/escuela_rapsodia/Entrada.html. Greetings
ummmm great!
Looks better after the redesign, but why uni-tone?
The redesign is good, but the first thing I notice on the redesign is the photo of the couple and it doesn’t tell me what the site is all about. It could be a site only about romance, right? It is only after I search for it, I realize this is a motel site.
May be a picture or two of the rooms in the bottom area, preferably one taken with lighting will add a new tone to the redesign as well as clearly state what the site is about.
This is my website: http://www.hugofiorentini.com.ar
I´m a Computer Technician, and its also my personal space to write. I think its not clear the main objective, the site is not saying “I will fix your computer”.
The re-design is very nice, i really like the colours, purple is a great choice, i agree with Tejas, the picture of the couple seems romantic, the only give away about that the site is a about a motel is the text in the logo. But i can see why you would choose a picture of a couple because the logo picture is of two swans. Good design though Tom
Good redesign. Simple and clean. I do however think that the purple may be a little too much. When I think of a Motel/Hotel I think ocean, sand, tropical trees, things of that nature . But overall in 30 mins, very well done. I would like to resubmit http://www.flagco.com/ if possible. I think it really needs it. Keep up the good work.
cheers,
Thanks a lot for the redesign. I liked it. I would just won’t do it in unicolor (monochromatic).
Thanks a lot. How can I receive the PSD?
A Motel here in Brazil is a more love focused environment. That explains the two swans and the couple in the photo.
Thanks again.
Regards,
Alyson
I would like to send for appreciation and a possible redesign my other site: http://www.lamon-inc.com
Thanks again.
Alyson
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