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PSDFan Extra
30 Minute Redesigns Every Saturday!
I’m very excited to announce the launch of a new weekly post series at PSDFAN – 30 Minute Redesign Saturdays.
The idea is very simple, each week I redesign a visitors website in 30 minutes. I then observe what I tried to achieve with the redesign, and identify problems with their original website.
Why 30 Minutes?
Good question! I chose to spend 30 minutes on each week’s redesign in order to prove that you don’t need weeks of labour and an expensive design team to improve your websites’ design! Obviously with more time I could make the redesign considerably better. However, these posts show that with just 30 minutes of your time spent identifying problems with your current website, and spent mocking up a new design, you’re well on your way to providing your visitors with a better user experience.
Week 1: Rich Gates
Rich Gates provides professional voice overs for a living. You can view his current site below:
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:
- Clean design (whoever designed this originally does have skills)
- Readable content, bold colors
- Easy to Navigate
- Concise Content
- Interactive Demo Player useful for Potential Clients
WEAKNESSES:
- Visually you can’t tell what the site is about. There are no visual cues promoting the ‘theme’ of the site.
- The content whilst concise has no visual hierarchy. All text is roughly the same size, so your eye doesn’t really get ‘grabbed’.
- There is a distinct lack of images, nothing is hugely wrong, yet nothing is particularly interesting.
- There are no factors really drawing you further into the site. You need some ‘call to action’ buttons!
My Redesign
As mentioned, I could do a hell of a lot more with more than 30 minutes, but off the top of my head I produced the following design.
WHAT I TRIED TO DO:
- Add a logo for some personal branding. I tried to create a set of lips from music equalizer bars. This could be done better with more time, but the basic idea is there.
- I created a more structured layout, framing the content better and drawing the visitors eye down the page.
- I created a large, attention grabbing headline, instantly showing what Rich does.
- I created a simple image montage, visually depicting what kind of industry Rich is involved in. This also ‘jazzes up’ the page a little.
- I created more of a textual hierarchy. Using larger headlines to identify areas of content and prompt the visitor to scan content more.
Comparing the 2 Designs:
Here is a quick comparison between Rich’s 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!
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.
25 Comments:
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Well done Tom. I really like some of the ideas you put forth in the redesign.
genious! great redesign work! 30 min? man this will most certainly enter on may to-do list on a daily basis. great observations and decisions.
I like the idea behind the post. As far as how you laid out the new design, everything is much better placed than originally. Though, you could have just kept the current design he uses and then added on from there. I’m not a big fan of the new color scheme, but feel if you would have just used the original and went from there it could have turned out a little better. Other than that, very creative idea for a post, will be checking back to see more!
Rich: Thanks again, it was a really fun site to work on
. I’ve gone ahead and emailed you the .psd for the design!
Nuno: Thanks so much! Yeah, it was a push to get it all done in 30 minutes. It’s really a great way to brush up on your design skills though.
Matthew: Thanks, I’m glad you liked the post. I agree about the colorscheme. Normally I would play around with that more, but I ran out of time, and wanted to stick to my goal of 30 minutes exactly. I hope that you’ll check back next week.
Hallo together, just saw this post and think it’s an amazing offer by psdfan. And that’s also the reason I’m writing this comment right now, because I’d also like to have my page redesigned.
Probablly first some facts about my site:
http://web-area.ch/
My site’s called: Web-Area | Professionelle Webauftritte (Professional Webpages) and is my little portfolio and working site. It’s more or less a hobby I have for about 4 years now.
Most of time I’m working with the CMS ilch.de and am developping Free Templates for it.
I know, as a designer I should be able to make my site my self. But my problem is, I’m not so good and the biggest problem is how to layout the content area. I really like these colourfull and “big written” sites just like here or there with nice comic looking vector icons, but do to one like this…I’m just not able.
What I’m hoping with a redesign of my page is that it comes in a more professional and creative look, so visitors really get pleasured during stage.
I hope you got a little impression of my situation and how I am working and I hope to win this “battle”
Thanks a lot!
Michel
That’s a really awesome concept.
It’s great to see what a different mindset and direction people can come up with.
30 minutes is really fast and you have to wonder what sort of inspiration one can pick up but I think the limited time also lets them see it right away and work off of the first impression – which is usually the best.
Hi Tom .. really nice concept . I would like to have a redesign to my blog : http://savedelete.com – its a tech related blog. Right now its pretty basic and i have no logo idea to go with the name.. hope u will consider me in your next week redesign Saturday
30 min is more than fast for a nice redesign like this.
Great Job!
Wow 30 minutes! Great work with you turning around that level of quality in that amount of time, you would do well with the crowd-sourcing solutions!
–
Thanks and Regards
Noel for Nopun.com
a graphic design studio
Hi Tom, what a fantastic idea and what an impressive first example. Well done!
I’d love you to consider my site http://www.hot-yoga.net, which is a hobby site that I have created to give something back to the hot yoga community. It is long in need of
some design expertise and care!
Many thanks for your consideration and keep up the good work. PSDfan is one of my favorite sites!
John.
Nice work Tom. This is a great idea for blog posts as well. I like how you’re featuring them on Saturdays too – focusing on the design related content during the week, yet still giving your readers value during the weekend. Nice touch!
Nice redesign. Can you suggest a redesign for https://www.dokall.com/app/ please.
Awsome idea, awsome redesign, you’re great man!
That’s impressive Tom, 30 min makeover is a good idea for a blog, have you done the redesign using photoshop? definitely will be looking forward for the next re-design. Cheers Tom
Awesome Tom, that was absofreakinglutely fast!!! Have a look at http://www.citium.com.br for your next redesign.
Excellent work!
Cool stuff! Here’s a not-for-profit choir site that my daughter’s sings/involved with and could use some help in 30 minutes. http://www.capitalsingers.org I designed their logo and someone else in the choir “volunteered” the website work. Work your magic!
Oh, so this is what you were tweeting about for site redesigns? Looks like this will be a very cool series..I think the redesign is better for visually communicating this guy’s job as a vocal talent..nice job..
Michel: Thanks for commenting. I had a look at your site and I’ll definitely consider it for next weeks post. I can see some definite areas for improvement.
Muxx: I agree, 30 minutes is great because it forces you to identify the key issues and address them right away.
Jaspal: I’ll definitely consider you for next week, I got a few ideas from looking at your design earlier today.
Kai/Noel: Thanks!
It was a struggle to get it done in the time but it was a fun project.
John: Thanks for all the support. You’re sites a definite contender for next week!
Mike: Yep, that was the idea! Plus I’m getting a little tired of all the roundup posts out there. I figured it was time to try something different and really take a close look at design techniques applied to real websites.
Gopi: I’ll consider you for next week, yours would be an interesting design to work with.
Stelian: Thanks a lot!
Vim: Thanks mate. Yep, all done in Photoshop.
Filipe: Heh, thankyou
. Your design is pretty nice actually, but I can see room to improve it.
Mare: Wow, it could certainly use a facelift. Consider it in the running!
Melody: Yep, I was requesting a few potential sites for my first post. I’m glad you liked the redesign.
EVERYONE: Thanks for liking this new post series so much. I’m considering letting you guys vote on all of the submissions for next week, and choosing a final design for me to redesign. What do you think?
Hey Tom,
Thanks a lot! I’m very proud to get tipps from you
For the reason there are so much which want to have a redesign I think a poll is a good idea right there.
hey thanks for the ideas and the walk through of the redesign.
i manage and design 3 family business websites. none of them are very good. i would love to see what you could come up with, or just get some comments from you.
emiliolaw.com –> my first web design
http://ddphotodesign.blogspot.com/ –> my personal website
djspizza.com –> my newest design
[...] 30 Minute Redesign: Rich Gates [...]
This is a great idea for a series Tom.
I look forward to seeing the rest of the weeks.
I just hope potential clients do see these and say, “well it only takes 30 minutes why are you charging me so much?”
hehe
Great idea for weekly posts Tom, The redesign of this Rich Gates is a vast improvement on the original.
Keep up the good work.
Really amazing stuff and inspiriting. It reminds me of the site that did Photoshop Tennis.
really interesting stuff keep up the good work