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Many of you voted in the poll deciding which site would get redesigned today. As you may have picked up on from the comments to the poll post, there was some doubt over the true winner. Whilst DoKall showed the most votes, I have a few reasons for choosing The Capital Singers of Trenton for this weeks redesign:
So at the end of the day yes, it is my decision which site gets redesigned. Although I’m sure you’ll agree that in this case the right site is getting the redesign, as none of us like spammers.
The Capital Singers of Trenton are a semi-professional singing chorus, aiming to enrich New Jersey. You can view their current website below:
The Capital Singers of Trenton.
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:
WEAKNESSES:
As always, I was limited by the 30 minute time-frame, perhaps more than last week as I had to try and ‘undo’ a lot of the negative points of the original design. However, I managed to come up with the following design:
WHAT I TRIED TO DO:
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.
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:
So please, leave a comment today for a chance to have your website redesigned next week!
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.
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Hi Tom, I’m so happy that you decided to redesign the Capital Singers of Trenton site!! You’ve made a HUGE improvement in 30 minutes, congratulations! It’s much friendlier now, and the information is SO much more organized! This is a fantastic project — I can’t wait to see the next redesign
Thanks so much Manda, I appreciate the kind words
. I gotta say I’m really enjoying this weekly post so far!
Hi Tom! nice job! really like you site… you know…I’ve been thinking… of course, i don’t mean to be rude or anything… i just want to know what do you think about this… making this redesigns for *free, MAY make people think that design should be for free or cheap at least, or something like that, then they may not value all the work and knowledge behind a FAST job, they usually say “hooo c’on, it took you just 5 min. you cant charge me that much!” or “what?! i know some one that can do the same job for a much lower price”…etc…that kind of ideas, that kind of thinking…lol , they almost think we have a “magic button” that do all the work…well…anyways… let me know what you think, i’ll apreciate your comment, thxs in advance
I FORGOT SOMETHING! haha, i had a comment about the re-design, i see they use a prominent “donate” button, up in the side bar, and on the footer, i thought that was a important’ thing they want to promote on their site…or maybe not? :S….no more money for you guys!
jk
Wow, you got some mad skills to be pulling that kind of work off in only 30 minutes. very impressive. Check out my site and let me know what you think. I spend my time improving my photography skills, rather than my web design skills, so I had to stick with a silly iweb template. its atrocious.
@Vector
I think there’s a considerable difference between knocking up a PSD design on your own terms – as is usually the case with these re-designs – than having to deal with a client’s inputs and opinions about why a button should be bigger, or why there are no animated GIF flames over the contact bar, never mind turning it all into a fully functional website. That’s the sort of stuff that takes time and adds to the client’s bill, but if you genuinely only put 5 minutes into your design, it’s obviously a bit dodgy to charge for a day’s work.
Victor: I definitely don’t want anyone to think that design should be ‘free’, as designers work hard. The point of these posts is just to show people how to improve their designs. A full project would take far longer. This is not a complete design, I’d spend a lot more time making small details/improvements and going through revisions. Additionally you need to consider subpages, coding etc etc… That being said, I do work very fast compared to a lot of designers I know
. Personally I think that if your design is really good and does the job well, then it’s worth the money, regardless of the time spent creating it.
Thanks for pointing out the donate button btw, that would have been a good addition!
Josh: Thanks a lot
. I’ll consider your site for next weeks redesign!
Cletus: Good points, although I can’t say I’d be going along with the client if they started calling for GIF flames lol. Dealing with clients is half the battle though, as after all it’s their website not yours.
Well, the best reason I have is that in comparison to the free theme I installed three months ago and what it looks like now after some modifications, I think a whole lot more could be done.
Grat work Tom! I really like the colours you used for this. The layout is good as well, and for 30 minutes it’s just delicous.
Keep on that good working
This now looks much better then the original design, i like the break down pin pointing where the site lacks and how you improved on the site, What happens after you created the site mock up?
It is a great job! site looks very sharp and information presented in organized way…
Very impressive work. I have to say that I am impressed in what you can design in so little time.
I would be curious to see what you would do with a Hockey fan site (basically rumors and everything that got to do with the Montreal Canadiens) that I visit every day.
http://www.vestiaire.ca/
Again… freaking fast and awesome !
The Capital Singers of Trenton was really the best choice ( despite the fact I was one of the participants in the poll ).
Keep the good word!
Tom … thank you for taking time out to give The Capital Singers a new look! 30 minutes can really make a difference! You gave this non-profit choir organization a wonderful new visual “voice”. It’s a shame to read the negative comments from the polling section in response to the current site. Some people don’t realize that some sites are pulled together with whatever skill, talent and software is at their fingertips … and all from volunteers — just to get the info out there! AND thanks to you, you gave them something to strive towards with wonderful constructive criticism — strengths and weaknesses — for evaluation. THAT is priceless!
Tom:
I REALLY like the look of the Capital Singers 30 minute make over – It’s fresher, interesting and visually inspiring. As a member of the Board and the chorus, I am pleased that our site was submitted and selected. I hope we can implement many of your desgin suggestions!
Thank you for doing this. I am the creator and webmaster for the Capital Singers site. I had very limited time so basically I used a MS FrontPage Template to start with and modified a “very” little from there. I like your comments and ideas and will make the changes as much as possible. Ironically, I made some changes just yesterday, not knowing this review was happening, and removed some of the wasted space at the top and added some columns for content. I agree we were wasting the precious 1st look at the site with “Welcome” and other redundant information. I also plan to move to Dreamweaver very soon, which will give me more flexibility. As for the voice clip, the main problem has been copyright laws for many of the songs we have recorded. You need permission for most things unless they are in the public domain and that is not always obvious. The biggest challenge for me is “TIME” and energy. Never enough time and energy in the day. Thank you again for your talented work.
Thanks for your make over Tom! The new page looks great and is very stylish. As another member of the Board and of the associated chorus, the Trenton Community Singers, I really appreciate your efforts. Your talent is obvious! A sincere thanks to Mare too for submitting our site for consideration.
Thanks for the wonderful comments everyone!
Dominic: I’ll be sure to include that site in this weeks poll. Hardly any suggestions for sites this week, so it’s got a good chance of getting the redesign!
Mare: Thanks! It was a pleasure to redesign, and I’m really glad it’s gone down well.
Marita: Thanks so much. I’ll be sure to check back and see how the site progresses.
Nancy Paolini: My pleasure
. I just took a look at the site and it’s great to see some improvements have been made already. It was definitely a good call to bring up some of the vital information about events etc… As a short term improvement I would implement a slogan-like sentence beneath the site’s title just saying what the group do and where you guys are located.
Nancy L: Thankyou
. Best of luck with what you guys are doing, I appreciate all of the support with the redesign!
Woah…that looks really professionally done. Great job dude! You’ve definitely given a 21st Century look to the 19th Century looking site!
Great timing Thats a neat job Tom Cheers!!!