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Week 11: Travel Costa Rica
Travel Costa Rica is unsurprisingly a travel website offering hotels, tours and more in the region of Costa Rica:
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:
- Bright, lively colorscheme
- All crucial content is featured
- Plenty of relevant imagery, giving the site a clear theme
WEAKNESSES:
- The website overwhelmed by the amount of content, there is simply too much content on the homepage
- The website feels unorganized, and there is too much scrolling
- There is no logo, clear menu and a second menu clashes with the main menu.
My Redesign
As always, I was limited by the 30 minute time-frame, but I tried to improve upon several of Travel Costa Rica’s features, adding a few design flourishes and a clearer layout that promoted content over wasted space:
WHAT I TRIED TO DO:
- Create a nicely designed logo, and clearer menu area
- Maintain the bright color scheme, giving a feeling of summer and vacations
- Reducing the amount of content DRASTICALLY, this helps draw people further into the site in order to discover more information.
- Used a combination of a coherent color scheme and nicely integrated photos to create a consistent design theme.
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!
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.
16 Comments:
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What a great idea!
The Costa Rica Tours website redesign looks great.
I’d love to have my site redesigned by you guys.
Thank you so much!, i would show this to my dad, so he can think about this =) i know he´s going to like it, thanks!
if i would like to download the psd, how can i do it? is there any way to do that?
thanks! i loved it!
Another fantastic redesign job. ou have an excellent eye for getting across the essence of a website.
I’d love to re-nominate my site http://www.blushingtoms.com for a 30 minute redesign, I’ve just started doing web design and would love the opportunity to get some inspiration and real tips from an expert like youself.
Thanks
Sara
Wow! amazing work… again!
Thanks so much for the kind words everyone! I had a lot of fun with this redesign, although admittedly I ran out of time with it.
Nitos: I’m afraid I only email the .psd to the site owner, rather than making it publicly available.
It’s fun to watch the before and after that you do with a site, great idea!! I would love to have you consider a redesign on my site http://www.manuelantoniorentalhomes.com. I did this myself in a few hours with absolutely no experience, and although I am coming up well on search engines, I have no doubt in 30 minutes you could work wonders for my site! Pick me….please, please, please!! Pura vida! K
thank you tom,
i would check my dad email.
Oh excellent job!
The website redesign looks great.
I’d love to have my site redesigned(www.pnsecurity.com) by you guys i did this myself in a few hours with absolutely no experience.
please plz redesign my site i wl thankful to you
I like your redesign–the site is more inviting and less overwhelming. I’m also struggling with a redesign/expansion of my web site (http://www/livingabroadincostarica.com). I’d love to get your keen, 30-minute eye on my current site.
The original site is built in Dreamweaver, with the associated blog in WordPress. One option I’m considering is finding a WordPress theme that would allow me to migrate the site to WP and also better integrate the blog contents into the main site. I’ll be adding a more extensive photo gallery, along with suggested itineraries. I also need room for podcasts, video, and a few ads. I mention WordPress since it limits the design and navigation options somewhat, but I’m also very open to design suggestions that may or may not be possible to execute in WordPress. Thanks!
[...] 30 Minute Redesign: Travel Costa Rica [...]
Another great redesign and an improvement compared to the original. I always look forward to seeing new redesigns each week and will have to look at this weeks one. Keep up the great work and can’t wait to see your next redesign.
wow…. great job Tom…. very cool…
Hi tom, I never received the psd, I dont know if your able to give the psd to the webmaster, if you can do that, that would be awesome.
Thank you so much!
perfect