Comments and criticism welcome, please

[Bluie]

Hello


I wondered if anyone would care to pass any comments on these two endeavours? One of them will form the basis of the 'banner' on a (demo) Chinese restaurant Web page - with many thanks to ibclare for providing the basis of the idea of the panda/logo.


These are my first attempts, and it doesn't matter if you rip them apart: colour scheme; type-size; panda size and placement; background colour and texture, etc.


I intend to place two small colour images, one of a Chinese chef in the kitchen, and another of a dish of chop-suey or something colourful, in the middle (to the right of the bear).


My own concern is that the panda looks a little imprisoned by the Chinese and English texts - not sure if anyone agrees?. On the other hand, I need to keep the two texts together - one is a translation of the other. Another preoccupation is what Web page background colour would go with that shade of green - as I indicate, it doesn't need to be green.


I am open to all ideas and criticism!


Many thanks.

 

[dberna]

Well, you could try and place the Chinese script all the way to the left, moving the panda and English script a bit to the center.

One criticism of the current image you created is the fact that the panda's shoulder is cut off by the Chinese script. Other than that, i like it!

 

[Bluie]

Many thanks, dberna, for your reply and comments. I have actually changed it now: http://www.bayingwolf.com/China/index.html Bluie

 

[ibclare]

IMO, you need more white space. Everything should move over from the margins. The characters/text should all be smaller. The panda could be a bit smaller as well, without compromising its impact.

I am concerned about adding any more imagery to the page without making it too busy, especially since you also have an active image for the BG. If you could make a link using perhaps more Chinese characters, you could link to a page for the colorful chef and dish and have the panda/text image repeated as a smaller icon, maybe even in a box with stroke around it. Just an idea.

If you still want to put it all on the same page as you are considering now, it will be important to consider how to do that without creating a competition for the eye between strong left side imagery and equally eye-catching imagery in the space to the right. I would try converting the entire chef/dish image to black and white, then bring back the color in part of the dish. Basically though, I just don't think any more imagery will work without looking busy and confusing.

 

[Bluie]

Hello ibclare
Thanks again for your post.
I think your original panda occupied something like a quarter of a Web page and I felt a bit guilty reducing him to the size that
I have! Most Chinese restaurants I know are called something like the Great Wall or the Nine Dragons, so I wanted him to stand
out a bit as a 'selling point' - besides which, most people probably find him a loveable animal (maybe that's just me).
On the other hand, the panda is not advertising - at least not here - an endangered species or an ecological trip to China, so
I didn't want him to be the 'focal point' of the page. It is supposed to be an advertisement for a restaurant, which is why I
included the chef but, yes, I think I will reduce the size of that image or colourise it in some way.
The page should look less hectic when I have removed the links at the bottom of the left column and space the text out a bit, and
I could, likewise, use two small images (if that) instead of four in the right column and, again, space things out a bit.
Still some work to do on it!
Many thanks again for your positive contribution.

 

[ibclare]

Thanks for the feedback Bluie. I will be interested to see what you come up with. I have an idea for how to keep the images from competing with each other but I'd like to see your design first. Of course. It's not the presence of links that worries me. It is the use of 3 sets of differing images that I think will pose a problem. Let's see how it all works when you have it designed.

 

[Bluie]

I'll post back hopefully soon!Blueie

 

[inkpad.t]

Just took a look at the site on your link, I don't know what it is but it just looks a bit dull, I personally would have incorporated some red color in there some how, doesn't have to be bright hit you in the face red but would found a way to get some in there .

When it comes to using green it can be difficult, its one of those colors that people tend to dislike, don't know why some just do, i know you can say that about any color but green seems to hit the spot more with people unless its related to some sort of eco site.

I would tone down to green and incorporate some cream colors in there, light to medium pastel colors, Again the shoulder on the panda is missing, My be its me but i think the typography is off also.

Just my thoughts.

I did a site for green tea for some one, if i can find the images i will post them for you, the colors were of course shades of green and cream. i can not post all the images as they are now copy right to that person, however i know them and i'm sure they wont mind me posting some pics, just to give you some idea of green colors etc.

By the way your navigation at the top is to much at the top and a to big a gap between the text and the header graphic.

 

[Bluie]

Hello inkpad.t Thanks for your post. I know what you mean about green and I could experiment with shades of light yellow, for instance, and also see what a hint of red would do for it. I have experimented before with a dark-brown oak background and it looked fine to me, but yes, that would be great if you could root out any photos - thanks. I have other images of pandas, now, so I'll take a look at them, but it's important the panda is eating to illustrate the restaurant's name. I was inclined to go for a green background mainly to support the bamboo brushes, but maybe the page looks too 'environmental'? I am happy to experiment with other fonts other than the 'Chop Suey' font I have. What holds me back a little, is that if I were to do say an English tea-shop site in Shakespeare country I might be inclined to call it 'Ye Olde English Tea Shope' and use an Old English font - bold black on white - partly because that's what people expect and like. You are kind of caught between customers' expectations and preferences on the one hand, and experimentation on the other! Thanks again!

 

[inkpad.t]

Unfortunately the full green tea site i made for some one would't let me post the original images, However i still have some of the images i started off with before we agreed the final site images.

Here is only remaining images i have.



The different shades of green throughout break up what would be a dull green otherwise, Not every ones cup of tea but just to give you some idea.

No red as this is not a restaurant design.

 

[inkpad.t]

The images are slight blur as they are very low resolution.

 

[inkpad.t]

sorry found higher res images.

 

[Bluie]

Very many thanks for the images. Yes, I see what you mean about a green variation breaking up what would otherwise be a bit plain. Kind of spices your graphics up. Likewise with your cream background - which takes up about 65% of the image. You've used the Shanghai font (or a variation of it), yet your images don't seem 'top heavy' with its use. I'll work on a couple of other possibilities and post back, hopefully before the summer :mrgreen:. Thanks again!

 

[inkpad.t]

One thing i do not bad ( not great by any means ) is make people i know a mini site, i get the images and make a mock up of it, if there happy with it i then purchase the image so they have them on the site.

I know this is nothing to do with what you are doing and the sites i attempt to create on the finish product are to give impact, but thought you might like an idea of colors and how i use them. Like i said, i only do this by request. so images i post here have not been sold or given to any one they were just mock ups, please do not rip anything from them, not that you would its for all that view. this is just to give you any ideas or color that you might like.

 

[Bluie]

Hello inkpad.t
No, I would never suggest to anyone that yours - or anyone else's images - were mine when they weren't, so no need to worry
about that.
In my IT role in a university, I constantly disconnected students from the network for downloading music (not one or two
tracks, but thousands of albums) using P2P programs. There is not only the legal copyright issue, but there is the kind of moral
recognition that if you enjoy music you either create your own, or pay others for what they have created.
It's a similar kind of thing, isn't it, with art, images, written texts, and so on. So, I understand perfectly what you mean. Thanks again for posting your work.
I can see that you like lots of contrasts and bright colours to make an impact. There is a lightness or playfulness about how you use them. I think extremely impressive. Your style reminds me of the colours, shapes, and presentation used in toy advertising such as this: http://www.hornby.com/
Sorry for my rambling!

 

[Bluie]

Hello

Here are my latest two efforts.

For various reasons, there is a problemm with the Chinese font (I have it installed in Photoshop but I am unsure which English
letter on my 26-letter keyboard corresponds to the relevant Chinese symbol, all 2000 of them!), so I have had to copy and
paste from various sources.

I am not sure if you think either of these two images are better or worse than the one I originally posted! I know they could
all be less traditional and I am willing to experiment with something more adventurous, but I just wanted to put this 'look'
to bed before embarking on such a project.

inkpad.t made a point that my green Web page background (link previously posted) could be livilier. The Web page background,
incidentally, is one single image that is repeated with the aid of CSS.

These two new banner images should provide a contrast to such a lighter, more lively background when I do it though, perhaps, these two images are too dark or stark!

Ibclare, I haven't got around to deciding about our Chinese chef, yet, but would welcome whatever suggestions you may have.

Thank you again.

Blue





Original image:

 

[Paul]

Didn't we have something very similar to this last year?

 

[Bluie]

I'm not sure. Not from me, anyway. I wasn't here last year!