Carolina Heirlooms web site

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Monty

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Monty
It's great to see you've got it going! It showcases your work well... we've seen the pics before but your potential clients have not!

A couple of minor things I might suggest - put the main message that you want your customers to get from your web site right up front on the home page. That way, they can get an idea what they can expect to find on your site. Your blurb in the "about me" page would be great right up top on your home page, IMHO. Put a nice picture of yourself beside it, too (assuming you're not ugly! ;-) ).

You've chosen the Highboy to showcase on your home page:

Reproduction of Queen Ann style Highboy

This piece resides in my sanctuary (bedroom). I crafted this piece using traditional cabinetmakers joints and techniques. Casework features dovetailed top and bottom, half dovetail drawer dividers, both to ensure strength and longevity. All drawers are constructed with hand cut dovetails and feature cock beaded drawer fronts. Fans were hand carved on the front of the two smallest drawers ( top & bottom) The wood of choice in this piece is antique recycled pine salvaged from a tobacco barn. Finishing was done using custom mixed stain, sealer and lacquer.

I agree - I think it needs to be showcased! But most people don't know what a half-blind dovetail is, or a cock beaded drawer. Showing a couple of smaller close-up detail pics would explain features like this, and it will also show your customers the quality of your craftsmanship.

Of course, to us, your finished product speaks for itself!!!
 

Ken Couch

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Fabulous craftsmanship and timeless designs how can you go wrong?

Looks great to me!
Ken
 

DaveO

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DaveO
I say it looks great!, I would agree with Insomniac, and add that any personal touches you can add, like pictures of you, letters from satisfied customers, or pictures of them and their pieces would help people to feel like they are getting to know you and who your client base is. I think that is important in this very impersonal world of the internet. How hard was it to set up? I am thinking seriously about starting one to see if I can get any commissioned work. Dave:)
 

Big Mike

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Mike
Great looking site to show case great work. I would love to come and visit sometime as I periodically have work in Wilson. Would be a great learning experience for me to see this kind of beautiful work. Congratulations!:eusa_clap :icon_thum
 

gator

George
Corporate Member
Please consider that I know nothing about computers and less about creating web pages and the involved technicalities. When I first open your page it is larger than the screen (width). For me, whenever I hit a website where this is the case I get a turnoff. I don't mind scrolling down but I hate scrolling down AND across. Is there some way that you could make it fit in the normal width of a monitor (screen, format, whatever the proper word is)?


The work is beautiful. I get to Wilson often and may be calling you to see about a visit. My son's family lives not far from the big Walmart shopping center.

George
 

SteveColes

Steve
Corporate Member
gator said:
When I first open your page it is larger than the screen (width). .......
Is there some way that you could make it fit in the normal width of a monitor (screen, format, whatever the proper word is)?

George, what is your screen width??
 

gator

George
Corporate Member
About 12" :lol: Yeh, I know you mean in pixels or whatever. I have no idea. Where do I look to find out. (Told you all before, I'm a computer ingoramous).

Edit: I get about the left 3/4th of the site. What I compare with is that on the regular NCWW site I get full screen (no scroll required) as well as all the other forums, all websites for manufacturers and suppliers and 95% of all other websites I happen to visit.


George
 
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Jay

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Jay
mshel

some good comments about the technical side of the web site. I too think it would be a good idea to put a picture of your mug in there and some close ups of the detail work to include the hand carved fans. The site should definitely sell your work though it looks good.
 

SteveColes

Steve
Corporate Member
DaveO said:
I say it looks great!, I would agree with Insomniac, and add that any personal touches you can add, like pictures of you, letters from satisfied customers, or pictures of them and their pieces would help people to feel like they are getting to know you and who your client base is. :)

Well, I'm going to have to disagree with part of what Dave said. Stay away from a lot of personal touches. The only thing you should add is the customer testimonials. One picture of yourself with a piece of work would be ok, maybe even good.

Your write up on the Highboy is right on. I think your using the terminology is good and you should do that with every picture in the slideshow. But, as insomniac implied there should be close ups of the major details for most pieces.

Finally, re-take your pictures, I know you know that, but it bears repeating. They need better framing with less distracting backgrounds.
 

cloudancer

New User
Greg Dake
I'd put a picture of yourself with something you built on the about me page. Generally you don't want a page with just text on it as people lose interest way too fast. You might also want a page about the quality of your work with close ups of details explaining what different things (like dove-tails) are and a paragraph on each of thier benifits (i.e. very strong, pleasing to the eye and historicly acurate).

Take a look at http://www.greycatdesigns.com/ (my ex-wife's site) for ideas on picture framing and what is acceptable in the background, etc. As for a reference on the sites success, her business started out at about the same level as where you are now and is now very successful on a national bassis (She's been full time for years).
 

Monty

New User
Monty
You're using a table in your design - I like that design principle. When I use tables, I specify what size I want one of my columns to be, then I let the other column resize to fit the screen - just use a "*" instead of specifying the width.

Here: this is the specific code I would change:

First of all, the main table is WAY too wide (>5k pixels), that's the first thing to change:

<table width="*" id="table1" height="800" .....


Next, each cell in your table also has the width hard-coded, and some are WAY too wide... change them to look like this:

<td colspan="2" align="center" width="*">
I think that would fix your problems.

In general, with tables I usually use them to make a navigation menu or whatever along the top and on the left side. I want to specify EXACTLY how big I want these two cells (exact height for the top cell, width = "*", exact width for the left cell, height = "*"), so it never changes and you never see the text look jumbled up. The remaining cell is where the main content of the site goes - it's width should always be "*", so it automatically resizes to fit the viewer's screen width.

Hope this helps!
 

Joe Scharle

New User
Joe
Beautiful work Mike!
My only critique item would be the photo presentation.

evolved into a fulltime business

as part of your mission statement implies that this site is to be considered an extension of your catalog. Work as nice as yours needs to be spotlighted and shown 'magazine' style. A lot of extra effort, but I feel that you would be pleased with the outcome.

Good luck,
Joe
 

Jonz

New User
Chris Jones
There is no consistent way around screen size issues because everyone has different monitors on different settings.

The best way around it is to decide on a minimum resolution that you will support, lets say 800x600, or 1024x768. Once you choose one, make sure every page looks ok in that resolution (so that your lowest rez user, 800x600, will not have the horizontal scroll bar), then I would normally use a table for the overall page, and set the width to 100%, or close to it. That way it will stretch to fit even the highest rez users, but will still work with the lower ones. Pages optimized for low res can look a little sparse when stretched to 1280 or so, mind you, but it does distribute on the page.

You can also just pick a width, it used to be fairly standard to design in approx 800 pixels wide, and set your main table for that. It would fill the screen on the lower end, and higher rez would just show empty background one each side (if you center).

If this is sounds confusing, think of it this way. Imagine a piece of dowel about 30" long and holding it out in front of you horizontally with both hands. Now imagine, while holding it out with both hands, walking through about 1000 doorways. There are some standards, and most of the time that dowel would fit fairly well, but there would be times when it would be too small, and others when it would too large.
 
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