I'm being a bit naughty...

[yorkie_chris]

She did me a drawing of a daytona several years ago, I get special rates you see [/smug]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

She did me a drawing of a daytona several years ago, I get special rates you see [/smug]

If thats what you call it

I would say just the font... but I think thats been covered lol.
Calibri is my personal favorite

Can you post a pic up of it chris?

If she draws bikes as good as animals then I may need one of my sprint come birthday time

You wanna get up to the bird of pray centre, I bet they'd commision a few pics to put in thier gift shop.

Just had a thought, eBay ?

Run a regular auction for 1p selling a piece of paper, but what's drawn on it will cost £xxx.
Loads of people do this, another channel to explore ?

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

yes its comic-sans thats the negative point - but then thats the font equivilent of rim-tape.

Ha! Excellent analogy. Whilst Comic Sans is utterly wrong for business presentations or documents (though that doesn't seem to stop some people), it doesn't seem quite so inappropriate for an art website.

Lovely drawings btw myc.

Hi,

I also really like your website. I like the huge emphasis on the drawings themselves which is after all what your site is about! Very easy to navigate also which is a huge plus.

As for fancy javascript, flash, etc... I wouldn't really bother. In most cases the way thay people use these detracts from the actual content or makes it more confusing. You could make all your pictures fly in from random directions but does that really add anything?!

I know technically you aren't supposed to do layouts using tables, but this is an old skool HTML tactic and as such has almost instant compatability across browsers. I have spent many a time puzzled once I have a website looking perfect in one browser only to find it looks wonky in a different browser because the syntax is subtly different.

Whether you love it or hate it internet explorer is stilll the most used web browser so it is worth checking your website every now and again using it.

I know fonts are a matter of personal preference, but Comic Sans has got to the stage where it is hated by some people. The problem is, as you have encountered, that every OS has their own fonts which are not normally universal. One way around this for things like the title and menu heaings is to use images instead.

When I view your links at the top of the page in a small window, because some have multiple words in then the text gets broken across many lines which spoils your table layout. The easiest way to avoid this is to replace the spaces between words with " " which is the code for a non-breaking space.

Hope this helps,
a1istair.

[Quiff Wichard]

its brill Maria..

lovely stuff.

very talented

The website looks great Maria, your average Joe looking for an artist isn't that interested in how "technically good" the website is.

Your drawings are great and I especially like "Poppy", it has depth and life.

I personally think you under-sell yourself in some of the text. It comes across as the learning novice, and please buy my drawings because I am getting better with every attempt. That will only work if the drawings are considerably cheaper than the competition. A novice product, at a novice price. You are better than that so sell yourself as the artist that you are. People who spend money commissioning a drawing want to be assured that the result will be something that they are happy with. Your tesimonials help with this to an extent, but your text needs to portray more confidence in your ability.

Another small suggestion, is have your sample drawings as links which open a larger image. Not large enough to copy and print, but large enough to view nicely on screen, maybe 800x600.

The best of luck!

Cheers Everyone, great advice and all being taken on board.

Originally Posted by 600+

Site looks great!

Soulkiss - how could Meg make their pics not right-click copyable (if that is a word)?

I would like to do this but no idea how.

Originally Posted by Owenski

You wanna get up to the bird of pray centre, I bet they'd commision a few pics to put in thier gift shop.

Yep a cracking idea, cheers Matt

Originally Posted by Stenno

A note on your website, I can't quite see all the typing on Commissions page as it seems to be restricted by the table it's in. Internet Explore version 6 was fine but ver 8 cut the ends off. You've probably set the width as a percentage of the screen size I imagine.

Thanks Stenno. I had a lot of fun with the commissions page, trying to get the image as a background! I don't know how I can modify the site to look ok in IE and other browsers too but I can keep fiddling I guess.