String Quartet website and poster

[pchidell]

I recently joined a string quartet (music being my main interest) and was handed a half-complete website, which I have now slightly improved (I hope). I'm using Vistaprint's website designer, which is good in a few ways but also frustrating in many others (for example, the whole 'theme' is unchangeable). All I really want is is an easy-to-navigate and clean site.

The website address is www.fowlerquartet.com and any comments/criticism will be appreciated.

Also, I've designed a poster (and I'm not sure which section of the forum it should go in for critique) so here it is:

I'm by no means a pro website or poster designer (and the quartet is not my main source of income - only a hobby), but I'd really appreciate some comments. Thanks!

 

[Catdaddy]

You got your easy-to-navigate and clean site - looks fine by me. Maybe (considering it's for classical music) the theme is a little modern, but by the sounds of it, if you wanted to change it, that shouldn't pose any problems.

Two or three things missing, if you're using it to obtain bookings - testimonials (assuming you have some), a few sample mp3's for potential clients to hear, and maybe a gallery page?

As for the poster - I love the colour you got on the violin, although it looks a little on the soft side (particularly at the top of the image) and I think you could probably do with a narrower aperture to give you a greater depth of field, so that the back of the body as sharp as the front. That's just my opinion, though...

 

[pchidell]

Thanks for your reply!

I agree with you about the theme (and there are a couple of more suitable ones available from Vistaprint) - what's stopping me from changing it is that 500 business cards have already been ordered and they use the current theme. But I'll definitely take that into consideration if and when I can!

I also completely agree about the other things we need on the site. I've never thought to ask past clients for testimonials (which is stupid of me) but I'll build that up eventually.

I know what you mean about the poster. I used an aperture of f1.8 because I didn't want the music behind the violin to stand out too much (although even that could perhaps have been a little clearer). I'd have been tempted to give it another go, but when I actually print the poster out, its barely noticeable, so I might leave that one!

Thanks again!

 

[petersmart]

Your site felt slightly odd to me because of the lack of a background at the top.

I felt it should have background at the top as well as the sides.

It also had a number of markup errors which could cause problems in various browsers and text editors.

.

 

[pchidell]

Thanks for your comment!

As I say, I'm not quite sure how I'd change the background so as to be at the top as well... I get more frustrated by the day with the Vistaprint site editor, because so much is uneditable!

I'm not sure what you mean by markup problems? (I don't really know much at all about website building.)