Professional designs

[Albino]

hey guys,

recently, ive been looking at my designs, and thinking they are bad

I don't know If I am being to harsh on myself, but I feel there is something missing to make them look professional. Ive been looking at loads of professional sites, and tryeing to find what I am doing wrong, but I can't put my finger on it.

I think it is the colours I use, maybe I don't look for good colours long enough. maybe I am too "close" to my designs, and need to take a step back and look at them with fresh eyes, I don't know.

these two starts of designs :


http://www.munkydesigns.co.uk/index_lime.gif
http://www.munkydesigns.co.uk/index_green.gif

i mean, to be fair, they did only take me 15 minutes, and maybe I am being to hard on myself, but they just don't look right. lack of content? or just rubbish.

http://www.munkydesigns.co.uk
http://www.strikeoutpizza.com

they are some older designs I have done.

am I on my way, or should I just give up?

ps. sorry for the depressive post lol

 

[Hitch]

To be honest, as soon as i saw the file name in this post, "lime", "green"...i knew what it was going to be like.

You should really get away from bold, and highly saturated colours.
The dark green you have used, can be ok, for small images, headings/links, but for no more.

Try to use subtle colours, and make your headers smaller.

Another thing i think is what makes, nearly any site look bad, is gradients.
They also need to be subtle.

They look good when the same colour, just a bit different in shades, no dark green to white.

You should try getting away from gradients, and greens all together.
Then, maybe try them again, after you have tried making a subtle design. :tu:

Just my thoughts and opinions.

Adrian

 

[Albino]

hey hitch

cheers for the great response! I think im getting too hung up on this "web2.0" craze, as quite a few clients want it doing. to be honest I hate designing it, so that probably doesn't help haha.

cheers so far!