Opinion on my landing page…

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Paul Del Vecchio] “However, the site design on the main page might be questionable as well… Any opinions on the main page (should I have stuck with that look)?”

No. Spend the $50 or $60 to get a decent looking template to start from and don’t clutter it up. Try to work within the constraints of the design and keep it as clean as possible.

Here are a bunch of website templates that you can see at…

https://www.templatemonster.com/website-templates.php

While they are far from a perfect solution, as I said in another post: they are cheap, they can be deployed in far less time than doing everything from scratch and in doing so you can think about what you like and how you want to change things later in an original design.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
Join the COW’s LinkedIn Group

Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

Would you like to be in Creative COW Magazine with your story or contribution? Contact me.

Do you have your complimentary subscription to Creative COW Magazine yet?

[Ryan Hamilton]

G’day Paul,

Like some of the other responses, you really need to trim down the content. Shorten it to what you think and then half that again. People scan webpages and want info quick, and then if they like want they see want contact info quick and easy too. In lots of areas it’s obvious you are trying to over embellish things way to much. Don’t have a staff page with nothing on it. I know you have something there literally, but basically unless your gonna show an image of Jimmy the grip, joe the sound, mike the camera man, jill the AD1, jane the this and back them all up with real credentials don’t have anything at all. To me it looks empty and unprofessional. You talk about experience and professionals but it doesn’t reflect in the work, sorry to say dude. Mixed up design pages look vary amateur too. I’m on a mac and 90% of your quicktimes didn’t work for me. I like many wont go get a plug-in to view your work. Not sure how you compressed your video and at what format. Your intro reel I could tell was a straight out of the box mimick of Andrew Kramer’s teasers. Looks like you got the Designer Snd FX and his animated ornaments a copied his teaser style outright. It totally doesn’t fit what you need to accomplish here. Your reel seems like some second rate attempt at being some blockbuster fantasy adventure trailer. Had you had the low voice over explaining your stuff I would have fell out my chair pissing my self. Shorter reels with A+ only top notch bits of your work are stronger than longer ones. somethings may be good, but as soon as I see something half ass I think you’re skill level is not as good anymore. Potential clients will see this as well. Some serious criticism here, and with the other posts as well, that you need to suck up and accept. Hire a designer for your website are my final thoughts.

[Paul Del vecchio]

Okay. I have a better idea of what I have to do.

Ryan, you said you couldn’t view the Quicktime files. Not sure why this is… They’re all encoded in h264.

I’m going to have to look into it.

I guess that’s what happens when you make the site yourself…. I’ll get rid of this crap and hire someone as soon as I get the money.

Thanks guys!

Paul Del Vecchio – Director
http://www.triple-e-productions.net

[Randy Wheeler]

Looks like you made some major(?) changes already since your initial post or I’m getting more delusional with age. Here is a site to learn from that I like:

https://www.whiteiron.tv/demo/

Randy

[Paul Del vecchio]

Yeah I made some MAJOR changes. Scrapped the old “BANK” website and made this one last night. I couldn’t sleep after I read Ryan’s comments so I did a huge overhaul.

I’m not done but I hope this is at least better. I still need to change a few things.

The demo on that site isn’t playing for me… Not sure why. I’ll try a different browser.

Paul Del Vecchio – Director
http://www.triple-e-productions.net

[Scott Whitney]

Paul,

I just felt the need to say that you are one tough hombre that I have a great deal of respect for. A number of people had a lot of feedback for you (some harsher than what was needed) and you just rolled with it, and accepted it all. Best of luck in your redesign.
_______________________________________

Scott Whitney
Bright Circle, Inc.
“We put the Idea in Media”
https://www.brightcircleinc.com

[Timothy J. allen]

Paul,
Please don’t let the comments get you down or keep you awake at night. Being brave enough to float the site by so many of your peers shows that you are the kind of person that learns more every day.

I think you have the main idea from us – Keep to your core message and strip away everything that doesn’t support that core message.

Most visitors will decide whether they are interested in your website within the first ten seconds of when they get there. Keep that in mind when designing your page. You want to clearly lead them to the most important things first.

(Hint: The “most important thing” is not your reel. The only reason a demo reel should be there is to demonstrate that you have the capability to complete projects at a certain level of quality and that other clients have trusted you to do so for them.)

You can lead people to “the most important things” through tried and true design principles, but make sure the website is about how your company can solve the client’s problems, and not so much just about your company.

When sketching out your site, ask yourself “So what?”. If the client sees anything on your site, why should they care about it? This goes for videos, testimonials, even fonts and text colors.

Anything on your site that doesn’t support the main point of your site is just vanity.

Here’s another link to an article about web design principles that you may find useful: https://www.garrreynolds.com/Design/basics.html

Use that knowledge combined with the head start that a well designed template can give you and I believe that you will come up with a custom site that leads customers to contact you .

[Ryan Hamilton]

Hey Paul,
Some folks around here think I was disrespecting you. On the contrary. I could tell that you have a strong desire and passion for your work and gave you, in my opinion, what was honest feedback. I’m sure you have high sights to be one of the best of the best and doing that has lots of hurdles and rough patches. I myself am going through it as well. We got our friends and family to sugar coat our work and say ” Fantastic, looks great “. But when it doesn’t, I want someone telling me so. Next time I improve it to the best of my ability, learn and move on. At some point we make it to the level where others look to our work and sites and pass them around as examples. As for the demo reel comment, tell me you didn’t use Designer snd FX and the evolution animated ornaments ( or something of the sort ) and I will appologize for those remarks. Otherwise be weary of using template and stock assets because it cuts back on the creative difference you have against others. Think of it like this. Whats better, tattoo # 47 off the wall or the custom tattoo drawn just for you.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Ryan Hamilton] “Otherwise be weary of using template and stock assets because it cuts back on the creative difference you have against others. Think of it like this. Whats better, tattoo # 47 off the wall or the custom tattoo drawn just for you.”

Ryan,

In all the years that I have worked with corporate clients, I have YET to find one who knows as much about the design process as I do. Or where assets come from. They do not know if it took me hours or if I spent a few hours designing something from stock assets. One of the highest paying gigs I ever had involved creating a soundtrack for a videowall presentation for a museum. Did I score it from scratch? No. I used stock library cut based on the emotion of the imagery. I got paid really well. Was I the composer? No, I was the guy with the check. ;o)

Think what you want, there are reasons that the term “starving artist” exists. Me, I am a designer. I will leave the art to Van Gogh, Rembrandt and DaVinci. What we make is art for the moment, hardly worthy of taking oneself so seriously as to think it will be art for the ages.

Besides, I never liked tattoos — and I never liked using stock without playing with it, usually a lot (which still doesn’t take me long). And not one of my clients has ever asked if it’s all my original work. They want results not an original Rembrandt.

But MOST importantly, I never use stock assets that are the Flavor of the Week. (Which is always dangerous and so easy to spot.)

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
Join the COW’s LinkedIn Group

Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

Would you like to be in Creative COW Magazine with your story or contribution? Contact me.

Do you have your complimentary subscription to Creative COW Magazine yet?

[Paul Del vecchio]

Scott,

Thanks for the kind words and support! I definitely haven’t taken offense to anything anyone has said. Thanks for the support though! Your website is awesome! I wish I had a website like that! hahaha

Timothy,

Thanks for that page. I’ll definitely apply what I learned there and I’ll also try to apply what you said in your post as well! Great information there.

Ryan,

No offense taken at all! In fact, you’re comments got me moving and I redesigned the site. It’s not great, but it’s better than it was before. The reason I stayed up was because I thought to myself, “Geez, if he feels that way, I’m sure other people feel that way too. I don’t want to embarrass myself. I better get on this quick!”

And so I did… And yes, you are correct about the Video Copilot products. I cut that promo right after I bought Evolution and I just kept it. The only downside is that I don’t really see how anyone can use Evolution without being called out on using a VCP product… so I’m going to stay away from Evolution…

Most of the stuff on the site is old and I’ve grown and improved since then. I didn’t make wise decisions about what to use and how to implement it well in reels, etc. but I know better now. I just got lazy and left it up on my site.

But especially from the comments I got on here, they’ve caused me to actually MOVE and DO something about it.

So Ryan, no offense taken. I know you were just trying to be REAL with me, and not sugarcoat things. I worked with a director who’s friends and family told him his stuff was great when in reality, he was a hack that thought he was brilliant (probably because he was high and drunk 24/7 – even when we were shooting!).

Honestly, everyone’s comments have caused me to DO SOMETHING about the “crap” I had before, so it’s only going to benefit me when you look at the big picture.

And how could I be angry at that? =)

Paul Del Vecchio – Director
http://www.triple-e-productions.net