New studio website - what do you guys think?

[greatgreatriver]

I really like the page... I like the use of big images and that you made it loud and bold. Looks like a really cool studio. I want to go there and hang out!

I'm a ex graphic designer. I'm tired of WP sites so your site came as a nice lemon through the sky and down on my table!

[Joao B.]

Originally Posted by greatgreatriver

I really like the page... I like the use of big images and that you made it loud and bold. Looks like a really cool studio. I want to go there and hang out!

I'm a ex graphic designer. I'm tired of WP sites so your site came as a nice lemon through the sky and down on my table!

Thanks man!

Anytime you're around feel free to drop by for a cup of coffee!

[AstralPStudios]

My suggestions:

1. Bigger navbar and different placement/font

2. The BG image...I kinda see what you're going for here, I see your website and instantly think
about typical band pages with their covers and such as their BG.

3. The BG images actually work for the studios, just...way too large.

4. Color scheme...There is none. Think about your branding and marketing endeavors on that end.

5. Contact page...Stick a contact form there for people to fill out rather than an e-mail link.

Needs some refining. Did you do it yourself or hire a coder?

[sameal]

i don't understand a word of it. but it sure looks pretty!


i don't know if this was intentional or not but studio B's gallery is pale in comparison to studio A's gallery. i feel like more could be done to show what advantage studio b has over studio a.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Joao B.

Hi everyone,

We just launched our new website.

The English version is still missing a few things, but I'd love to hear what you guys think.

Estúdios Sá da Bandeira

Thanks!

I only looked at the Spanish language side.

Looks good overall, clean, straightforward.

One issue I noted right away, the images you're using for your backgrounds do not seem to be well-optimized, which means they take quite a while to appear the first time one visits a given page. (Like 15 seconds or more, an eternity on today's itchy-mouse internet.)

I loaded one background image separately and noticed it was almost about a full megabyte for a 1200 x 803 image. In my experience, an image that size can almost always be data-reduced down to 200-225 KB or even less with little or no evident image degradation. Optimizing all those big images should improve the rendering time of your pages.

Also, agreed with Astral Plane Studios, an embedded contact form will help protect you from spammers. But, failing that, at the very least, you should use a little bit of 'javascript obfuscation' on your email address to foil spambot email address collectors. (Humans will still be able to harvest it, but a good js obfuscation will stop most spambots unless they are written specifically for the script you're using -- in which case, change some of the variable names to those of your own creation and only the very smartest bots should be able to figure it out. This obfuscator does all the coding for you and looks like it should put a pretty big barrier in front of the bots: http://www.jottings.com/obfuscator.htm )

[Joao B.]

Originally Posted by AstralPStudios

My suggestions:

1. Bigger navbar and different placement/font

2. The BG image...I kinda see what you're going for here, I see your website and instantly think
about typical band pages with their covers and such as their BG.

3. The BG images actually work for the studios, just...way too large.

4. Color scheme...There is none. Think about your branding and marketing endeavors on that end.

5. Contact page...Stick a contact form there for people to fill out rather than an e-mail link.

Needs some refining. Did you do it yourself or hire a coder?

Thanks for your input.

Like greatgreatriver said before we were going for loud and bold, while looking like a relaxed place to make records.

The contact form is a great tip, we had one on our previous site and people used it all the time.

Originally Posted by sameal

i don't understand a word of it. but it sure looks pretty!


i don't know if this was intentional or not but studio B's gallery is pale in comparison to studio A's gallery. i feel like more could be done to show what advantage studio b has over studio a.

Did you read the English version? I guess the original version must look like Chinese to you guys

About the gallery, it was kinda intentional. Studio A is the larger room and we only do music in there. Studio B is used mainly used for voice-over and stuff like that so we tried to keep it a little more sober.

Thanks for taking the time to browse the website!

[Joao B.]

Originally Posted by theblue1

I only looked at the Spanish language side.

Looks good overall, clean, straightforward.

One issue I noted right away, the images you're using for your backgrounds do not seem to be well-optimized, which means they take quite a while to appear the first time one visits a given page. (Like 15 seconds or more, an eternity on today's itchy-mouse internet.)

I loaded one background image separately and notice it was almost about a full megabyte for a 1200 x 803 image. In my experience, an image that size can almost always be data-reduced down to 200-225 MB or even less with little or no evident image degradation. Optimizing all those big images should improve the rendering time of your pages.

I was afraid of that. I'll pass that on the people who made the site, thanks for the tip!

[Jules]

Takes too long to load pages

Pages feature too much non recording stuff (close ups of Backline?)

landing pages have text hiding studio room photo.

My suggestions

Show off the spaces! Be proud of the spaces!

be more proud of the spaces than the boutique amp collection!

Spaces and clear pictures of recording equipment - FIRST
gtr amps / back line / text - SECOND

[Joao B.]

Originally Posted by Jules

Takes too long to load pages

Pages feature too much non recording stuff (close ups of Backline?)

landing pages have text hiding studio room photo.

My suggestions

Show off the spaces! Be proud of the spaces!

be more proud of the spaces than the boutique amp collection!

Spaces and clear pictures of recording equipment - FIRST
gtr amps / back line / text - SECOND

Hey Jules thanks for writing!

The problem of the long loading times is being addressed.

Regarding the pictures, I totally get what you're saying but I was kinda tired of seeing studio websites that just feature close ups of mics, compressors, etc, etc. We went for something a little different! On top of that, I think most musicians don't really care that much about the technical stuff, but they care about the room and amps and guitars and so on.

In my opinion, the cool thing about this kind of design is that we can change the pictures whenever we want and that changes the website almost completely. So your opinions allow us to get an impartial point of view and adjust accordingly.

I do agree that the room pictures are important and if you browse the Gallery I think they kinda jump out!

The text boxes are a little annoying if you're trying to see the background picture, but there's a little X on the top right corner that can close the text box.

I hope I understood what you were saying correctly!

Thanks again everyone for the feedback

[Joao B.]

We reduced the image sizes, they were crazy big.

Loading should be faster now!

[MTStudios]

Originally Posted by Joao B.

We reduced the image sizes, they were crazy big.

Loading should be faster now!

How much? It still felt a bit slow here.

The white text for the "Studio A" "Studio B" selection page is a bit hard to read.

Also, you might as well give people a gallery to look at your studio and imagine how cool it would be to spend time in there. A gallery is a great chance to win peoples hearts, and people often intellectualise the decision they want to make with their hearts rather than try to feel good about what looks like a smarter choice - so go for their guts!

I honestly think you need some better photos, sharper, less grainy, better/moodier lighting. Don't go too much for gear, go for space, mood, and power - unless your market is mostly engineer's but since you don't focus on gearlists I'm assuming your market is musos.

EDIT: Just realised you hid your gallery away. The sub-navigation on those studio pages did not stand out to me the first time I looked through your website.