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Sanity Check - Minimalist Retail Site

  • So, the site is eventually a small apparel e-commerce site (pre-production right now). For now, the blog is being updated (based on word press).

    Any general feedback would be appreciated. Harsh is fine. Positive is good too. Just trying to calibrate it before launch & avoid an immediate redesign post-launch.

    A couple of notes:
    -The inspiration was relatively minimalist, but not to "trendy" or "modern".
    -The font in the headers / Nav is myriad pro light. For the slides on the home, bliss is used. I'm not sold on it, so any bold header fonts that could jive with Myriad Pro Light would be helpful. Verdana is the paragraph text.
    -The shopping cart is Google Checkout, so the customization options are somewhat limited.

    http://www.stodgyclothes.com/index.php

    Thanks in advance.
  • It looks very nice. One thing is that I would change Thoughts on the navigation bar to Blog.
  • I agree about changing Thoughts to Blog.

    And I think the fonts work well with each other, I wouldn't change them up.

    Overall pretty good. I like it.
  • Are the menu images the original sizes? Or were they resized at any time? I'm just noticing that the fonts are a little thin and distorted in some places. Maybe slightly thickening up the fonts and resaving it in a PNG might do the trick. Overall I really like the minimalist style.
  • Odd - it should be the original size for the header menu. I used Myriad Pro Light, and saved as a PNG w/ GIMP. Are you seeing the distortion on the hover states or the normal position?
  • it was the smaller ones on the over state that I was primarily seeing - although I'm on a different monitor and it's not nearly as bad as I saw it before. Maybe I was just viewing it through a crap monitor :)
  • I think it looks really good. Makes me want to do something very similar.

    I too get the image distortion though , when I hover over the menu, the small text on the bottom is very distorted.

    22" 1680x1050 here

    Again, nice site!
  • A frustrating development - I'm using the google checkout shopping cart. It defaults to an arrow, but I was using
    .override #googlecart-arrow {
    display: none;
    }

    to hide it. Today, it is showing up as a downward facing ugly blue arrow, with no code changes on my part. Any advice on how to hide the arrow?
  • I <3 minimalism.

    Looks good. Nice, solid and clean. I like the fonts. I took a brief look at your Twitter page. If the two are married, I'd suggest making the Twitter background a little bit more like the site. Or maybe introducing a Twitter feed.
  • The site is finally live after a few months delay. A few updates include actual photography (which probably needs some help), and a slightly redesigned product shopping page. Thanks for the help.

    http://www.stodgyclothes.com/index.php
  • I like the simplicity - although I think your actual items in the shop section need to be defined better as Items. I was clicking around for ages trying to find the add to cart, then realised the two headers were links... Maybe you could make that a little more impatient user friendly :D
  • I like it too, very nice. But I agree with the above comment, I had a little trouble realizing the 2 headers were links to the products.
  • Its definately a good start. I'd probably say it needs a little something more to give it depth and to make it appeal to customers. I reckon for the main image instead of having that hoody, maybe have someone wearing one so the site becomes more personable. You could even experiment with some subtle texture somewhere, which will help to give it a bit more depth. Minimalist web design doesn't necessarily have to be black and white... its all about how you use 'white space'.