layout design......crit please

[Tracy981]

just finished this layout as of now, still more to do i believe but I am not that good at design so if anyone can take a look at it and let me know wut to fix, wut u think, anything it would be greatly appreciated =) thanks in advance

originally this image is about 11x17

Tracy

[RUSHVision]

I might be tempted to nudge the 'Marilyn Monroe' text a few pixels to the left so the baseline matches the left side of the images instead of being slightly offset. And I would scale the scripted text that is ghosted behind it horizontally so that it extended further into the image, but I would have to do and then look at to see if I liked it or not.

Other than those two minor things (which frankly could possibly be ignored altogether...they are just a couple of things I would experiment with to see if it looked better), there really isn't anything I would change. Overall it seems to be quite well put together.

Hmm...ok, maybe one more thing. Same things as before...it's something I would do and then play with to see if it fit in with the rest of the design. But what I would do is to have the background image of Marilyn fade out to white on the left hand side. It would go with her titanium white image and I believe serve to make her eyes stand out a little more. I would start out by making the angle of the linear gradient match the angle of her eyes, so there wouldn't be just a straight left-to-right gradient.

[Tracy981]

hey thanks Rush, i understand wut ur saying and i did some modifications to the file as u suggested on trying. A friend of mine had complained about the white space, any thought on that?

Tracy =)

[RUSHVision]

It would be easier to play around with different ideas if I had everything on separate layers, but I've attached an example of what I had in mind as far as the white space goes. I suppose it's a matter of preference mostly. I like it, but that doesn't mean everyone will. I would say it still needs a little tweaking, though. I would probably do something about the upper edge where it fades to white, for one thing. It could be that if you were to go with the fade you might want to get rid of the black lines altogether.

Otherwise, like I said...it was never really 'broken' in the first place. I had a couple of ideas for possible improvements, but if you and everyone you show it to likes it as it was, then maybe don't try to fix it.

One thing I did do though, is to add a Levels adjustment layer to the Marilyn picture to get some slightly richer flesh tones, and personally I think it looks a bit better now. Let me know if you can see a difference.

[Tracy981]

wow that looks ALOT better and i agree about the lines, kinda doesnt fit with the layout, one last question and thats it =) since we added the gradient on the right, which does draw the eye inwards, which i like alot, do u think its right side heavy with the side images?

[RUSHVision]

I agree that the focus of the image is pretty strongly leaning towards the right side, but I'm not convinced this is a bad thing. I think it is improved by removing the black lines as I have done in the attached image. I think it simply serves to pull your eye over to where the main content is. I've also played around a little more with Marilyn's face this version.

This is perhaps a small thing, but I also scaled up the image of her in the red dress on the right so the right edge of it matched the others.

[Tracy981]

yeah it looks better without the black lines, for some reason i thought i needed that element to "close" the image in but this just ROCKS. thank you so much for helping me! you are a doll!! after looking at it for awhile and when the frustration kicks in, its always good to have someone else ESPECIALLY someone professional and knows wut they are doing to help out. I checked out your site and very cool, so i appreciate someone of your skill critiquing (wrong spelling) my work. thanks and take care

Tracy

[RUSHVision]

Well, my site is in a pretty sorry state of renovation at the moment, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate your kind comments. Glad I could help.

As for the black lines, there was nothing bad about those at all. It just turned out that they didn't really fit with the changes I suggested. If that white space wasn't there I would say put them back in. So don't think you were doing anything 'wrong'!

Keep up the great work!
Mark