Time for Blog Header Makeover #6…It’s hard to tell if these are even being read, but I figure I’ll keep posting them until I get too bored with it. 
Today features a former client of mine that has a lot of different irons in the fire. She just had me produce a header for one of her clients and when I visited her site I thought I could improve it by fixing up some things.
The first thing I noticed on this header was the peculiar use of typestyle for the copy. The use of the white glow surrounding this font is way overdone, although it does make the copy legible on that background. It simply overpowers the design and takes away from Gina’s face and the sunset. To my eye there are three competing(instead of complimenting each other) elements in this header.
In my opinion, too many "web designers" don’t know the basic fundamentals of the proper use of typestyles. And think they can add a style and a blend and it’s a design.
The use of type in the blog header is very important as the characters project feelings and can change how you perceive the website.
One thing the orginal design did do correctly was to use the upper and lower case variants, contrary to popular belief in ALL CAPS HEADLINES, the use of lower case does make it easier to read.
A couple of other things about this header that bothered me were: If you look at the sunset scene under the "n" in "Makin’" you will see a definite line that stood out plain as day to me. A couple of seconds with the healing brush could have helped immensely.
The other thing was the money. I mean she wants to teach people how to make money…and they use $1 bills? I’m sure that’s not the impression she wanted to make.
I made a change to the color scheme (which she didn’t like at all) and used a real Hawaiian sunset for the background. I used a block typeface to try and not deviate from the original too far. I used a $100 money stack I used on a header before, but couldn’t find the original which is why its kind of pixelated.
Hey, this is a demonstration not the real thing.
Here’s my rendering…
As you can see the copy no longer takes away or fights for attention with Gina’s face. Okay, maybe a little bit.
I added a tag line from her about me page (which she didn’t like either) to introduce them to what the site is about.
Anyway, you can see I mentioned a few times that she didn’t like any of the changes I made to her header, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong, it just means she didn’t like them…and it’s her header.
Until next time.
Roy
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