So… since this critique thing was my idea, I ought to step forward and open myself up to criticism
For the last month I’ve been working on a new website, more or less to the exclusion of everything else. It’s the foundation for a long-term business plan I have, so I view it as an absolutely worthwhile investment of my time.
It has consisted of merging 2 legacy sites - my blog and my existing website - into one new and combined entity. The blog has been on Blogger (http://jeffhayesfinearts.blogspot.com/), and my original website (http://www.jeffhayes.com/) is a completely hand-crafted site that does the job, but is in no way mobile-responsive, so it’s a dinosaur. The blog and the site are both about a dozen years old, and contain a lot of content. There are about 1200 posts on the blog, and the database powering the website contains records for over 1000 paintings.
Time to move forward.
After doing a survey of modern tools for website construction, I settled on WordPress. It has the power and flexibility I need, without tying me too closely to just one service provider (as would be the case with Wix, for example). I also have a technical background, so I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty in that regard - I coded my previous site entirely by hand, after all.
It’s been quite a project. I first needed to learn as much as I could about WordPress (it’s a deep and powerful tool), brush up on modern web design, manage and update the large amount of content, and then pull it all together in a way that made sense with my business plan.
A tall order, but I think I’ve nearly done it.
The site is more or less complete - still a few rough edges I’m smoothing out - but that could go on forever and today is the day I set for my go-live.
So… I’m open to any and all thoughts you might have. Compliments are nice, but genuine criticism is much more helpful. I’d particularly be interested in hearing from anybody who has solid web design / development experience - If I’m violating any standards I’d really like to know.
At the moment, you can find the site here: http://newest.jeffhayes.com/
Thanks!