Rejection Thread: Simply Business

OK, another rejection thread. Would love to get your opinion on the theme and what the reviewer said.

• Good documentation.
• You need to work on above the fold area. It is messy, everything fight for attention. The logo, slider title and the 2 buttons which is supposed to be important for “action” failed to stand out.
• This is just my advice, you can ignore it if you think you make it right – the papers behind the white background, I understand you want to have something different, but, it just now work well here and it makes me feel it is unnecessary.
• The contact form, I think there are too much of white space and it is not consistent too. The big bold text below it caused the overall page seems incomplete.

I understand I need to play with the buttons a bit to make them pop. What else do you all suggest? The quote in the footer of each page, keep it or not? The paper look behind the main content area, do you like them, or are they unnecessary as the reviewer says? Also, the reviewer touches on the logo, my question to you all, is should the reviewer even be looking at the logo? That is the one thing everyone changes as soon as they purchase it. I have seen some people that just have [LOGO HERE ] where they logo is suppose to be.

Thanks everyone!

Demo URL : http://simply-business.atlchris.com/

And where can we see it to help you?

And where can we see it to help you?

Sorry about that, just added the link to the main post.

Demo URL : http://simply-business.atlchris.com/

Hey Chris! It looks really great, “but”... You need to add a lot of padding and overall spacing. It looks so much squeezed. I adviced this same sentence several times on similar threads. And guess what. Almost nobody did anything with that. This is the most important part in your case!!!
You used big headings, so you need big space around them, that makes sense. You have got flat white background, so you can use even more space than you think.

Don’t use those stock images in small testimonials box. There is no story behind someones hand or neck. You can make the images bigger in height or use some logos instead (jquery, etc.)

Overall the site seams really wide even if it’s regular 960px. I think you can improve this by mentioned spacing. Maybe you can also try to size-down all fonts if that won’t help.

Personally, I would get rid of that paper on background, seams redundant and not so professional and strict.

The intro dark buttons should be done better… Browse through some css galleries to get some inspiration.

Oh and are you sure you want Museo there? It’s not really a font for business themes… Business is strict, so the font should be strict. (e.g. like Helvetica)

I actually liked teh Museo font but that’s an excellent point – depends who your potential buyer is. Perhaps using Helvetica will make it much more strict in terms of your css and system fonts etc.

On to the actual website:

I like it, I really do. You can’t be very far from getting this accepted. The reviewers have already pointed out the obvious but I do still think that pleny of whitespace and padding everywhere, will make your site soooooo much clearer.

If you can do something about the logo/slider/buttons being so close that would be a huge bonus. Try a different colour for those buttons they look a bit like they “don’t care” whether you click them or not lol.

Otherwise, this is pretty good effort, I’d really love to see the final version.

Thanks everyone, I am going to work on this today and push some changes live in a few hours.

Thanks everyone, I am going to work on this today and push some changes live in a few hours.

Add white space, padding, pop the buttons and you’ll be in business, for sure, your template is really good.

Cheers!

OK, just made some changes. I switched up some of the stock photos, re did the buttons all together, and adjusted spacing and padding through out.

What do you all think.

One thing I wanted to point out is the color scheme. I have developed this theme so that any of the colors can be changed right in the admin panel. So if a user wants to change the blue box they can, if they want to change the red buttons, they can. All in the admin panel no Photoshop needed, and no limits on colors!

http://simply-business.atlchris.com/

Thanks!

My suggestions:

Use more of a business font (Helvetica probably?). Use cufon only for headers / titles, whatever. I really have a hard time reading some of the text (read more, view all, testimonials, etc)

You are still missing some paddings there. Under the 3 columns, for example, the images are still to close to the text. Or in the about us section, check the headers / paragraphs.

Work a bit also on the visual hierarchy.

It’s a good template, but you still got some things left to go.

Good luck!