jordan-cgu

Beautiful site! Great colors, nice variety of layout types, cool typography, feels like a magazine. I also might use this site, I do find navigating online reviews of fiction series to be difficult and spoiler-riddled. A few suggestions: Some of the fonts are small, especially next to the Stephen King book The Outsider. Sometimes the fonts seem a bit busy, like under Whats in Our Guide. There's just a lot of font things, I could use something not a font thing to mix up the design elements. Also what's bolded feels a bit haphazard, like Main Character Descriptions is all highlighted. I'd either make it more consistent or just not do much of it there (it would reduce the number of font things going on). The two call to action buttons on the hero seem a bit odd, the text on the left one seems squished, the buttons are different sizes, fonts, just generally very different. The form field for email address at the bottom doesn't fit your other design, maybe give it rounded corners and brighten it

I like hero with text blurb and a call to action for most situations. If a visitor is likely to know enough to respond to the call to action without needing the blurb, then you could cut it or minimize it. Carousels are almost always out these days, but do have their place perhaps. Sometimes a thirds layout can work if there 3 distinct things to highlight. Let content dictate design. A few other suggestions: Standardize Call to Action styles, I see at least 4 on the homepage (1. top right of the main nav, 2. bottom left of the hero image, 3. the two learn mores on the next two sections, 4. the complimentary discovery call). I like the 4th the best, though the black border outline is a bit intense. Consider removing the Call to Action from the Nav, it's already too busy up there. Ideally get the nav onto one line for most desktop browsing. Consider using the Logo without the words, just the image. Put Cultivating Conversations somewhere else in the hero. On contact forms I like Full Name rather than First and Last. I realize some mailmerge really likes the separation, but I think better to design around full name, since not everyone's name fits the first and last well. Though this is more of a concern when targeting international clients beyond Canada and the US. The Services page is an important page, and I feel like it could use more than just text in the first 2/3rds of it. There is some nice imagery at the bottom but it takes a while to get there. Avoid styling webpages like Word Docs, with just plane headings and bulleted lists. Create boxes, split into half and third layouts, find icons to represent. If you're going to talk about a retreat, show the experience right next to it with an image. Also make that Call to Action button (Connect with me and find out more) consistent, it's a 5th style, and on desktop its crashing into the text above it.

It's a beautiful site, nice big bold styles. It looks like something a designer would create, layouts and styles you might see in a trendy magazine. As a design related company, you of course will be held to a high standard. A lot of design is not making any mistakes, for example, not letting content get crowded, or not letting too many different font styles creep into one page. Here are some optimizations I'd suggestion: A video as the hero image is nice, but you also should say something susinct, some sort of heading above or even just below. Below you have a massive paragraph. And below that two very different font styles, without any create headings or standard styles. The next section, Available Courses is overall really nice, but just a bit crowded. Also the 4 images at the bottom, if they are going to stay there, they should be interactive, even if just to bring up the image in a bigger window. Consider a little separation in the footer, big, beautiful, open, white layouts are great, hell, even as I type this I can see Squarespace Circle themselves using the same style. But even here they have the thinnest of hairlines to give things some separation. Open is good, but give it some separation, even if just subtle shades of color or grey. Speaking of shades of grey, you have a lot of very stark black and white. It's a little overwhelming on the eyes, which I imagine is intentional, but try it out with just slightly software blacks and whites. Instead of pure white or black, back it off just shade toward grey. Not enough so that it looks grey, but just enough to soften it on the eyes. You'll still get a very stark look, but not a painful one. The scholarships page looks a bit too much like a Word Doc, or Google Doc. Try to use some other design elements to break up the wall of text a bit.