[Project Complete] New Redesign for CleanGroutNow.com - $500

[W3ATB]

(Admin code added by Michael - 31206838, 31205884)

I am a total newbie to this website and hope to walk away with a fantastic experience.

Company name: CleanGroutNow.com

Company profile: CleanGroutNow.com is an existing stand-alone website that promotes a branded product I have been selling for about 8 years. It has been up and running for maybe 45 days.

The product sold from this website is called Stain Solver. It is a non-toxic oxygen bleach that works extremely well to clean soiled floor grout and wall grout. Stain Solver also cleans anything else that is water-washable.

It might be important for you to know that I also own and operate this website - www.AsktheBuilder.com - and promote CleanGroutNow.com heavily from it.

Domain name: www.CleanGroutNow.com

Scope of this project: This is a complete redesign of a very basic website I just threw up to have a presence on the web. The designers who want to compete can start from scratch to develop a new site that simply rocks.

Intended audience: The people who typically buy my product could be almost anyone. The age is almost always between 30's - 70's. Women are far more likely to buy than men. The average customer is middle income, but some upper-income people do buy this product. The occupation of the buyer could be anything.

Mood or tone of website: The site needs to convey a bright, cheery feeling. I prefer black text on a white background. But the graphic elements need to be powerful and cutting edge. The website needs to convey that this easy-to-use product WILL CLEAN their grout. My satisfaction rate is 99.9999% I rarely get a complaint that it doesn't work. People need to know the product is effective, professional and a solid brand.

What sets CleanGrout Now.com apart from the competition is that my product is the one of the MOST POWERFUL oxygen bleaches sold in the marketplace. The reason for this is two-fold:

All ingredients for my product are Made in America
I blend the highest amount of active ingredient in the product as allowed by law.

Many of my competitors buy their ingredients offshore.

Color psychology: Stain Solver is a two-color product. It can be seen at www.StainSolver.com. That website design is going to be up for grabs here as soon as this project is complete. You can see that blue and green are used as the logo for Stain Solver.

It might be wise to bring that color scheme into this redesign website for continuity purposes, but I am not tied to that. Maybe there are complimentary colors that could be used at CleanGroutNow.com. I am not design oriented and am looking to you, the experts, to produce a website that will create a Wow! factor.

Dynamic elements:

There will be a need to create a Buy Now or similar button that links to my existing shopping cart.

I want to have separate pages on the website for:

Testimonials
FAQ section
Photo Gallery of Before and After photos
Cleaning Suggestions
Contact Form to Submit Questions
[/list]

Main competitors:

http://www.oxyboost.com/
http://www.oxiclean.com/
http://www.cleangrout.com/ UGH ! ! !


Resources I will provide:
You can choose to incorporate - if you wish - the logo that is currently at www.CleanGroutNow.com at the top of the page. This is NOT mandatory. Keep in mind I want a kick-butt design that screams to people that my product really works. And the truth be told, it does work. But if that means abandoning the existing artwork, kick it to the curb.

I will have all text ready for all above mentioned pages on or before March 28, 2005 9:00 a.m. ET.

Deadline: To give everyone plenty of time so you can think about it, let's make April 8, 2005 the deadline.

You can email questions to me at:
removed, private communication is prohibited before chossing a designer

[Aliska]

Hello
Count me in :)
Will post my version in 2-3 days

[Michael]

Hello Tim, how many pages are you after? Just the home page and a sub-page?

Thanks

[W3ATB]

Hello Tim, how many pages are you after? Just the home page and a sub-page?

Thanks

Yes. Just the home page and a subpage. Once the tempalte is built, I can drop in all of the elements into the subpages.

But the home page and subpage need the navigation elements / buttons whatever to the subpages I listed.

Does that help?

Tim Carter

[geofharries]

Tim,

I build all of my websites/templates using Web Standards, so the code is extremely light (short download time) and portable (easy to move across pages). The only catch is, the template I'd provide to you will look fantastic in Internet Explorer 6, Netscape 7, Firefox 1.0 and Mac OS X Safari, but will look less so in older browsers like Netscape 4+. Onestat.com http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox36.html has a good profile of how these browsers measure up.

If you are comfortable with this restriction (I'd call it more of an opportunity), then I will be entering.

geof

[W3ATB]

Geof,

That works for me. Get busy my friend and I wish you the best of luck.

Tim Carter

[geofharries]

Tim,

Please find attached my entry into your contest. I spent a fair bit of time pondering cleaning product consumer psychology and what type of call-to-action would work best for your website's visitors.

After reviewing the links you'd provided, I determined (and this is based on my personal opinion as well) that a prominently displayed Before and After design, along with clear call-outs and product benefits would be most effective, so that's what I focused on in the layout. The design is simple, clean and powerful, using mostly text and very little images so it also loads fast. I feel it avoids unneccesary fluff and gets right to the point, which is what people really appreciate.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback.

geof

http://www.greenroomcreative.ca/designoutpost/cgn_website_v1.jpg

[W3ATB]

Geof,

It is a wonderful and refreshing change from the primitive site that is now running! :yes: The blue and green colors look swell and the graphics around the photos work very well.

The white background is also pleasing.

But I have this feeling that the design needs something else. My wife Kathy and Ellen who works for us feel the same way. What is missing? We can't quite put our collective finger on it.

We all agree that simple is better and customers like that, but maybe it is the need for small graphical icons with the navigation links or something.

For example, I have always *loved* the small wheelbarrow a graphic friend of mine did for me years ago. You can see it here just above the red word "Buy":

http://safe.spsp.net/cgi-bin/askbuilder/SS04INT.htm

The wheelbarrow, to me, almost looks 3D. It is small, yet has interesting shadowing and detail.

Thoughts?

I really appreciate your effort so far and I hope I am making myself clear. It is so hard to verbalize something you can't quite see. Maybe it will be clearer to me in a day or so!

Tim Carter

[cosmic]

Here is my entry.

I have placed a clipart of a container in the header, which can be replaced if you provide a higher resolution image of your product.




http://www.cosmicwebdesigns.com/design_outpost_contests/cgrout.gif

[cosmic]

version 2



http://www.cosmicwebdesigns.com/design_outpost_contests/cgrout2.gif

[cosmic]

version 3


http://www.cosmicwebdesigns.com/design_outpost_contests/cgrout3.gif

[geofharries]

Tim,

Thanks for the positive feedback. I've made the revisions and a new design is attached below.

As you can see, the main navigation now uses a different font and with that change comes small icons to help illustrate the idea. I've added a slight 3D look to the main menu as well. The only other revision on the design is in the Before & After boxes, where there is now a subtle gradient background for each, and a different coloured text/arrow to match.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback.

geof

http://greenroomcreative.ca/designoutpost/cgn_website_v2.jpg

[W3ATB]

Ken aka Cosmic,

Those are interesting concepts. I appreciate your jumping into the fray and urge you to keep trying.

The use of the smart and satisfied woman photo is very clever. Procter and Gamble has done this for years to sell billions of dollars of cleaning products to women. I see / hear women in all of their print, radio and television ads. That woman you used is happy :) about her clean grout no doubt!

But the 11 years I have spent in the newspaper industry has taught me the significance of getting the most important aspects of your message above the top fold of a monitor screen. A tremendous amount of monitor real estate seems to be taken up by the navigation area as currently designed. I wonder what might happen if it were inserted in the white space to the right of Clean Grout Now! using small - but readable - text links with the 3D icons I mentioned yesterday to Geof?

The before and after photos with the coins tell the story and probably need to be the most prominent feature above the fold. But that said, it needs to be done tastefully and with great skill.

The color settings of my flat screen monitor could be off, but the green and blue I am seeing are very muted as compared to the vivid green and blue I see in Geof's design.

So, I am hoping you can make some adjustments to see if your ideas and mine can get closer together.

Thanks again! I must say I like how this Design Outpost system works. It is fascintaing seeing the designs out in the open.

Tim Carter

[W3ATB]

Geof,

Those icons are an improvement and interesting.

I wonder if some can be made similar to the wheelbarrow I mentioned yesterday and be placed in a white circular area that fades into the green of the navigation bar.

White circles within the solid green might produce an interesting contrast. But don't forget, I was the one who would draw stick people at customers' dining room tables during a sales presentations, so my judgment may be flawed!

Tim Carter

[geofharries]

Tim,

To be honest, I am solely focused on design for websites and/or web applications/extranets/intranets than illustration, which it sounds like you may be after with highly detailed 3D icons. If you feel these would really benefit my design, then you could also run an icon illustration contest after this one is over - that is, if you choose me as the winner.

I hate to let you down, but I have to be up front about my own skills and their limitations. Hope you understand.

geof

[KiT10]

Here's my entry :)

[cosmic]

Here are my revisions.
I don't have any 3D icons as yet.


http://www.cosmicwebdesigns.com/design_outpost_contests/cgrout4.gif

[W3ATB]

To Chrstina,

Sorry for the delay. I just got back from a second grueling day of taping another DVD.

Wow! The bar sure just got raised a notch or two.

Your design is stunning.

Do you think the before and after photos are a little lost because the background is somewhat similar? Is there a simple way to make them stand out more from that background?

The woman looks like she knows clean grout when she sees it. I would hate to get into a cage fight with her!

Did I say I was impressed with this process?

Tim Carter

[W3ATB]

Ken,

Your changes just keep getting better!

[Anne]

Here's an entry from me

Anne

[Aliska]

Hello Tim
Sorry for the late post, but i'm finishing with my version and will upload it tomorrow. Hope, you will wait for my submission

[W3ATB]

Aliska,

I will wait.

Tim Carter

[Luc]

I'm in. And hopefully post it later or tomorrow.

---And now I'm out. I'm sorry I can't enter anymore. Tons of work just came in :( --

[Aliska]

Hello :).
Thanks for waiting me. Already done with my version and waiting for your comments.

[Aliska]

And my second version. What do you think? I wanted to show you quite another design idea.

[W3ATB]

Anne,

How hard is it to switch out the photo of the man on the couch?

It would be fascinating to see a photo of a woman in her 30's sitting at a kitchen table relaxing while Stain Solver is working.....

Is there a photo like that in a clip art gallery that can be substituted?

Tim

[W3ATB]

Aliska,

Your desings are very interesting but both seem a little busy.

The second one with the brown navigation stripes reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite's suit. That design has tons going on that my associates here at the office find very distracting.

How can you make them less busy?

Tim

[IDarwish]

Is there time for me to make an entry ? Hopefully by today :-/

[Aliska]

Ok, I will try to make changes at second to make it less busy and upload tomorrow.

[W3ATB]

Is there time for me to make an entry ? Hopefully by today :-/

Yes. I am going to bed now - 8:30 p.m. ET - for my 4:15 a.m. wake up time for my radio show.

So since there are still 4 hours left to compete, get to work!

I am going to render a decision tomorrow at Noon ET.

Good night and good luck to all!

Tim Carter

[KiT10]

I modified the header a bit to make the before and after graphics stand out more.

[Anne]

Here's on with another img. in the header. I'll see if I can find one with a woman sitting at a kitchen table.

Anne

[geofharries]

Tim,

Should you happen to like the foundational elements of my design - lots of white space, the prominent Before/After boxes, generally simple layout - then I certainly don't mind tweaking it with photos like others have done here or other changes that you feel would be beneficial. That's what the Revisions forum is for :)

regards,

geof

[Aliska]

Hello.
Changes at 2nd design. What do you think?

[W3ATB]

Okay, it's time to pick a winner.

The first thing I want to say is this first experience at Design Outpost exceeded my expectations. What an amazing thing it is to see different designs when given the same set of specifications. I sincerely want to thank each and every designer who participated. There is no doubt I will be back to have other websites designed as I have three projects right now waiting for launch. The final design for CleanGroutNow.com was a photo finish - it was that hard to decide.

Let me tell you how my/our decision was rendered. It was a vote among the members here at www.AsktheBuilder.com headquarters. I can tell you that an enormous amount of time was spent going over the different entries and long distance phone calls were made to one member of the team who is hundreds of miles away from the office today. The flurry of late entries really made it difficult to pick what we think will do best for us.

To pick the winner, we went back to the specifications. The most important aspects were :

"....The site needs to convey a bright, cheery feeling. I prefer black text on a white background. But the graphic elements need to be powerful and cutting edge. The website needs to convey that this easy-to-use product WILL CLEAN their grout. .......... People need to know the product is effective, professional and a solid brand."

The third-place design was from Aliska. There were powerful graphic elements indeed in your designs, but the team felt your final designs were a tad too busy. One team member here thought the design looked more like an infomercial than professional. So please try again on some of our next competitions! I felt you worked very hard and hope that you will one day win one of the competitions.

The second-place design was from Cristina with the woman cage fighter in the tank top. This design was extremely close to the specifications.

Anne from Oslo is the winner. Anne, with a minor amount of fine tuning, I beleive we are going to have a spectacular website that is going to sell tons of product.

I am ready to move the discussion offlist.

Thanks again to all who participated. I *will* be back soon! :)

Tim Carter
www.AsktheBuilder.com

[Anne]

Thank you for choosing my design :)

Looking forward to working with you on the design
Anne

[W3ATB]

Anne,

Well, here we go. As I said in my private message, Congratulations!

Since I can't see the code yet I am hoping that near the top you can create in text as an <h1>Clean Grout Now</h1> tag.

It of course can be stylized, colored text, etc. I just want it as text and not a graphic. You know, this is a SEO must-have.

Is it possible to modify the blue and green colors slightly? On my monitor, the navigation bar seems to be pea green. :( Is there a way you can give me a range of colors to choose from? Like little blocks of green that you think will look sweel. My guess is you picked that color to blend with the couch the man was relaxing on. It sure seemed like a match to me.

The blues/grays might have to be modified slightly to be compatible with a new green. I think we are both in agreement that you and I want this thing to ROCK since your name will be associated with it one way or the other.

Also we have to take the Testimonial box in the lower left and make that the call to action Buy Now area with a slick button of some type.

What about the Photo Gallery code? For example I have 5 before, during after photos I took today of some unbelievable tea-stained tile countertop grout. I will load them in a few moments and give you links to view them. Since the design is yours, I am afraid my basic HTML code skills will take your lovely tmeplate and make it look horrible if I just dump them below the navigation bar.

Once I see where to drop photos and text, I can do all of my own changes. I just need a little guidance. Does that make sense?

And the same for the other linked pages. Will you provide a simple area in the code for me to load text?

We still have to try to find a photo for the top graphic on each page. Is there a selection I /we can look at and then pick one to save you all sorts of work? Once we have the photo, I know you can then do the stylizing.......

I have a busy next two days filming a DVD so I will be getting back to you after you are probably asleep - that crazy 6 or 7 hour time difference!

Tim Carter

[W3ATB]

Anne,

I didn't realize my HTML coding would be recognized in my last post.

It was an h1 tag I was talking about in the second paragraph where I was talking about text CleanGroutNow.

Tim

[geofharries]

Tim,

You actually don't need text instead of graphics to display a H1 for SEO purposes. If you create an H1 with its own id, such as h1=headline, and then assign a background image, width and height to it in the CSS file, you'll have your empty "box" ready to go. Type in the text, Clean Grout Now, and then in the CSS again, set the text-indent to a massively negative digit, say -2000px and it won't display on the page, but your graphic will. The text is still there for the SE spiders but it looks much better than just plain ol' HTML.

The wonders of XHTML/CSS :)

geof

[Lori]

Tim,

I agree 100% with Geof on the above :)

Anne,

If you wanted to do the above for Tim, and are not sure of exactly what Geof is saying, please contact him or I and we can help you get it done :)

[Anne]

Thank you Lori. I know how to do it :)
Anne

[Anne]

Hi Tim. I am working on getting the template finished. I'll try to look for another image for the header.

Anne

[Anne]

Files sent