# Hows my website?



## Ed (Mar 4, 2009)

My friend invited me to go along with him to a networking event in London on the 18th, I figure I need some kind of website or they wont know who I am and business cards would be silly without one.

Ive been putting it off for ages so finially decided to look into how to make it, my first attempts were rubbish text looked crap and it was all complicated trying to put backgrounds and trying to wrap the text around it in the right way and so on. So I just decided to put all the text in an image.

I know the music page is a bit of a mess but hopefully its not too bad. 

What do you guys think?? is it okay? Does it load ok in your brower?

http://www.edbradshawmusic.com (www.edbradshawmusic.com)

EDIT: *(I have uploaded both tracks now. ) *


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## Ed (Mar 4, 2009)

Thats weird I cant link to external websites, I just checked the link to Immediate Music on the music page and it just sticks http://www.edbradshawmusic.com/ (www.edbradshawmusic.com/) in front of any URL I put in :S

What am I doing wrong??


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## madbulk (Mar 4, 2009)

Hi Ed.

First, yes, it loaded on my browsers, safari and firefox on macs. Get the music files loaded in there and it'll do.

Visually, you can get a lot of control by making all your text into images. Easier than learning how to markup websites. Don't blame you. But it's gonna be iffy for search engines, so it's not a great solution long term.

How does it really look? Super generally, were it me, I'd be trying to get all of this onto one page. It's a natural tendency, but unless you have big plans for this site, it's probably not gonna need to have sections. You don't really have sections now. You have a splash page and then a home page which is still kinda a splash page, and then you have the meat -- the music page. It's clunky to make people click through this stuff. They should get from URL to hearing your demo asap.

So that would be the most basic "from here to a little better" plan I think. One page.

Look into word press. That's why it's there. 99% of us just need that. Even if you don't think of your site as a blog at all. It just makes life simpler 99% of the time.


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## madbulk (Mar 4, 2009)

Ed @ Wed Mar 04 said:


> Thats weird I cant link to external websites, I just checked the link to Immediate Music on the music page and it just sticks http://www.edbradshawmusic.com/ (www.edbradshawmusic.com/) in front of any URL I put in :S
> 
> What am I doing wrong??



look in your code...

look first at the link: http://www.immediatemusic.com ... you have only one forward slash after the http:

And less importantly there's no closing link after the image.


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## madbulk (Mar 4, 2009)

in other words, put this in there instead.

<a href="http://www.immediatemusic.com"><img src="http://www.edbradshawmusic.com/Graphics/im_clickhere.png" border="0" /></a>


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## PolarBear (Mar 4, 2009)

No media found in the reels.


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## Ed (Mar 4, 2009)

Thanks Madbulk for the code! Knew it would be something simple like that. I will also look into word press and I think you're right about having too many splash screens. 

Hi Polar, as I said in the first post I havent uploaded the reels yet as I havent quite finished with them. Do you think it looks okay?


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## madbulk (Mar 4, 2009)

This is probably more suitable for a PM but who knows.. maybe others will benefit from it. It's not much though . Without knocking you over with a bunch of how to's.... 
What I think you might need to get somewhere better in a hurry is this....

Take this div tag below and put it around your images. This is an absolute positioning tag. Anything you put in here just as I have it will be 100 pixels down and 100 pixels over (left) from the upper left corner of the page.
With this you can put things -- in your case, images (which is good cuz anything else is subject to more thoughtfulness) exactly where you want them on the page, even on top of one another.

Where as, now you're kinda in sequence -- in the order in which you have them in the code, more or less.


<div style="position: absolute; left: 100px; top: 100px;">

ED, YOU PUT YOUR PNG IMAGE IN HERE and change the 100's to whatever you like.

<div>


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## JohnG (Mar 4, 2009)

Hi Ed,

I agree with Brian right down the line. I think there is no reason to make people click three times to hear something. Otherwise they may disappear.

In addition, I would put the Immediate Music and "Under Construction" stuff at the bottom of the page, or lose it altogether. Unless Immediate is a major client, it's kind of -- "what's this doing here?" for me as a first-time visitor. Either that, or explain that IM is in fact a client and you did music used in the trailers for "[title 1]" and "[title 2]"


Putting a link to them with no explanation is kind of iffy, I'd say.


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## Hal (Mar 4, 2009)

Ed
i dont know if ur just asking if it opens well on the browser or how the site looks in general
it opens well here Avantbrowser/Windows no problem.

about how the site looks i am really giving you a honest opinion..am having a problem personally finishing my website,just because "and u might find this silly" i would rather not have a page at all then having a page that looks less then average.

and ur page visually i dont find it to be attracting or interesting ..it is just a webpage and i beleive u shoudnt be presented like that.


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## Ed (Mar 4, 2009)

*Uploaded the General Reel*

Its probably a bit long but for now...

(doesnt contain any of the stuff that will be in the Epic reel)


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## madbulk (Mar 4, 2009)

I would lose the under construction altogether. Once the site has those two demos on it and a contact link, it's minimal but satisfactory, content wise. That's the better message to project.

Immediate music is less cut and dried. But unless you think of it as a feather in your cap (which I do, but I still wouldn't put it on my site) skip that too. You're not offering the music directly, so the fact that immediate has the rights is irrelevant.


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## Ed (Mar 4, 2009)

Cheers Mad, I think I agree. I might do what John suggested and put the logo at the bottom and have both reels next to each other. 

And thanks for the comments so far btw it helps me get some focus, I will be restructuring it!


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## Ed (Mar 4, 2009)

Ok I have uploaded both tracks now.

(will probably tweak them as well later...)


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## Hans Adamson (Mar 4, 2009)

I like it.

I like the blue neon signage looking stuff, but that narrow arial font or whatever it is has to go. It is really unreadable in your email address on the home page, and the text is too miniscule in the text "My name is Ed Bradshaw" etc.

It has a Blade Runner vibe you should explore more... ~o)


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## Shantar (Mar 4, 2009)

I totally agree on what´s been said about keeping it all on one place instead of navigating through different pages. I know this is under construction but if I were you I would try keep things as simple as possible without being boring and as creative as needed without beeing cheesy.  If I were you, and I´m definitely no expert on websites, I would find a nice looking one as a reference and steal some ideas.


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## erockrazor (Mar 5, 2009)

Hey Ed,

The website is a little jumbly to me. I prefer it to be centered usually and it's nice when there is a constant menu navigator. So you can click through pages and keep the menu where it is, I think that add's a lot of uniformity and cleans things up. The color scheme works for me. The reel section is a bit messy aesthetically but let me say that your epic reel sounds great. I'm mighty jealous. I too conceded and made a website, for a web presence and even for the same reason as you, to not make my business cards look so goofy. :lol: 

I think it's a good start. I understand it's still under construction so don't let me be too critical. 

Eric

EDIT: Looking at it again ... Does your website host give you email addresses? This will look a bit more professional than a hotmail account if you could have "[email protected]". If it's offered, use it.


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## Ed (Mar 5, 2009)

Erock: Thanks for listening, glad you liked it!. And I agree now it is way too jumbly. :D As far as the email address, you're right, only reason I didnt use something like [email protected] blah blah blah, is I got a lot of junk mail and I figured peoples emails might go missing. 

Hans: Glad you liked the graphics! I will try making the font bigger also.


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## PolarBear (Mar 5, 2009)

You should really watch the font width and height to get readable (you probably set dithering to smooth in photoshop or whatever you use, take "sharp" or something else than smooth). It's also a good idea to have it a more bigger, as the headlines are screaming also loud in caps and big fonts (though you have less enough content to keep that).

Other than that I'd join the "Home" and intro splash page into one. Having a plain mailto: is asking for spam and it will arrive sooner than anything. I don't see anything wrong in having an unlinked picture, but that's matter of taste.


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## Hawkes (Mar 5, 2009)

For email addresses I like to use this anti-spam encoder:
http://www.willmaster.com/library/tools/linkgenerator.php
There may be better options, but this seems to work alright for me.


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## kid-surf (Mar 5, 2009)

Just a thought:

If I'm a director going to your site, these are my thoughts: "Oh, he must be a Sci-Fi composer...probably not the right guy for me, my film isn't Sci-Fi. Next..."

I don't mean to make you re-think your concept but maybe you should? I guess it depends on what you're wanting to achieve/portray.

Personally, I think it's best for composers not to "sell" a "specific visual style". The director feels it's his/her job to do that...you run the risk of pigeonholing your "product/voice". I can foresee directors "hearing" your music with a Sci-Fi bent even when/if it's totally not that, just because the imagery suggests it. Directors think in visual terms FIRST. 

If I'm thinking like a director: I will respond best (on a psychological level) to those sites which look more general -- Clean, style-ISH, and organized, like I expect the music to be -- but nothing overly specific.

Ask 10 directors what type of music you do based only on the LOOK, I would bet they'll all guess "...some sorta dark Sci-Fi thing, probably uses a lot of synths"

On the other hand, if your market is Sci-Fi your concept is on the money. :D Just remember that you HAVE, in fact, created a concept (space-y) not just pulled up some cool imagery. 

FWIW...


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## Ed (Mar 5, 2009)

Interesting Kid, never thought of that! I never actually thought of it as sci-fi but then Hans also mentioned BladeRunner so maybe its my unconsious love of Sci Fi coming through! 

Hawkes + Polar, thanks for the info on the email thing, I will look into it.


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## kid-surf (Mar 5, 2009)

Ed @ Thu Mar 05 said:


> Interesting Kid, never thought of that! I never actually thought of it as sci-fi but then Hans also mentioned BladeRunner so maybe its my unconsious love of Sci Fi coming through!



Could be... just know that we can see it, is all. :D

Good luck!


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## Lex (Mar 5, 2009)

kid-surf @ Thu Mar 05 said:


> Just a thought:
> 
> If I'm a director going to your site, these are my thoughts: "Oh, he must be a Sci-Fi composer...probably not the right guy for me, my film isn't Sci-Fi. Next..."
> 
> ...



Wow...this is so intresting, I find it shocking...are you serious about this? Are people really getting more and more retarded?

So if I have a pic of myself sitting in cafe(like I do) on my facebook page, directors are gonna go: "..ah right he writes mostly chilled out, french accordian and string quartet, light drama/comedy stuff.."??

Are you saying that they r not gonna acctualy listen to Eds music and quickly figure out that Ed is not mainly a "sci fi" composer?

As far as Eds site goes, I love the balck and blue thing hes got going on...but I think atm, site looks like it exploaded...I would go with single page, more centered content, and single nav bar...

Cant stop thinkin about this...IMHO, if he wanted he could have made hiw web site bright pink with yellow spots all over...if there is a moron out there who is gonna remember him/judge his work by the color scheme of his web, Ed's better off not workin for him..


aLex


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## Ed (Mar 5, 2009)

Lex @ Thu Mar 05 said:


> I think atm, site looks like it exploaded...



Hey Alex, for some reason I find this comment hilarious :lol: , true though hehe. 

Ed


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## choc0thrax (Mar 5, 2009)

Cripple fight!!


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## cc64 (Mar 5, 2009)

Hi Ed,

i think you should use 3rd person when talking about yourself. 1 st person sounds amateur. I know it's weird to write about yourself at the 3rd person but for the reader it's like if someone wrote all these great things about you...

I know it's PR BS but don't worry. I used to work for Cirque du Soleil as a /Keyboard Player and my wife at the time was working in the PR department. When we would come into a particular town for 3 or 4 weeks she would announce 2 weeks of normal ticket sales and 2 weeks of "Due to popular demand supplementary dates" :D 

Get the picture?

HTH

CC


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## Lex (Mar 5, 2009)

Thnx Kid,

This was very insightful...I guess LA culture is very unique...



> Absolutely! Now that you've got them right where you want them...blow them away with your -->MUSIC<--.



I would advise any artist to do the complete opposite...bending a bit or even quite a bit to get a chance is of course needed...but man, what your saying here is to bend copletly over, peek trough your legs and ask "is my aass comfy enough sir?", and then when they r done........blow them with your MUSIC....right...once you did all that it wont matter anymore..

stay well man

aLex


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## billval3 (Mar 5, 2009)

Lex @ Thu Mar 05 said:


> Kid,
> 
> I thought you r gonna open my eyes with some shocking examples since unlike you I don't have any experience with established directors, now it sounds you r just ramblin...
> 
> ...



Let's not forget that directors are going to tend to be very visual people. I think we need to respect that as fellow artists. Don't you think that how someone represents themselves and their craft visually SHOULD matter? We can't just say, "I'm a musician. You have to ignore what I look like and only pay attention to my sound."

By the way, I'm not trying to say anything disparaging about your site, Ed, just responding to Alex. :wink:


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## billval3 (Mar 5, 2009)

Hawkes @ Thu Mar 05 said:


> For email addresses I like to use this anti-spam encoder:
> http://www.willmaster.com/library/tools/linkgenerator.php
> There may be better options, but this seems to work alright for me.



Thanks for that! I'm giving it a try.


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## kid-surf (Mar 5, 2009)

choc0thrax @ Thu Mar 05 said:


> Cripple fight!!



Oh good, glad you're joining us!


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## kid-surf (Mar 5, 2009)

Lex @ Thu Mar 05 said:


> I would advise any artist to do the complete opposite...bending a bit or even quite a bit to get a chance is of course needed...but man, what your saying here is to bend copletly over, peek trough your legs and ask "is my aass comfy enough sir?", and then when they r done........blow them with your MUSIC....right...once you did all that it wont matter anymore..
> 
> stay well man
> 
> aLex



Sounds like you've never read anything I've typed (in the general sense - other threads). Nope, not where I'm suggesting at all. But I don't mind you believing your words.

Let's stay on topic: What we disagree about, and are at an impasse with, is specific to a "style" of website. Beyond that...? Hard to say.

Bottom line is that I don't believe a website does much to land you a job anyway...so, plaster it with your pics of your cats in hand-crafted costumes for all I care. After all, this is your big opportunity to show directors how visually creative you are. :D Hey, maybe they'll even be so impressed with your website that they'll ask you to help edit the film!! :lol: 

Don't get bent dude, I'm have'n fun at this point...

--Back to topic--


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## kid-surf (Mar 5, 2009)

ED, I agree with those that'd like to see it all on one page.

Good luck, man...


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## PolarBear (Mar 6, 2009)

billval3 @ Fri Mar 06 said:


> Hawkes @ Thu Mar 05 said:
> 
> 
> > For email addresses I like to use this anti-spam encoder:
> ...


That's not going to help much IMHO. It's still having a plain <a href="mailto... in it. And the encoding scheme... well, it's not really hard to have the unicode mapped chars remapped to plaintext. Doesn't make a lot of difference to a computer anyway, just not readable for us humans.


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## Hal (Mar 6, 2009)

i agree with *kid-surf* visual opinion
thats why i wrote in the begining that i dont like the site much,because i beleive a great looking site is a plusplusplus for you

and sorry *ALEX* if you think that ur judged by ur music get ready to be dissapointed.

there is a dozen of things envolved and if you dont care about them all you might not sell much .

there is PR,Marketing and blabla

so people might judge you by how you look,sound,talk or dress ? yes yes yes.

U better take good care of everything,unless sombody is a james Horner or somthing who will then care about how he is !

so your website
your studio
and YOU
are all factors for your success then comes your music.
and am not assuming here am saying this based on several personel professionel experience.
i can tell you some later if interested.

but one so easy example (not related to music at all)

this might be a silly example but you know ur first attracted to a girl because she looks fine and then ur open to see how clever she might be.
am sorry ALex but ur taking the position of the ugly girl who is talking about how genuis she is but no body gets interested in her .

first impression and looks in general plays a huge role.
AHND BELEIVE ME producers and directors "use their eyes" before their ears !


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## Ed (Mar 7, 2009)

Hmm, well I think I like the blue neonness too much to change it at this point... however I think the main reason you are all subconsiously thinking sci-fi is the partical type effect in the background of some of the images, sort of looks like stars (though that wasnt the intention at the time). If I remove that and rework the layout I think it will be fine (at least for now, still looking into wordpress)

But thanks for your comments


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## JohnG (Mar 7, 2009)

Hi Ed,

Your original objective was a good one -- to have a site up and running so people could check out your music. Because your music sounds professional, that is a plus!

People seem much more willing to poke around for half an hour on a website exploring than they would be to listen to a 5-minute CD, making it even more important, once one's music reaches a certain level, to have a website.

I value very much Jay / kid-surf's advice to consider the graphic impact of your site -- the successful music libraries certainly do. Can you get a photograph or graphic as a backdrop that says something about your work? Maybe that's harder than I realise; my site was built for me.

That said (and not directed at you, Ed, just a general observation) some composers jump a bit prematurely into web sites with relatively student-level material, so exposure can of course cut both ways.


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## Lex (Mar 7, 2009)

Hal @ Sat Mar 07 said:


> this might be a silly example but you know ur first attracted to a girl because she looks fine and then ur open to see how clever she might be.
> am sorry ALex but ur taking the position of the ugly girl who is talking about how genuis she is but no body gets interested in her .
> 
> first impression and looks in general plays a huge role.
> AHND BELEIVE ME producers and directors "use their eyes" before their ears !



...ummm, no...cause MUSIC IS the girl in our case.What you r saying is that you would rather go with a stupid, ugly girl who wears a pretty dress, then a pretty girl who wears old jeans and silly t shirt...and who knows maybe you would?

aLex


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