# New Version of my Website



## Marius Masalar (Oct 3, 2011)

Hi all,

Over the summer I decided it was time to update my aging and outdated website, and since I enjoy dabbling in web work in my spare time I had a great deal of fun with the process.

The new version of the site has actually been finished for a few weeks now, but I had some lingering issues to take care of with it. Now that they're all sorted out, I wanted to share it with my most respected community for your appraisal:

www.mathazzar.com

It's a pretty familiar website-shaped thing, with all the elements you'd expect and perhaps even some you don't. If you have any feedback or comments I eagerly welcome them.

Thank you!


----------



## JoKern (Nov 14, 2011)

Hey Marius, 

I like your new website. The style is simple and elegant. 

What I like most is the cool Soundcloud Player (the one at the "Home"-Site) and the Twitter and co "Stamp"-Buttons. 

In general the structure of your website is very good. It didn't feels too overloaded. 
For example it is nice to read your "Studio Details" and "Rates and Pricing" (especially because of the graphic there).
But I don't know. I can't read the FAQs. I can click on it, but nothing is working? Perhaps my fault.



Mathazzar @ Mon Oct 03 said:


> It's a pretty familiar website-shaped thing, with all the elements you'd expect and perhaps even some you don't.


Elements I didn't expect are your "Résumé" page (very nice :D ) and the live chat by olark. 

So, good job!


----------



## Marius Masalar (Nov 14, 2011)

Thanks very much for visiting, Johannes!

I'm afraid the FAQs are currently giving me trouble, so it's not just you — I'll have to put up a note about that while I fix it.

Glad that you enjoyed having a look around though; it was a lot of tweaking work to get it where it is, but I'm very happy with it. Nowadays having a solid site is pretty crucial, I find, so it's worth the effort!


----------



## JaredJn (Nov 14, 2011)

Hey Mathazzar,
I think your website is SUPER CLEAN and simply amazing!!

That's all! haha

-Jared J.


----------



## Kralc (Nov 14, 2011)

That is the coolest resume I've ever seen, it's almost like some kind of rpg stats page. Really nice site.


----------



## Marius Masalar (Nov 14, 2011)

Haha thanks very much, guys! I'm thrilled that you like it; it has been getting a positive response from my clients too so I guess it was a good thing I updated!


----------



## jdawg (Nov 14, 2011)

pretty awesome, who done all your graphic design work?


o=?


----------



## Marius Masalar (Nov 14, 2011)

Some of the graphical elements were built into the theme I worked from, all the rest are freely available icons and elements from a number of design websites. All except for my logo, of course, which was initially privately designed and has been modified from its original form by me over the years.


----------



## JaredJn (Nov 17, 2011)

What web host are you using?

Are they providing you with the tools to do all of this stuff or do you personal know how to build websites with code etc?

I believe it's definitely time for me to ditch my "FREE" website and begin to pay for my own personal one. I guess while I'm still in school it just seems like an extra cost but I'm sure it is a beneficial one at that!

-Jared J.


----------



## Marius Masalar (Nov 17, 2011)

I'm with DreamHost and, while they make it very easy for me to accomplish what I'm after, they certainly don't do things *for* me. I despise the "build a website!" tools that come with hosts as they're mostly awful and you end up with something looking like it's from 1998 and coded like it's from 1988.

What DreamHost gave me was a one-click installation process for the WordPress self-hosted version, from which I was able to swiftly implement my modified theme, with all the associated coding being handled by yours truly using a variety of tools, most notably Espresso and Transmit.

DreamHost is also stable, cheap, and offers wonderful plans. I recently had to move from shared hosting to a dedicated VPS to keep up with traffic demands on my sites, and I have to say that I couldn't be happier.

All I can say is, regardless of what some people may feel, a website — and a good one at that — is the single most important investment you'll make in your early career, from a marketing standpoint.


----------



## madbulk (Nov 17, 2011)

Hey Marius.
It's pretty awesome. Great attention to detail and I would guess a lot of tweaking the theme presets. And the scribd resume is really sharp as others have said. So before I make my one suggestion... it all looks really great.
My only gripe is the rollover state of the top nav. Having the words turn white is like having them disappear. To me it's jarring as hell. I'd make em blue if it were me. Or maybe even red.


----------



## TheUnfinished (Nov 17, 2011)

Nice site, simple to use and with personality too.

As I plan to revamp my website over Christmas, I will be stealing all your ideas! Ha ha! 

Okay, I may allow one or two to 'influence' me, at least.


----------



## madbulk (Nov 17, 2011)

Hey Marius.
It's pretty awesome. Great attention to detail and I would guess a lot of tweaking the theme presets. And the scribd resume is really sharp as others have said. So before I make my one suggestion... it all looks really great.
My only gripe is the rollover state of the top nav. Having the words turn white is like having them disappear. To me it's jarring as hell. I'd make em blue if it were me. Or maybe even red.


----------



## Marius Masalar (Nov 17, 2011)

Thanks very much, Brian, Matt!

You're more than welcome to any ideas you may find on the site, I'm happy to have inspired you! You can also feel free to get in touch if you need a hand, as I do some web work on the side and would be only too happy to help out some fellow composers.

Brian, you bring up a very good point — I may just go change that right now.


----------



## synthphonix (Nov 19, 2011)

Based on Essence wp theme?

For the top menu, you could leave the text hover color the same, but maybe add a background-color to the link ...

find *#menu li a:hover* in your stylesheet (or add it) and add the property

*background-color: #5C5C5C;* /* or whatever color you want to use */

That will also add a background color to your dropdown menu items when hovered.


----------



## Resoded (Nov 19, 2011)

This looks fantastic. I've been looking around on different pages to see which one I like best and gives the most professional impression and I think yours is the best so far. 

Though it's extremely slow? I don't think it's my connection since everything else works great. Maybe it's temporary, takes minutes to load pages.


----------



## Marius Masalar (Nov 19, 2011)

synthphonix @ Sat Nov 19 said:


> Based on Essence wp theme?
> 
> For the top menu, you could leave the text hover color the same, but maybe add a background-color to the link ...
> 
> ...


That's the one, yep!

And I'm aware of how to do the tweak, thanks, but I definitely prefer to do it the way Brian was suggesting. Background colour on the links is going to mess with the aesthetic.


----------



## Marius Masalar (Nov 19, 2011)

Resoded @ Sat Nov 19 said:


> This looks fantastic. I've been looking around on different pages to see which one I like best and gives the most professional impression and I think yours is the best so far.
> 
> Though it's extremely slow? I don't think it's my connection since everything else works great. Maybe it's temporary, takes minutes to load pages.


That's extremely kind of you to say, thank you!

I'm wondering about the speed issue though, since it's been quite extensively tested on several browsers and runs on VPS hosting rather than shared so it should be pretty brisk. In fact I even have it running through a system that helps speed things up (called CloudFlare) so having it take minutes to load things is really bizarre.

Is it still responding sluggishly for you?


----------



## synthphonix (Nov 19, 2011)

Seems pretty quick from here.

Cloudflare may not have cached your content near Sweden yet.


EDIT: How rude of me ... I forgot to mention I like the site! Very nice :D


----------



## Marius Masalar (Nov 19, 2011)

Yeah, maybe it's something like that...Resoded: if you return to the site, you should notice a pretty huge speed increase vs. the first visit, but if it's still slow just shoot me a PM or something with some more details of browser/location/etc and I'll pass them along to CloudFlare to see if I can get it figured out!

Really appreciate the feedback, folks.


----------



## Resoded (Nov 19, 2011)

Mathazzar @ 19th November 2011 said:


> Resoded @ Sat Nov 19 said:
> 
> 
> > This looks fantastic. I've been looking around on different pages to see which one I like best and gives the most professional impression and I think yours is the best so far.
> ...



Ah no worries, I think it was my connection after all. 

It's strange though, I do have some issues with the connection, but most sites load fairly quick except yours. Weird.


----------



## Resoded (Nov 19, 2011)

Finally got to the pages, really takes minutes to load. Crazy. Anyways, here are some further thoughts. I'm just a random dude though, neither a pro in music nor a pro in web design so take this with a grain of salt. 

* It's awesome that you mention pricing and that you're flexible. It gives an honest impression and you don't waste their time discussing prices or having them send e-mails just to ask. I imagine semi-pros and amateurs to like this especially.

* Having pictures is great, and unlike others, you don't look angry, cranky or straight out of the bed. You look honest and I think that can make a difference between sending that e-mail or not, and you get to know who you're hiring. More personal and less "professional company that doesn't give a crap about me". Some pages are so busy looking professional that they forget the personal level.

* This is just speculation in details, but I'm not sure if the angry looking logo will support your honest and friendly approach in the rest of the page. Might be worth considering depending on what impression you want to give. On the other hand, it's cool.

* As I said before, everything is neat and tidy and looks professional. Very important.

* The music player is on the front page, great since that's the whole idea. One thing to consider would be to somehow have it running while browsing the rest of the site without having multiple windows.

* The only thing I personally feel is too much is the skills competence guide, with 90%, 65%, 50% etc. As I see it, if I hypothetically would consider hiring you, I'd like to know if you can do it or not.

Also, it could be interpreted as you're not giving 100%. So for example, you only care about films to a 90% degree not giving it your full attention.

And it raises the question, what is 100% and what is 90%? Can someone ever be 100%? And in that case, is it arrogant to claim to be a 90-95%? And yet, you want to look competent and 70-80% would seem low.

A change could be to remove the percentages and just do full circles, "This is what I can do". Or some circles full and other halves if you feel that you're so bad at it that you can barely deliver.

Again, a grain of salt.


----------



## Marius Masalar (Nov 19, 2011)

Oh I love detailed feedback, thank you!

All fair points too. I debated the skills percentages and, besides liking the design aspect, I saw them not as an indication of my effort given to each skill, but rather an idea of my actual proficiency at it.

Same kind of thinking that was behind putting the pricing info up: I want as much information about my services and skills as possible to be available from the get-go so that the choice is being made not on the basis of cost or whatever, but on the basis of the quality of music and their perception of what it's like to work with me.

With something like this industry, the skills are all so subjective anyway...so if the item is on there then obviously I don't think I suck at it (nor that I'm perfect — I hope I never think that!), but I do want it to be clear to potential clients that, for example, if they want me to be a lead implementation engineer...I haven't had enough experience in that area to feel up to a responsibility that focuses on it. But I AM familiar enough to handle the implementation concerns that most of us have to worry about for games. With the percentages up there — as a hierarchy of proficiency — that becomes clear to them. If I had the skills just listed, they could be interpreted as being at an equal level of expertise, which would be misleading.

Hopefully that makes some sort of sense. At the end of the day, if my intended interpretation isn't clear then there's still a problem, so your feedback is invaluable for that. For what it's worth, my clients so far have been quite receptive to what I hoped they would get from the info, so I guess it's more or less working.

Last thing I wanted to respond to was the persistent music player idea. I would love for them to be able to hit play on the homepage and then scoot around and have it continue playing, but I didn't come up with a clean way to do it that didn't involve a pop-up (yuck) or Flash (bigger yuck). It's a good thought, but I'm not aware of a nice way to accomplish it yet.


----------



## Resoded (Nov 19, 2011)

Mathazzar @ 19th November 2011 said:


> Oh I love detailed feedback, thank you!
> 
> All fair points too. I debated the skills percentages and, besides liking the design aspect, I saw them not as an indication of my effort given to each skill, but rather an idea of my actual proficiency at it.
> 
> ...



Well there you go, if it works it works.  Something for me to consider for future web design aswell.


----------

