Website and Creative Critique Request

<p>Hello,<br>

<br />Please check out my website <a href="http://www.mikkohyvarinen.fi">www.mikkohyvarinen.fi</a> and be honest, I would love to improve it in any way I can. I'm working on adding a contact page and Landscape portfolio to the site. All feedback, both positive and negative are welcome.</p>

<p>New Photos page is done by loading ten latest Flickr set direct from Flickr with jquery. I'm planning to do the same for New Videos page, except load videos straight from Youtube. I don't know if Youtube has such great API that Flickr has, does anyone has experience with Youtube API?</p>

<p>Thanks for your time!</p>

<p>A rule of thumb is that vital information should be located above the fold.<br>

So on the home page I would definitely put the menu on top, like where it is on the other pages.<br>

Your contact information should be much more visible and more outspoken too - after all that's where you want your visitor's to end up when they decide it's worth their while to reach out to you.<br>

So I would place it somewhere else and make it more inviting, adding two or three friendly words can make a tremendous difference for you.<br>

If you want the home page to stand out from the other pages think of something else you can do :) I would suggest showing/saying something about yourself. People really like to know who they are dealing with, it establishes a sense of trust (you are a business too) and it keeps them interested and engaged.<br>

In general: think about adding verbal content because not your pictures but your text will make people find you in search machines. Depends on why you put up your website and what you want it to do of course.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Hey there, overall a pretty nice looking site, and good on ya for using jQuery with a flickr feed, you'll thank yourself in the long run. </p>

<p>A couple comments ...</p>

<p>The numbered navigation that controls the default slideshow - a lot of your images are dark on the bottom and thus the numbers all but disappear. What about adding a background-color to that bottom div (probably white) with .2 (or any very low) opacity setting, so that the text is always visible. Or alternately using a light-colored css drop shadow on the text.</p>

<p>The blog-style "New Photos" section is pretty busy for my taste. Although that's another cool usage of js on the 'show all images' links.</p>

<p>Same comment as above on all of the numbered navigation text menus on the various galleries. It's hard to see a lot of the time. </p>

<p>I would love to see your name styled up a bit ... open up Photoshop and spit out something more fun for a logo ;) </p>

<p>Last but not least - amazing picture of that BEAR! I love that. </p>

<p>Overall pretty nice work, <br>

-Phil</p>