Layout Issues

At work I am currently trying to design a web page layout for a new product we are going to be releasing. So what I did was I got on the web and started looking at the web design of the competition. I like to do this, so I can get a feel of how to form our pages, what to do, what not to do, what to add, what not to add.

So I was browsing and came across this gem. It's a nice simple page for a smaller company that is less mainstream. The layout is okay... for a live journal layout. I would never think of using a layout like this in the commercial market world. It looks very page builder. Kinda like "Oh hai, I just got Geocities page builder and I'm workin' a new web site!"

Some of the things that irk me, besides most of the whole thing include, but are not limited to:

1.) The header/ banner. If you want people to be wowed by your company, you should always save the logo/ header/ banner as a highly compressed jpeg image. And to top it all off, make sure the div you put the image in cuts off half of your logo.

2.) The navigation. This doesn't bother me all too much. The CSS rollovers and drop downs are kind of the in thing at the moment. (remember the static frame to the left for navigation?) I think that this one could have used a little more styling. Maybe have normal text bold on mouse over and change color? And for the drop downs have normal text become underlined?

3.) Body content/ Colors and images. Again, this looks pretty live journal to me. The nice vector logo on the left looks nice, with decent spacing and the text next to it looks fine. Then we travel down more. Now I see why the used different colors for the paragraphs, but could I think it would be a bit better if they alternated header colors and kept the text a nice black or a dark gray.