

Show HN: Our Vancouver based web agency just launched. We'd love your feedback. - kelsokennedy
http://redstamp.ca

======
orangethirty
This page is proof you can make pretty websites. Sadly, it might also evidence
that you may stink at marketing. Its way to busy for me to follow a distinct
line, and there is abosolutely no structured copy for me to read. Plus you put
the very little copy you have in a carrousel and made it hard to read with
some weird color choices.

Now, luckily for you, I'm not your target market ( I think, there is no way
for me to know ). Which makes me ask the following question:

Who is your target market? If you answer with _every business in Vancourver
who wants/needs a website done_ , then you are taking the wrong route here.

 _Note: I'm not trying to rain on your parade. So dont take it as an insult,
but as real feedback from someone who does copywriting/marketing._

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thanks for your insight and time.

------
davemo
_Dead Links_ : Privacy Policy and TOS link in the footer [1]

 _Landing Page_ : changed on me while I was reading the first slide,
suggestion: on hover pause slideshow

 _Contact Form_ : Major pop in due to the form element shifting in place when
animating, suggestion: avoid the .toggle and use CSS3 transitions,
specifically I would use a _linear 350ms_ transition on the _top_ property and
move from -400px to 0px. (fallback to JS animation if the browser doesn't
support CSS3 transitions).

 _Seeded Comments_ : Your DISQUS integration has a number of 5 month old
"test" comments, suggestion: get rid of those :) [2]

 _Unoptimized Static Assets_ : I know you're using Wordpress, but IMHO it
always rubs me the wrong way when marketing sites brag about "dev prowess" and
fail to concatenate, minify and optimize CSS, JavaScript and Images;
suggestion: do all those things. Also, use ImageOptim and you can compress
your site images and net some performance [3]

[1] <http://cl.ly/image/3J3d1F2r0P2f>

[2] <http://cl.ly/image/1q3f1D440H1J>

[3] <http://cl.ly/image/0N3d3H0m2803>

~~~
kelsokennedy
I appreciate the time you've spent on your response. We will be using your
feedback as we tweak the site tomorrow (especially the stale comments :/).

Thanks

~~~
davemo
You're welcome, good luck with the site and with the new customers! :)

------
dylan-m
The first thing I noticed was that your header text is part of the same JPEG
image that has each background image: [http://redstamp.ca/wp-
content/themes/redstamp/images/layout/...](http://redstamp.ca/wp-
content/themes/redstamp/images/layout/baner-developmentSlide.jpg). This is
especially visible with the red text, which is thoroughly mangled by the
compression, but it's just as obvious with the white lettering if you're used
to being grouchy about how browsers all render text differently poorly ;)

Speaking as a nerd / web developer, I would of course be delighted if you
managed to use @font-face (via Typekit or whatever) with something clever to
draw the strikethrough, or an SVG, since that would scale really nicely with
high resolution screens and mobile browsers (which use funny DPI numbers). For
a simple and widely portable solution, though, please please please just move
the text from those images to transparent PNGs. It's making my eyes hurt.

Of course, I'm hoping you fix it because I expect to see more of your website.
Good luck! I live here, so Vancouver-based web developers are my favourite :)

~~~
kelsokennedy
I do hear what you're saying and I can see how it would improve our site.

Thanks for the feedback.

------
_sentient
Great looking site, and I love the strike-through approach you used in your
marketing copy.

However, I did notice a couple issues:

1\. There seems to be a few problems with the font you are using, as some of
the words seem to run into each other, at least on Chrome. Some of the sub-
headings on this page are borked, for example: <http://redstamp.ca/design/>

2\. I like the carousel, but found it fairly annoying when it would continue
to auto-scroll after I had clicked on one of the Design, Development, or
Marketing links. I eventually noticed the pause button, but I think it would
be far more intuitive if you automatically paused the auto-scroll when a user
clicks one of those links, as with that action they are showing an interest in
that particular service, and probably need time to read the content on that
carousel panel.

:)

~~~
zacksjoden
Regarding 1, enabling Javascript fixed that for me, Chrome Version
23.0.1271.101 with ScriptSave v1.0.6.13 on OSX 10.7.5.

------
law
It's a wonderfully designed site; I love how the splash page draws your eyes
to where they belong, without being overly obtrusive. One criticism: on
<http://redstamp.ca/development/>, you may want to change the menu that
changes position as you scroll. Maybe keep it fixed to the top of the screen
as you scroll down, but when you scroll up, it should stay in position until
it hits the bottom of the screen, and then begin to move up once it's out of
the viewable area. When you're at the top of the page, it can move back to its
home. That's just a suggestion on top of what's already very nice work.

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thanks for your suggestion and wonderful words!

------
8ig8
Looks like you may be loading three separate instances of modernizr.

[http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/modernizr/2.0.4/modern...](http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/modernizr/2.0.4/modernizr.min.js)

[http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/modernizr/2.0.4/modern...](http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/modernizr/2.0.4/modernizr.min.js)

[http://redstamp.ca/wp-
content/themes/redstamp/js/modernizr.c...](http://redstamp.ca/wp-
content/themes/redstamp/js/modernizr.custom.js)

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thanks for catching that.

------
hbn321
In your contact form, you're using ticks, but you can't choose more than one.
This is inconsistent with the way radio buttons usually look.

Would also be good if your Google Map linked to the Google Maps site, rather
than just an image.

Might just be me, but I find the two column layout of your blog bizarre to
read, especially as the first column doesn't end cleanly before it goes onto
the next.

I wonder if the "Contact" is prominent enough (knowing how dumb some potential
clients can be...) maybe have it in red too?

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thanks for your feedback. I hear what you are saying about the check marks,
however it's consistent with the rest of our site and our order forms
(<http://redstamp.ca/marketingplanv5/> still very WIP, but might give you an
idea of the application).

------
pravda
"We’re full-service, Vancouver-based, work-proven, and incredibly lovable."

Sounds like an Escort Service.

Am I correct in assuming you're all under 25-years old? Hey, there's nothing
wrong with that. But I would suggest a little bit more _gravitas_ for the
website.

And the stock photographs make the website look like a travel guide.

Having said that, I think the website is very well done, if somewhat "busy",
and I predict you'll soon have more work then you can handle.

~~~
kelsokennedy
We do escort old websites into fabulous new ones!

Thanks for the feedback!

------
d2ncal
there is no 'people' or 'about us' link. i can't find a single person's name.

~~~
kelsokennedy
That's a consistant feedback we've been getting. We're going to add a new
section in the near future.

Thanks for your time.

------
itsybitsycoder
Your contact form doesn't look right for me in Chrome (the "email" and "pm"
options are pushed down a line). Also at 1024x768, the page wiggles when I
scroll down by dragging the middle mouse button, but the extra horizontal
content is just unintentional-looking whitespace.

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thanks for the feedback, we're going to do some additional bug checks over the
next few days.

------
kvnn
In chrome, the "Email" label is pushed down, below the checkbox.

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thanks for reporting this bug

------
mcrider
Beautiful! If i still lived in Vancouver I'd come work for ya :) I would
however recommend a responsive design considering you do mobile web
development.

~~~
kelsokennedy
Portions of our site are responsive. We'll be launching a separate mobile
presence in the coming weeks. We just felt fully responsive was not the best
way to get our message/story across.

Thanks for your time!

------
raeldc
We're also about to re-launch our website and we have very similar service
offerings. Reading the critiques and praises here is helpful for us also :).

------
brennenHN
The carousel at the top rotates too quickly. I didn't have time to read a
single complete block of text.

Otherwise the site looks great.

~~~
kelsokennedy
That has been a consistent concern in our feedback. We will adjust this
shortly.

Thank you!

------
run4yourlives
There are quite a few CSS bugs in chrome/windows. You see it a lot with the
titles overlapping themselves and with the link hovers.

~~~
kelsokennedy
We will be looking further into the chrome/windows issues tomorrow. Thanks!

------
8ig8
Domain in html title tag is: RedStamp.caredstamp.ca

Could that be your dev domain since it doesn't match production?

~~~
kelsokennedy
Great catch! It was actually Yoast SEO plugin forcing the domain name at the
end of every title.

We've fixed it - thank you!

------
greengreens
Typo on 'both' in /marketing/ "To E or not to E ... in btoh direct mail and
e-mail campaigns..."

~~~
inept
Well spotted. Missing period in "[...]campaign We’re experts [...]"

Really stunning work on the whole. Full props.

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thanks for your kind words and your grammar check. Appreciated and fixed!

------
slajax
Always great to see new agencies in Vancouver. Site looks really nice as well.

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thank you :)

------
timlovelee
lots of roll-over issues in chrome. Especially in the footer.
<http://i49.tinypic.com/35jf6zc.jpg>

good luck in Vancouver, eh.

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thanks for the bug shot, and thanks for the wishes :)

------
steven97
No mobile version of the site?

~~~
kelsokennedy
It's in development right now, and will be ready in about 2 weeks.

Thanks for checking our site out.

------
jessedhillon
In your headings, my eyes were immediately drawn to the block letter text. It
was only after I processed it and realized that your message _couldn't_ be "we
do mundane things" that it occurred to me to re-read it. Then I found the
strikeout and scribblings.

You might consider beefing up the strikeout line and using a stencil font with
a more fetching shade of red. Perhaps laid _over_ the revoked text.

Or just drop the idea altogether -- I mean, what's the message there? _"We
were going to tell you how ordinary we are, but at the last minute we decided
we're actually pretty extraordinary after all."_

I would not call that your best foot.

~~~
kelsokennedy
Thanks for your honest feedback, I appreciate it.

------
danso
I don't have anything constructive to say, except that if I had to leave New
York I would love to live in Vancouver. How hard is it to find talent/clients
there?

~~~
kelsokennedy
We'd love to have you here :). It's a fairly big city with an upcoming tech
scene. I guess we will find out soon enough!

