Their logo looked really familiar to me. Google Images agrees . I *think* they've got it free from LogoSnap which, given that it's used on the covers of the books is...odd. A visual identity is an important part of a business. You can get a stock logo for a couple of hundred dollars.
You can commission a deviantart artist for even less. Hell, a lot of them will do it for free if you link to their page in your footer.
I don't ever comment in this section, but I l do a lot of lurking.
I know nothing, and I repeat, nothing, about Trestle Press, or any other short fiction/small presses. I have no intention to ever publish with one.
That being said, I do have an eye for graphic design. I've studied it independently for several years. I do web design, even if I suck at code. I've never done it professionally.
I know that everyone can't afford a graphic designer or web designer. A decent one, that is. They're expensive. But when you are a company, trying to solicit readers, and you have to resort to contacting authors, your appearance should be the first thing you care about.
AbsoluteWrite isn't exactly the most stylish site out there, but it doesn't look like it was put up yesterday.
My first instinct, when I look at their site, is to leave. They've still got the blogger favicon up. Their header isn't centered. They haven't bothered to put up a footer. They've still got blogger's bar across the top of their site. Their sidebars are cluttered and disorganized, making it hard for me to follow their train of social media.
All of that can be fixed inside of blogger. It doesn't require outside assistance.
How you present your company is very important to me. I use duotrope when I submit to magazines. I don't submit to anything below a semi-pro, unless their website impresses me.
If it doesn't look better than something I could do, I won't even bother. It's called marketing. A lot of small presses have very unappealing sites. Their designers don't understand the rule of three, or anything about contrasting colors. And it makes me very suspicious.
Blogger is one of the easiest blogging tools to use. Albeit, not as easy as tumblr, but much easier than wordpress. I would not use it as the base for my
company.
Sorry for the rant, but I just can't stand bad design. For me, it's akin to showing up for writing conference without taking a shower. You don't care about the way you present yourself in public, or don't care enough to find out how you should present yourself in public.
Everyone doesn't have a million dollar budget, I know. But it doesn't take a lot. Looking at the big five, they don't have complicated websites. S&S has a design that's very similar to one of the free templates on wordpress. Penguin's is simpler. Hachette's is even simpler than theirs.
Notice that all of those sites have clean, web 2.0 designs. They use white, which indicates simplicity, trust, and honesty. They use at most three other complimentary colors, like dark pastel blue, or olive green, or light orange. Their columns are all aligned. Their link bars are organized. Their featured bars are simple, either flash or java, and most of them can be implemented for free.
Anyway, that's all. This post wasn't to pick on Trestle. I have nothing against them. I just wish more small presses tried to emulate the big five's website designs, rather than going for the Publish America look.
ETA:
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priceless1: You have an attractive website. Easy to follow and very professional. No clutter. I like it. Kudos to MBC design. If you don't mind me asking, how long did it take to design that, and what was the price range?