I would suggest axing ALL the transparency as “non-viable web design” – the largest jpeg background ALONE is larger than I would usually allow for an entire PAGE (that’s markup + images + CSS). The effect you have is also so subtle, I very much doubt anyone would miss it.
Though… Hmm… I’m not actually seeing ANYTHING on the page that should warrant the use of alpha transparency… or transparency for that matter. OPACITY (as in the CSS3/IE filter)
… and it makes scrolling up and down painful on anything less than a quad core machine.
Yeah, I’m looking at this and going “what do you need image transparency for?” – precomposite and be done with it.
Of course, that you seem to have presentational images as IMG tags (those belong in the CSS), a slew of DIV and SPAN for nothing, elements that don’t even EXIST in modern code like target, the HTML5 doctype making anything resembling validation meaningless, and images for headings… (lose the fancy font, it’s not worth the non-semantic markup!)…
Oh, that’s where you’re using it, images for headings. I’d swing a giant axe at that as being a PITA to maintain (make a new image every time you want a new heading? No…).
Other issues include ID’s for nothing, incorrect/invalid use of the name attribute (I think you meant to use TITLE) , spans for nothing, spans and flat anchors doing the job of a nested list, and even more images as text making it an accessibility train wreck. You might really like that fancy font, but from a usability standpoint you’ve basically got “how not to design a website” going on there.
If I was REALLY determined to get those fonts in there, I’d be looking at something like fontsquirrel to do it. (Not that I usually advocate using CSS3 properties, but it’s safe enough of one since IE had it before CSS3 was a twinkle in the W3C’s eye)
So first order of business would be to throw about a third of that markup away:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
lang="en"
xml:lang="en"
><head>
<meta
http-equiv="Content-Type"
content="text/html; charset=utf-8"
/>
<meta
http-equiv="Content-Language"
content="en"
/>
<link
type="text/css"
rel="stylesheet"
href="screen.css"
media="screen,projection,tv"
/>
<link
rel="shortcut icon"
href="favicon.ico"
/>
<title>
Black Cypress Capital Management - Principles
</title>
</head><body>
<div id="firstPageWrapper"><div id="secondPageWrapper">
<h1>
Black Cypress
<small>Principles</small>
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</h1>
<ul id="mainMenu">
<li>
<a href="/">Main</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="/principles">Principles</a></li>
<li><a href="/process">Process</a></li>
<li><a href="/products">Products</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="/cypresslog">Cypress Log</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="/citizenship">Citizenship</a>
<ul class="vertical">
<li><a href="/philanthropy">Our Approach to Philanthropy</a></li>
<li><a href="/environment">Environmental Stewardship</a></li>
<li><a href="/charity">Charitable Partnership</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="/contact">Contact</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="/firm">Our Firm</a></li>
<li><a href="/careers">Careers</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div id="content">
<h2>Independent Research, Independant Thinking</h2>
<p>
Black Cypress conducts independent, original research on each of its investments. Other investment managers may perform limited research of their own or may depend heavily on the research provided by brokerage firms. They may purchase securities based on estimates and targets that aren’t their own and therefore they take no responsibility for their accuracy and outcome. We believe investment success requires research and analysis independent of others.
</p>
<h2 class="even">Long-Term, Absolute Return Strategy</h2>
<p>
It is Black Cypress’ goal to preserve capital and to compound investor assets across market cycles and in all market environments. However, at times it pays to take on additional risk exposures that may create unrealized losses in the near-term. While we constantly seek both positive absolute and relative performance, Black Cypress will not sacrifice long-term opportunity to avoid short-term emotional distress.
</p>
<h2>Absolute Valuation</h2>
<p>
Black Cypress determines an independent value for each of its prospective investments and only invests when the security is trading at an appreciable discount to that value. Reference to history, competitor, industry or index values is of secondary concern. Our investment process is called “absolute” value because securities must stand on their own merit as an investment. Relative value managers, on the other hand, attempt to pick the best securities in an industry or index without concern that the entire group may be overvalued. Black Cypress only buys securities it deems undervalued in an absolute sense, not merely undervalued relative to other securities.
</p>
<h2 class="even">Unrestrained Time Horizon</h2>
<p>
Black Cypress has a long-term focus that looks beyond a security’s often short-lived current trouble or record-beating performance. Our competitors, bound by short-term performance expectations, make decisions based on what may happen in the next couple of quarters. We instead concern ourselves with a security’s long-term earning power and its asset base--not whether a company will beat earnings estimates in the next quarter. We believe our unrestrained time horizon leads to better-controlled emotions, lower turnover and superior decision making in the face of panic or irrational exuberance.
</p>
<h2>Personally Invested</h2>
<p>
Our team invests all of our investment assets in the same programs as Black Cypress clients. Our interests are thus aligned with clients’ through our personal holdings in Cypress SAP, Black Cypress’ Separate Account Program and by the client asset management fees Black Cypress receives, which promote limiting investment costs and generating positive returns.
</p>
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Which really is about all that layout should really need. If I have time later I’ll toss together the CSS that would go with that. I’ll do it using CSS3/IE fonts with font-squirrel – what outline font is that you are using? (don’t recognize it offhand)
Of course, I’m also seeing other no-no’s like a splash page as “home” with no content on it… Might be pretty, but it’s an extra step of “nothing” that just annoys users. NASTY case of “but I can do it in photoshop” here.
Thank you very much for making the effort to do that.