they both seem nice designs and either would be a massive improvement on the current design.
i think the floating basket is a nice idea but maybe a more permanent fixture would best fit.
overall i think design two is better although the header would have to be changed. i think the overall look of the site is to christmas's because of the colour red and font used. design one is a bit to boxey and boring but mabe if you added a drop shadow on each side of the container like design two and added thick lines in the background it could look good. also the menu for that design should not be in a container, it would look at ton better with it just layered down the page with white background gaps on it. would look more modern.
i think two is the better design, especially if the christmas feel was taken away. the use of a darker red woud do that and make it look a bit more business like.
both are very nice though.
i suppose the basket could look ok. dunno.
template 3's header is miles better with that new header although i think a company logo would improve it miles but that would probably be down to them.
i suppose the basket could look ok. dunno.
For an example of a fixed/floating shopping basket see thePasty.com
i suppose that doesn't look bad actually. it is a bit different i suppose.
that site look nice overall. did castus make that?
No we didn't. But you can see how the basket is always visible. So it's more of a usability aspect.
It can be quite frustrating trying to find the basket on some online shops. Hence this should help.
I didn't have time to look at the second one but here is my view on the first:
-A good use of colour.
-Overall simple design.
-Maybe bump the font size up a little.
I really like the designs! I think they are great, what do you use to design stuff like that?
what do you use to design stuff like that?
Just photoshop. The design is then taken and sliced up for XHTML & CSS, and put on to the CMS/eCommerce.