Hello all.

I have finally finished the site I have been building on Helvetia Watch Company watches!

I have pages on their 1930s sports and pilots models, serial numbers, movements etc.

It will take a few days for Google to find it but in the mean time you can get to it directly from the link below

http://www.helvetiahistory.co.uk

Please have a look. Any feedback gratefully received.

Thanks. Carl.

 

Very cool. Will look at it in depth tomorrow

 

Really interesting site and a good start. I’m glad someone has begun to sort out those pilots’ watches. Thanks for sharing!

 

Your efforts are appreciated. The site provides an informative look at the brand and is helpful.

I like the simple style of the older logo.

It's enough to make me want to go searching for a Helvetia or two. That's all I need, another watch tangent to pursue.

 

Thanks! Everyone should have a Helvetia or two!

 

Brilliant! About time someone wrote up on Helvetia. I'm a big Helvetia fan myself!

 

Thanks Mitka.

Bet that's a 3199 2 case? DIH serial number or civilian?

 

DIH https://mitka.co.uk/helvetia-calibre-800c/

 

Here is my latest art deco baby Will get some TLC and a new rose crown soon!

 

Didn't knew the brand before.You did a brilliant Job, well done! I think pages like this are what keeps our Hobby alive.

Now let's hunt a 2b!

 

Here's mine:



I've seen about 10 like this, all with slightly different dials and hands. Hallmarked 1948/49 and with 800D movements.

 

Thanks Crouchy. I have 7 varieties of Type '2b' DIH watches recorded with a variety of dress sub second dials and all with 3199 only marked cases and 82C-24 movements. I'm pretty sure they were part of an unfulfilled German military order reused after the war for Civilian watches.

 

Cool!!!!
I had a really nice diver duo

 

Congratulations

 

Very nice!

 

Fantastic, if you ever decide to part with that one please let me know!

 

As a web designer and front-end developer, I have to say a few things

Considering that this site is built on Wix, you cannot perhaps control everything.
I haven't used Wix myself, but the code looks pretty awful. I mean there's so much CSS code inside HTML. It's messy. But, I guess you cannot change that.

I'd have made better use of typography.
Inside of content, I would use blockquotes to bring out some important features.
People really read less these days, so some short key points can help with the user experience.
I'd remove shadows from images, as it's a bit old school, but perhaps the styling here is fine.
It would also be nice to click on images and see them larger.

Other than that - nice work!

 

Hello Risto,

Thanks for your comments.

I understand what you mean about the text. I wanted to stop it looking like a lot of reading but at the end of the day it is to impart information and apart from missing out big chunks I wasn't sure how to do that and it not be a lot of text! The only other way I could think of was to have some front end pages with less text and more style and 'Read more...' type links to lead to the more in depth info.

Your idea about block quotes is good it could help break it up a bit and not look as bad.

Thanks.

 

Well, many other sites have done this.
The text paragraphs must not be very wide, very long, too small text size etc.
You can do a lot to improve the user experience.

For example, W&W does this in their articles:


Hodinkee also keeps the width of the paragraphs pretty short. Better to read.

Also, when your style has similar layout logic throughout the pages it's easier to process information.
For example, using 2 styles for images would also make better UX:
- 100% wide for big shots;
- 50/50 (2 images) or 33/33/33 (3 images) inline next to each other.
I think W&W is a good site to get ideas.