Review for Dez
Review by Zimrahil
Splash Page
None
Coding
You have both html 4.0 transitional and xml 1.0 transitional mixed together. This is not a terrible problem as you aren't trying to be w3 compliant and the site works on most browsers which is the important part. I would recommend using an overall stylesheet to control some of your divs and font content, just to make things a trifle easier but that is merely a suggestion. You have an excellent hierarchy in your typography with a clear header of the site, followed by large subheads, medium navigation and small text.Many sites put everything in the same hierarchy rendering it difficult to navigate. I might suggest bumping everything up one, however, since the lowes tend text is small enough that I had to use my control plus in order to read your site. I know it is the latest trend but do have mercy on people trying to read it. Your use of accented colours and style treatments on your main body text and navigation was excellent. Often people overdo that and it becomes a busy tasteless tangle. Yours simply augments your clear hierarchy and divides your sections carefully. The navigation is orange, along with any navigational links, your sweeties are pink all over the site andupdates are violet. Excellent organizational colors and you are consistent throughout the site which makes it possible. Each area is clearly delineated with the yellow bars, I might recommend a trifling more space between each of your main sections. Allow them to breathe a bit more. Overall you left plenty of border area around your site which is fantastic. White space is always a good thing.
Layout
This is very much a typographically driven web site,and you keep with your colour scheme which isextremely well crafted. One more color on the site and it would be ruined but you managed to avoid thatpitfall. Your choice of font and placement is fantastic and compliments the shape of the actress.Since you used one hero shot I like the fact youcarefully went round it with white and I like thecrisp cutout feel. I would recommend extending herknee, however, that looks chopped off and out ofplace. If the original photo does not include it, useyour clone tool or copy paste off of her other kneeand blend it in so her knee can comfortably rest abovethe links without being sliced like that. Overall ithas a bright, cheery and airy feel to it which is a nice change from many layouts I have seen about online. Thank you for going with a careful designrather than another collage look. It takes courage tobe simple and talent to do it well and you haveachieved both.
Content
All About Me: You have a lovely way that you broke up what could have been a long dull text page with that image on the top left and the wrapping text. I like the fact you have clear sub subtitles with the "love" "hate" etc however you changed from black to pink text in thesubtitles of "stalk me" and "likes && dislikes" which is jarring. You should not be deviating from your settypographic style in that way. Either the subheads areblack or they are pink. I don't mind the sub subheads, since they are an overall change. The othersreally aught to be consistent, however. Also yousuddenly change from a solid yellow bar to dottedwithout warning and that is rather a jar. It is a goodidea to either be solid or dotted and not throw themboth together willy nilly. In your text you did an excellent job balancing each section so it is aesthetically pleasing. Love, Hate, Music, etc all have about the same amount on each list so it has avery clean and orderly feel to it. You kept yourdifferent sections very clearly set apart as well.This page could have been very busy but instead it has, again, a very orderly feel to it. I like the fact you put your gifts as thumbnails so people have an idea instead of opening them up blindly. I would recommend having those open in a new page or alightbox, however, those are simple to set up andpeople can't accidentally close out your site.
Visitor Content
Rules: You need to put a paragraph break in between your toppink admonishment and the actual rules. Usually combining centering and left justifying isn't a good thing but if you keep enough space between the sections it helps balance it out again. I think all your rules are clear and need to be there. My only suggestion is with the tagboard rule you might want toput it in small text right next to your tagboard asnot everyone will come read the visitor rules andmight accidentally transgress.
Icons: In general your icons show the same as I picked upfrom your layout-- a very simple streamlined elegance.I grow tired of massive icons that try to fit fifty images, textures and fonts in one small space. You really take into consideration the fact that icons aresmall and need to be treated as such. Your eye for cropping is excellent, I don't see anything that is centered or poorly cropped in any of your icons andsometimes that is half the battle. I do not like movement on text but that is merely a personal preference. I thought the icon with the smiley face onthe onion was quite amusing. Overall you haveexcellent taste, stay with it. Don't try to join thebusy collaging group. As I said before, simple isoften more difficult than it looks.
Pixels: Though there aren't too many, they are very wellorganized and for the most part recognizable. Thetruffles don't seem to read very well for me. If Ididn't know what they were I'd say they were mud pies with plants growing out. There must be a way to have them feel more...trufflie...as it were. I'd say make more, the ice creams were especially well done.
CGs: I don't know what these are nor will I comment on themsince I am not in the know and would only have ratherderogatory remarks about a subject I am not entirelyfamiliar with. I did finally notice you have a button.ico on your site which is adorable.
Scribbles: Again your ice creams are fantastic, you really havethat shape down and they have such a movement to them that they feel alive and realistic, especially thecherries on top. Your more saturated rainbow is definitely the better of the two, although I'm not keen on rainbows in general.
Button Templates: A few of these were good, such as the moon and womanin orange, but in general not very impressive. You aregetting too busy in a small space-- stay with what youare good at as Lord David Cecil would say.
Color Schemes: The first three and the last one are definitely valid,however the others I'd recommend taking more colourtheory classes before propounding.
Premade Coded Layouts: Both of these really showcase your talent for creatingsimple, yet lasting and classic images. Each has a hero shot with careful and well-placed augmentswithout distracting from the original concept o rimage. I am extremely impressed with both of these, although you do seem to favor the same overalllayout. Try breaking out into other designs of where you put your content and divs.
Premade Uncoded Layouts: The first one was excellent, though a bit evenlyspaced, the middle two did not work as all the elements were exactly the same size, the fourth onewas beginning to have a proper hierarchy but the text wasn't integrated. The last one wasn't blended well but the design was perfect, as was the typography andoverall attitude.
Reads: The wedding story was quite amusing, the groom didindeed plan the perfect revenge and you wrote it with just enough humour, sarcasm and wit and didn't go ontoo long so people would be more likely to read it.The golf story was a similar sort of thing, you are quite good at short fiction with twists. I liked the90s kid as well. Personally I was more of an 80s kid,but I remember Magic School Bus, Wishbone, ReadingRainbow, although only in passing as we didn't own a television. Sometimes I would be over at a friend'showever. I did like Wishbone... it is quite amusing of you to put them all in a list and I like how you broke it out so it wasn't just a long list but also included your own comments and is quite organized if you think about it. Fifty years from now historians will be studying your site.
Tutorials:
Web Site Tips: You broke out of your hierarchy again here with using main headers as sub headers. Try to keep it more consistent. You have excellent points about not being a copycat and taking the latest style, names and layout. This is a pet peeve of mine as well so thankyou for stating it. And yes on the using web safe fonts and overuse of brushes! I shall always be in favor of rants on that subject. Nothing to say here but "da bomb" (which is a reference to your 90s page).
Basic HTML: This is helpful, however I think you need to have an example for people to look at. If you have font color, people might not know about hexidecimal soperhaps one box with an example and one box with the code to copy paste. Also iframes are no longer supported in the newer versions of html so I'd take that off. Scrolling divs replaced it in 4.0 transitional.
Div Coding: I think it is a simple, straight forward tutorial. You made each bit of the tag clear to even the newest user and did not over explain and hide how simple it really is. Put more space at the top in between your pink and black text, however. Also I have to point out that divs can cause a lot of problems when attempting certain layouts and aren't always cross platform compatible so tables are still in use a great deal. I've had to recode entire sites from divs to tablesfor clients because of cross-browser-platform issuesso don't be too quick to recommend them.
PHP Includes: While this is a well written, clear tutorial, I thinkyou can edit it yet more and par down the language.The best sorts of tutorials for getting started arethose with the fewest words. You can always google outone of the long involved ones, what are really neededare short and clear tutorials on this sort of thing.
About the Domain: Your brief history of the domain was quite interesting, perhaps you could cover more of why you wanted the domain to begin with. Why do you like to make graphics? Why have the things on the site that you do? The link backs seem completely out of keeping with the feel of your site and graphics, I'd recommend dumping them all and starting over. For one thing the text is completely unreadable and they have the very busy cliche feel which you seem anxious (and I agree wholeheartedly) to avoid. On the reviews, put it on your own site because other people's sites have a tendency to vanish unexpectedly. It doesn't take too long to copy paste it over to your own domain. You had in the visitor rules no advertising on the tagboard and here you have put a link in the tagboard if you want to exchange links. This seems a trifle
Site Reviews: While I appreciate the fact you post your rubric, sometimes it is difficult to force all sites into it. A more flexible style of review can occasionally be more helpful. For example, what if a site has no graphics on it because it is a writings site? Do they get a 0 in Graphic Skill? That doesn't seem entirely fair. I read a few of your reviews and they have an excellent balance between well thought out suggestions, critiquing and compliments. It isn't too wordy as I tend to go on, which is probably a good thing. I like the fact you put a screencapture of the site up so people will know what it looked like when you reviewed it. Often people change their layouts so often that if someone read the review and then visited the site most of it would be obsolete.
Salty Listings: Have this open in a new window and warn people they are going off the web site.
Conclusion
Overall you are an oasis in the world of overdone textures. You have a lovely sense of taste and typography, though there is still a lot of work to be done in clarifying your stylesheets and hierarchy. Your graphics, for the most part, have a clean and considered design, though some do not and I would recommend trashing them. There isn't a lot of contenton your site yet, so keep adding more, especially in the layouts sections.