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Site Name: Vintage Soul
Owner: Cheri
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 29th March 2009
Site Name
Vintage Soul – easy to remember. I hear the word ‘vintage’ a lot but I love the name!
Coding and Validation
Your coding has 34 errors and 8 warnings.
You have your <head> tag placed nicely after your doctype, so there is no need for another one – you have one specified after your WordPress info.
You have two titles specified; you only need one.
There are no major coding problems causing hassle with your site but I thought I would go through and see.
You use < in your latest entry. I know it’s annoying, but you actually need to write < to escape an error.
Don’t forget, images need a trailing backslash like this:
<img src="http://vintagesoul.org/layouttesting/header.jpg" width="851" height="259" style="border: none;" usemap="#top" alt="" />
Don’t forget the ones in advertising too!
In your quick counter, avoid the notes that surround it that say “Quick-Counter.net” – I am sure you recognise that code as a counter. Also in the URLs, replace & (ampersands) with &.
You’re also using <center> which is deprecated, so avoid it – use a header like h6 to center things. You also shouldn’t put a list in a paragraph or header tag, and it should be surrounded by <ol> or <ul>.
Your imagemap actually needs an id.
You seem to have a lot of </div> towards the end of your coding. Are you sure you end all your divs there?
Also, you have an extra </body> </html> at the end of your coding.
All that should actually get you validated coding! 
Your CSS has 4 errors in CSS level 2.1.
One error is in your WordPress stylesheet. You have color;color:#20c7fe – you obviously do not need “color” twice.
I spotted another error, but if you validate to CSS 3 (instead of 2.1), you’re fine!
You actually have the same error in your other stylesheet, with the “color” attribute under h2.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
Looking at your site at Browsershots.org, your site looks similar in most browsers.
I like the navigation, but rather than an imagemap (which doesn’t have a hover effect, that’s a shame), I suggest a horizontal CSS block navigation. It’s better for the visitors. Some may browse with images off – yes, I do sometimes.
The text is a bit hard to read as the grey is dark on black. A lighter grey like #C0C0C0 would be a lot better and a lot easier to read.
The layout is centered, excellent job!
Another problem with the layout is that it’s quite wide. I know it’s great for the resoltuion you’ve mentioned – but some people still use smaller ones. On a laptop, your layout would result in a horizontal scrollbar, which, to be honest, sucks!
Even in my resolution, which is sort of on the large side, your layout takes up my whole screen. I would not like to be on a laptop having to scroll. Keep in mind smaller resolutions on your next layout.
You mention what your site is best viewed in – but you know your visitors aren’t going to change their settings for you, right? That is why it’s best to cater for them, not them cater for you. Just keep this in mind with other layouts. Don’t make them too wide.
Layout
Ah, I love! The use of bright colours against black. It’s very nice!
The header image is so simple, but is very nice. I really like how you used random letter sizes and styles together. If I look at it for a while I get picky. The “E” in the word ‘vintage’ is a bit out of place, is all.
I love the wavy brushes. They add just the right amount of interest.
Fix the colour of the main text, as I mentioned. That way it’ll work with the colours better, as they’re all quite bright and dandy. I love all the colours and the CSS is simple but radical!
Content
Content
Ah. Right. Why isn’t this ‘resources’ or ‘visitor’? I would call them resources.
You have rules which are on a separate page. It’s a bit unlikely someone will read them – people dive straight into the content, so perhaps summarising into a few dot points would be a better idea.
If not? Well, a few things to correct:
rules sections should be rules section
livejournal should be LiveJournal.
Onto the brushes. The third imagepack leads me to a 404. Perhaps you could offer them in a .jpg image or something similar if people don’t have PhotoShop and would like to use these otherwise.
Colour swatches. I haven’t used these, but I suppose they’re handy so people can just put them in their program. I don’t know why, but your URL reads vintage-soul.org on them?
transfered should be transferred.
Lovely icon textures! Though I don’t use them much and there aren’t many. Very nice.
The photography is lovely! The first few are a bit blurry, and this one is very blurry, but I absolutely adore the sunset ones. I can really imagine them being used!
Nice textures! A few are grainy, but they’re really nice. I don’t use textures very often myself, but I’m sure these would be useful to many others! I also think it would be okay to put them on one page, since there aren’t, like, a hundred.
Cute wallpapers! The first time I’ve seen a car one that I actually liked. Haha.
Oops, ‘make a request’ on your Neopets adoptables page is a 404.
There aren’t many of these, but they’re so cute! Ah, they take me back.
Tutorials
Your coloring tools tutorials don’t exist yet.. so don’t list them!
I love colorization tutorials. They make me insanely jealous because I can’t write one of my own and I am not too good at them. You’re using an image of Lindsay Lohan, and it’s nice that you credited, but using celebrity images is illegal. Even the site you took it from probably didn’t have permission from the photographers to distribute! It’s always much safer and more original to use your own photos. (I’m sure they’ll have the same awesome effect.)
Nice tutorial on convertng to brushes! For the last step, I assume you mean to repeat the steps for the remaining brushes?
Two text effect tutorials rolled into one.. now that’s really creative. I like that.
I’m not a big fan of the outlined text. But your tutorial is great, and easy to follow.
Woahhhh. I love your article! Bad crediting is horrible, and something I don’t see many people address! It’s quite disgusting. You have extremely good points here. I enjoyed reading this article a lot. Someone who really knows their stuff. Top job.
Resources
What a bummer. Coming soon! Never a good look for a site, Cheri. If you don’t have the page then don’t put it up. People will be annoyed to find there’s nothing there. But, I have to give you credit for the convincing note you wrote.
Site
About you page. It’s just a bit long, but I’ll read through it anyway.
french adults should be French adults
french accent should be French accent
french and should be French and
italian should be Italian.
I actually enjoyed reading that; you sound like a very bubbly person! You write very well, too. I have to comment though, it must suck being short. I thought being some five foot or whatever was bad, now I feel sorry for you!
Contact info – all good.
Terrific credits page, can’t complain.
The background for the fields on your form are funny. Perhaps make it a solid colour rather than a pattern? You also have no questions so remove the header saying ‘questions’.
Under your past layouts, you didn’t finish writing the fonts you used.
Remove the pictures page till you actually get some pictures!
Rules – went through this already.
Haha, thank you for warning us all about the evil 1and1.com. Rather interesting story, which I also enjoyed reading.
On your site stats, Oficially should be Officially.
I just wanted to make a comment that your domain is rather new but impressive!
Originality & Creativity
You’ve got some creative and original stuff here. I love the photography and the textures are great! I’d love to see more tutorials on graphics, and obviously more resources.
Organisation & Errors
Well organised – very small errors, nothing huge. No huge complaints.
Overall Comment
Cheri, you’ve got a well-organised site that really had me interested! Not only did I like your resources, but the things you wrote were also interesting to read.
I really enjoyed my visit and found nothing major to complain about. Your domain is new so I’d like to congratulate you. Why, I don’t know, but we all deserve some praise.
Your site has quite a professional look, and there’s nothing on your site that is useless, offensive, or anything. I found it a joy to look through. I can tell you now, I was in an angry annoyed mood when I started this review, and while I’m glad to have finished, I am glad to have also discovered a great webdesigner.
The suggestions I have for your site would just be to tweak the coding – when you get up to it, of course – and do add more things. I think you write very well so I’d love to see writings. And more graphics and tutorials of course.
Also, change your font colour immediately! I had to highlight a lot to read. Next time don’t make your layout too wide, either.
Keep up the great work!
