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Site Name: Flawless-Secret
Owner: Jessica
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 2nd April 2009
Site Name
It’s a unique name. Though I can’t quite like it and don’t like dashes, it’s fairly easy to remember.
Coding and Validation
Your coding has 23 errors and 7 warnings.
You don’t have a doctype, or character encoding.
You need a doctype at the beginning of every page so the browser can process your site as an HTML document. This is the one that will best suit your site:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
You don’t have a character encoding. You have to place this in the <head> section:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
Your FanUpdate include should go in the body section, not at the end of everything.
You need alt tags on all your images. I suggest you read my tutorial on validating HTML. You’ve got many things in the wrong places.
The warnings are just caused by the XHTML coding of FanUpdate. In time I’m sure you will come to validate to XHTML when you are ready.
Your CSS has 17 errors and 2 warnings.
You are forgetting a lot of # at the beginning of your hexadecimal colour codes in your external stylesheet.
I’m also not sure why you’re using Lightbox JS; it doesn’t seem to work on my computer anyway.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
Looking at your site at Browsershots.org, your layout is looking consistent in most browsers.
The navigation is nice and obvious. Imagemap navigation or navigation using images isn’t too desirable though, since some people browse the internet with images turned off, as it loads faster. Even I do that sometimes.
It’s a little bit annoying when the layout is divided into pieces; it sends too many HTTP requests to the server and can take a bit longer to load.
The links are good and the text is okay, but I suggest reducing the letter spacing. It’s a bit hard to read when there is such large spacing and it’s hard to differentiate between words. Since the layout is a little on the large side, the text could actually be a bit bigger to get the right scaling.
Layout
It’s a very simple layout and I do like the design. The colours used are a very nice combination of green, blue and a parchment-type background. It all looks nice at a glance.
I’m not too fond of the font chosen for the navigation itself; I thought different fonts could be used for the navigation and site name.
The navigation hover effect is quite nice, and a small description is given of the section when hovered.
I like the image used in the layout. It is very simple but somewhat elegant at the same time.
The CSS is nice and simple and there is a good choice of colours. Overall, the layout is organised very well.
Content
Design
Very nice stuff in your portfolio. The second last layout opens as an actual coded layout; I don’t know if this was intended.
The requests page is well set out. Under your second testimonial you’ve forgotten a http:// in front of the link, so it’s not leading to the correct site.
Errors:
requires should be enquired
please do should be Please do
your doing should be you’re doing
dont should be don’t
allow should be Allow
everypage should be every page
creat should be create
piczo should be Piczo.
Reviews
Capitalise ‘I’ and ‘Your’. ‘to’ should be ‘too’. I won’t be reviewing the reviews for obvious reasons.
Content
The patterns are fairly good. I suppose they’re a bit like textures?
The brushes are quite nice! I assume you drew them – they’re beautiful! Particularly the bird ones.
anyway should be any way.
The PSDs are well cut. I think they’re pretty superfluous though; people can usually do it themselves.
The masks are fairly nice. I don’t see them much on websites.
The textures are pretty cool! I like them, even though I don’t use them much. They’re of fairly good quality, though I don’t like the oddly bright blue one.
As you have a texture set, maybe it could go under another heading.
There isn’t much one can say about colour schemes, but thankfully none of these contain horrible blinding colours! They are all of nice unique combinations too.
You have just one premade layout, and unfortunately the image is dead. The coded layout is very nice though. I like the unique colour combination.
I don’t really like the organisation of the icons. There aren’t many so I don’t see the point in having them sorted. The icons under ‘A Walk To Remember’ are nice, but rather simple. Same with the Disney icons. I think you could have added text to these. A lot of the Twilight icons are greyscale but they’re very nice.
The problem I have with the graphics is that they use celebrity images and it would be more original if they used other images. I’m sure you’re aware that celebrity images are illegal unless you’re paying for the images or have received permission from the photographer to use them.
The magazine scans are well done, but obviously they’re just for resources and you didn’t create them yourself.
The paper scans are very, very nice. I might even use one! One of the thumbnails – last column, third row – leads to a 404 (flawless-secret.com/scan/pc41.jpg).
The postcard and photo scans aren’t really my style, but they’re alright. Someone could find a use for them.
Site
This page is okay. However, your credits page is entirely buried in this section as a link in your text. It would be better if you had a clearer link to it, perhaps at the top of the page or something. With your credits you should also try to make note of why you’re crediting and what you took. Not just the URL.
Hosting
This page is fairly straightforward. You have fair rules.
peoples should be people’s.
Originality & Creativity
You had a lot of resources that were original, but it was a shame they were just scans and there weren’t as many designs as I expected. The scans are very good though, and very useful.
I like your designs and layouts and it’s nice that you take requests. You’ve got a lot of creative graphics but there is definitely room for more. Also, I see you’re trying different styles and kinds of layouts, which is good. It’s very unique.
Organisation & Errors
Fairly well organised. I am not a big fan of Icon Sort though, and I think you could make the link to the credits page clearer.
Overall Comment
Jessica, you’ve got a well kept site with some great designs. I like what you have, but it didn’t have that ‘wow factor’. I suggest simply adding more designs and building on what you’ve got on the site.
Coding isn’t bad and isn’t too important but of course it would be desirable to fix the erorrs.
Keep up the good work on your site. Just add more designs and be just that bit unique with the graphics you use in your icons and such. Your site definitely has potential.
