Review: Mischa @ Fashionable Sparkles

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Site Name: Fashionable Sparkles
Owner: Mischa
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 6th December 2009

Site Name

It’s actually quite catchy and easy to remember even though I don’t really like the name that much. It does seem a bit tacky.

Coding and Validation

Your coding has 14 errors.

It appears that you’re missing a </div> tag, however upon looking at your coding you have a few extra ones outside of </html>. Keep in mind that </html> should be the last thing in your document.

Apparently type is also specified in one of your Freewebs scripts. You only need it once.

Attempt to use <strong> instead of <b> and <em> instead of <i> from now on, for semantic – more meaningful – purposes. With screen readers for the blind, this can be useful for them.

Your CSS is valid with some warnings. Make sure you quote fonts like “Lucida sans Unicode”, “Lucida Console” and others.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

Your site is navigable and functions in Firefox, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer.

The website is easy to navigate but I would prefer the navigation links above the welcome message, or arranged with horizontal navigation.

In the copyright, are written should be is written.

Some of your links are really tiny. I don’t think you should specify a font size but rather let it take on the default size text you have for the rest of the page. Also, try to make them a significantly different colour, especially on hover. That way it is easier to see that it is a link.

A solid background for the content would make the text a bit easier to read – the background has too much noise so something solid would be better.

Layout

I don’t recall seeing a lot of your older layouts, even though I browsed through your past layouts. However, I think this looks pretty good compared to your older layouts.

Though you have used grey, which is often very limiting (especially when you don’t use other colours apart from black and white), your layout still has an element of brightness and interest. I like that you haven’t chosen something too dark, but you’ve chosen an image with a range of tones. I can’t tell if you’ve edited the image but it looks great the way it is.

I’m not really liking the choice of font used in the image. You could use something a little less rounded and perhaps something less bold. I don’t really like the outline around the text either. It is much too bold, and if it was a little thinner it would look nicer. Perhaps some brushes or effects under the text would hold the text up so you wouldn’t have too much trouble making it work with the background. Some brushes as an overlay, or even just a panel with reduced opacity, would allow you more flexibility with the text.

As much as I like the background I think you do need to have a solid coloured background, such as white or grey, under the content. Some of the text is a tad hard to read. The image could be a lot more interesting, and I think, judging from a lot of your graphics I’ve seen, there is still room for improvement.

Despite that, I think the structure of the layout is quite good, and I’m really liking the organisation of the footer. I think it really stands out in the layout, considering the large amount of grey you have used.

Content

Site

On the affiliates page, Piczo and Blogspot should be capitalised.
because the pop-up should be because of the pop-up
so don’t just apply if you should be don’t apply if you just.

I’m not sure about this, but I think Movie Price should be Movie Prize on the awards page.

You have a lot of animated link buttons. Some inanimate ones would be a good idea, since these can be a bit distracting.

Owner

Nothing wrong here!

Visitor

Challenges are definitely fun. I’m not too big on them. I like to participate but personally I don’t usually have much to say on challenges in general. They definitely get visitors involved though.

On the Accessory Guess, Who’s hair should be Whose hair.

“Awards for you” should really be something like “Awards pick up”.

All these challenges are interesting – you have a few generic ones like ones for icons, but otherwise I don’t really have much to say.

The quizzes are nice but perhaps they would be more fun and interactive if you used a script to create it.

The pixels are very cute! Some are a little fuzzy on the edges, and the iPods look a little grainy, but you’ve done an okay job.

I don’t really like the pixel text because they’re animated. I know it’s fun and a good skill to be able to animate things but sometimes, depending on the graphic, they can be distracting. These also look a bit fuzzy – I suggest using some pixel fonts or fonts that are more defined.

On the review rules:
can take any critic should be can’t take any criticism
visable should be visible.

On the queue, you should write “none” so it’s clear that no one is in the queue.

On Erin’s review you have written “Mozilla Firework” instead of “Firefox”.

I’m not saying this to review your reviews or anything, but I have noticed that your reviewing gets better as you do more. I have to say that they aren’t detailed, but after all, reviews are just opinions.

This has been irking me because I haven’t said too much about it, but overall, your graphic skills can improve. I can see that you are very good at blending images and have nice effects on a lot of them, but sometimes the quality of your images isn’t the best. I can see that some of your avatars are a little fuzzy on the edges. When you do save the image make sure it’s at the highest quality. To avoid any images of bad quality, make sure that the image you start off with is of good quality – in the first place.

I’m just assuming, but with the avatars it looks like you have made the avatar then resized it. Your little tag “FS” appears fuzzy in some of these, which gives me that impression. If you are going to add little tags like that, it’s best to do it after the image has been resized. Also, it is best to resize the original image before decorating and blending, especially with icons/avatars.

Nevertheless these avatars are quite cute.

The wallpapers – again something I need to comment on. These are done fairly well but after seeing a lot of graphics you have made, I notice that your weakness is adding text to images. When you do this, I see that most of the time you place a bold border on it. I’m not sure about the features and limitations of PSP (which I believe you use) but putting the text on a new layer with some glow around it, or screen or overlay effect, with appropriate adjustments, would make the text look a lot better on the image.

I really don’t like the first Britney Spears wallpaper with the text. The effects aren’t very nice at all. The second one is very nice though!

The wallpapers are alright. I think you could make bigger ones, such as size 1024 by 768 pixels, or 1280 by 800 pixels. These are very small.

Tutorials

The blend one is okay. There are a lot of other ways to blend – sometimes using an eraser is not as effective when the backgrounds don’t work out so well. I’m not saying that your tutorial is bad. You do however need to provide some better quality images.

The colouring tutorials are good but I really don’t like the last one. It is such a harsh change. Also, it might be useful to include more screenshots within the program so people know exactly what they have to do.

The same goes for the blinkie tutorial. More screenshots, so the tutorial is easier to follow. And the same for the transparent tutorial!

Make sure you provide credit for the celebrity images you’ve used. Try to avoid using them because they aren’t that original.

Originality & Creativity

You haven’t really got anything I haven’t seen before – you have a lot of challenges which seem to be popular on other websites, as well as tutorials and such. But I get this nice sort of vibe from your website and I can see that you have put in a lot of hard work and update regularly.

I think your graphic skill could definitely improve. You’ve got potential because I can see it in what you do. But you can improve with the quality of graphics, in general.

Organisation & Errors

Well organised. I didn’t see anything wrong with the organisation of your site.

Overall Comment

I might be a bit weird but I get the feeling you’ve improved a lot. I have visited your site a few times. The challenges were very interesting. I don’t recall your coding being as fluent as it is now, though, so I believe you have improved.

You just need to work a bit on the graphic skill. I realise your site’s been around for a while and you have it as a hobby, you mentioned on your site page. I think you have done a good job on it, though. Since most of your site is graphics and challenges, I can’t really say much more.

The challenges are nice but they’re not really unique content. You have a nice range of content on your website but basically all I see flaws in are the graphics. You can definitely work on those.

Rating

(out of 5)