back to Completed Reviews

Site Name: City In Surrender
Owner: Sophia
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 3rd April 2010

Previous reviews:

DiTalento (re review)

DiTalento

Designing Amateur (re review)

Designing Amateur

Smooches-x

Site Name

You didn’t choose it yourself but I think it was a good choice!

Coding and Validation

According to the HTML validator you have 10 errors. You have put in an image tag without the slash towards the end. You have also forgotten a </ul> after your affiliates list in the sidebar.

On that note, instead of using img to put in your header image, use a #header div, for example:

#header {
background: url('headerimg.jpg') no-repeat scroll center top;
width: auto;
height: 300px;
background-color: #fff;
}

That way you can just write <div id="header"> </div> – and the reason this should be done is so that when someone cannot view images, they will see a blank space where the image should be, and it will keep your layout flowing.

Your CSS is valid. Awesome job.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

I have looked at the majority of your site in Firefox. It looks pretty consistent in Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome – there’s not a problem there.

I understand the creativity of your navigation but unfortunately I don’t see this as very accessible. Not many people will understand what you mean with these links. I know it can be obvious – “Accueil”, “Visiteur” – but this might lead people to think that your site is in another language. Perhaps the navigation could be a bit bigger as well.

I like how you’ve kept to standard fonts and a generally “clean” layout in terms of styling, with nothing too fancy; you’ve always done this which is something good to keep consistent.

I can read the text on your website and I know you’re keeping a light scheme (I’ll write about this more under “Layout”) but perhaps the main body of text should be closer to black, to tone down the black in the header image. It would look more fitting and also be a bit easier to read.

Layout

From your layouts I seem to get the impression that you’re finding it hard tying your site name into them. Is it too long? You tend to use the word “City” in such a creative way, and then leave the rest of your site name hanging elsewhere. (Such as with a previous pink/green layout of yours.) It makes your layout images look a bit messy.

In the current layout, I really like how “City” is set out – large, bold, with the silhouette as the letter “i”. I love the basic typography on the bold letters. But then “In Surrender” is placed under it all – it doesn’t look very good. In fact, I think you could have completely left it out and the layout would look great.

If you don’t like the site name or can’t fit it in – use it advantageously. If it looks good as just “City” – do it. Because I think the current layout could very well have done without that bottom panel.

I mentioned earlier to use a colour closer to black for the text. I think that in contrast, the top navigation and the footer are a bit too bold for my liking – you want things to stand out in the header image and those blobs of black on the top and bottom don’t look so good. Having smaller, spread out sections, like the main body of text and the navigation text, as black – will balance the black in the header image. You don’t want to have more large sections of black when you’ve got it standing out perfectly in that image.

On that note, the sidebar sections should have a similar grey background to the affiliate links (they look great, by the way).

You’ve done a great job incorporating the yellow and the purple, but I think you could throw the purple out of this layout, because I know the layout would look better without that bottom part of the header image with “In Surrender”.

Content

You have a nice welcome message but it doesn’t really interest me. I personally would remove it.

Perhaps decrease margin-left on the links for your affiliates; there shouldn’t be so much whitespace on the left.

About Me (Propriétaire)

Some mistakes you can fix:
in United Arab Emirates should be the United Arab Emirates
Jensen’s Ackles should be Jensen Ackles’
high school musical should be High School Musical
party in USA should be Party in the USA
cyrus should be Cyrus
Getting a mac should be Get a Mac
iphone should be iPhone
supernatural should be Supernatural

I don’t really like how the fanlistings/hatelistings page is set up. It looks quite messy since you’re using <h1> after <h4> – I suggest using a different style for the subheadings.

Resources/Visitor (Visiteur)

I don’t really like how this page is set out – I know the folders match well, and I’ve seen them on a website with a tutorial as well – but it would look a lot neater simply as a list.

The avatars/icons are okay. I like the Adobe ones but they are very simple. Perhaps you could make a different style? For example, I used this icon set on DeviantArt for my computer and I liked the artist’s style of the icons.

The avatars look okay. I like the techniques that you’ve used but I think you need to employ them in a better way – I don’t really like the third one. It might have looked better with different images. These could be improved.

I love the textures – they’re amazing. Definitely a step up from months ago – a great improvement. In fact I think I might have used your textures at some point when I was just trying something out. But they are great – high quality as well.

I love the new desktop wallpapers – I remember some of these but the new ones look radical as well. In the two versions of “play the pain away”, the text is in different places though. In the one that reads “Colour Shock” I don’t really like how part of the face is flipped, though…

The brushes are simple but well defined.

I love the second premade layout more than the first, because it’s cleaner and looks a lot neater. I think the first one could be improved; the white background in the sidebar and footer don’t look so good considering the layout is mainly dark. The header image is a little squished and maybe it would look a little better if you had that one image just on top of the sidebar, or just on top of the content, so it would be more structured.

I know articles are just opinion and I don’t feel so strong on your point about “lol” but it is definitely an interesting topic to write about. I guess you could say that when you are saying something mean, yet saying “lol” afterwards, it makes it seem like you’re putting that “bit of laughter” in to make what you’re saying a little less hurtful (but it actually doesn’t). Perhaps you could say something like that.

For the domain contest article there should be commas after “second” and “third”.
holder is better said as “host”
So should be This way, or This is so
to win should be of winning
So it’s should be It’s
fair chance to win should be better chance of winning

The “do’s and don’ts on an about page” article is good. I think that you could put the points into a list. Your coding is a little messed up on this page which is why it isn’t appearing correctly. Also, you can just should be you can just say.

The “offline/real life lols” article could apply to online life as well. I think you could really expand this article – be careful with what you say because people might also be offended when you say that they are being sarcastic.

The social networking article is also good, but like your other articles, should definitely be expanded and I think you need to sound a little more convincing or give more examples. For example, examples of what people say, examples of what you mean, examples of those ads in Twitter, etc.

On the article about commenting, care off should be care of. The last note can be under another subheading about “the look of your site”. The first section could also be elaborated on.

I’m really glad you made the texture tutorial – I was wondering how you did them! It inspired me to open Photoshop.

Make sure you capitalise in the icon tutorial – Adobe Photoshop, and here is should be Here is. I like this tutorial! It’s simple but it also teaches someone how to use basic effects in Photoshop as well.

Portfolio (Portefeuille)

I only briefly looked here as it is another part of your site. But I think you’ve done a fairly good job, the layout looks great. The text in the footer could be centered.

Website

On this page you have some mistakes:
freeweb’s should be Freewebs’
DiTlento should be DiTalento
on Google on how to get a free website should be on Google “how to get a free website”

On the credits page i should be I.

On the advertising page, you state:

It’s not my responsibility to change your link if you moved.

Perhaps you could state that they should reapply or notify you, and that they shouldn’t expect you to know/check that they moved.

Originality & Creativity

Lots of original articles, especially their topics! You had a bold, unique layout as well. You’re always seeming to try new things and I like that you did the same for this layout. I think your CSS could be a little more interesting since you do use the same fonts most of the time. At least jazz up the <h1>s a bit!

Organisation & Errors

Well organised in terms of hierarchy and page structure. A few pages could be made neater and the CSS could be brushed up, though. I found no broken links.

Overall Comment

The more I review your site the less things I find to complain about, and the more I see your design and style actually improving. There are of course the occasional typing mistakes here and there, which can be forgiven, but I think that you really step outside the square sometimes with your designs, which makes your website seem very “out there” and unique. I notice that you’re not afraid to try new things, and I know you’ve had problems with WordPress, but it seems to me that you still show determination.

I have also come to feel really strongly about your site being unique – you have come so far. When I first reviewed your site, you were using celebrity images and graphics that weren’t that unique and your graphics weren’t very well off. I think you’re a very fast learner and you’re always trying new things. More noticeably now, you are always adding graphics and articles to your site which are very unique – you never seem to follow the crowd or do what everyone else is doing. Right now the current articles you have are very unique and I wouldn’t have thought of covering those kinds of topics myself.

You’ve still got things to perfect in your designs but keep on trying new things; I’m really impressed.

Rating

(out of 5)