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Site Name: Mistaken Love
Owner: Vivien
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 8th March 2009
Site Name
It’s really long and so is your URL. You could have just had ml.winter-rain. But the name is nice.
Coding and Validation
Your coding is valid.
Your CSS has is valid.
I’m quite surprised and impressed; you mentioned that you didn’t think your site was great, etc. Well, I can say you’ve saved me a lot of time.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
The site looks the same in most browsers according to Browsershots.org.
Navigation is clear. Everything’s easy to read, but the default text should be aligned to the left and not centered.
The layout is centered which is great.
I have two issues. One is the size of the header – as in file size. It’s in PNG format so it takes quite a while to load. I’m not sure what program you use but if you’re using PhotoShop try saving in a high quality JPEG – that still beats the file size of a PNG.
The second thing is the dimensions of the header. Too big. If I was using a laptop with a small screen, your layout would be way too wide for it. A safe size to use would be 770 pixels in width.
I’d say the height is also a little too much. We all don’t want to scroll too much. In future, don’t make it any taller!
Layout
Cute. You were really smart to balance the mass of brushes in the header with some very simple CSS.
Usually people do a bad job blobbing brushes everywhere. You’ve done an excellent job – I think it’s because you use different colours and they all work really well together.
I like the fading edges of the header image so things don’t just look cut off. The choice of colours is excellent. There are many, which keeps things very interesting.
You’ve really varied your CSS but you’re putting all the colours in funny places. Firstly, your navigation looks funny with a black background. I think it should go directly under your header image and have a purple background. The text should also be very bold.
The h1s in your sidebar look a bit funny. I don’t like the font and the blue background – it’s too dark.
The contrast between the purple background and the white background of your content is a bit too much. The white would look better if it was purple like your main background instead. I think that would really make things look a lot better.
Content
I like the signature in your blog entries, but it’s too big. I mean, it’s huge! It’s bigger than your titles!
Visitor
On this page “specifically” would be better expressed as “specially”. In the little descriptions it isn’t necessary to capitalise the content name, eg. “Icon Backgrounds” is better as Icon backgrounds.
Mm! The icon backgrounds are cute! I don’t use Iconator, but these are nice. What’s wrong with using them for personal use on the computer or other things, if you know what I mean?
Yep, and ditto for the avatar backgrounds. It would be cool if I could use one for a texture!
I don’t like these ones so much. The first four are okay.. then the quality gets worse. The big set you have of the the same designs but in different colours – looks pixelated, and the colours are too bright and contrasting.
The paint-splat type ones look pixelated as well. You’re saving in JPEG which is only okay when quality is very high!
The quality of your wallpaper backgrounds is also low, except for the first one in the second section of the butterflies. Again the others look pixelated.
Desktop wallpapers. These are amazing! They look like your current layout. These are of very good quality. I’m guessing they’re your more recent work? Well, I like them all, but I think you should cut down on the text. A desktop wallpaper should have some space on it, not just fully crammed with images and text! That’s why I like the ‘drop a heart’ one better than the others.
Ah, I love that song, Rooftops. Just a tip: make some bigger wallpapers for a resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels. 
I also just realised that you have your old site name on it. You might want to update that!
The scribbles are cute, even though there aren’t many.
On your pixels page, Stationary should be Stationery.
You need to update this page! You don’t have a black background so you don’t have to display your pixels like that.
You’ve only got one layout. Unfortunately this is what it looks like in my browser (Mozilla Firefox). Unfortunately it looks like that in Internet Explorer too, so it isn’t just a browser problem.
The colour schemes are nice and well set out (circles! Never seen that before!). But I personally wouldn’t use these and I think most people pick colours on their own. But they’re nice and quirky!
I find your ‘What’s That’ read a little bit strange. It’s a good start, but there aren’t many terms. Also, the trailing backslash doesn’t end a tag unless it’s in XHTML. You could confuse people there. I personally don’t feel too good about this article.
stationary should be stationery.
Your Target Rap was kind of funny, and a little odd.
I have to say that I’ve never heard of The Golden Goblet and I’m surprised you made a whole site on it! I won’t be reviewing it though, as it’s a separate part of your site.
OOOH! You have just added drawings. I love them! The cartoon is very cute, and I just laughed at the ‘annoyed’ sun and its changing expressions.
You didn’t draw the Puppet Girls one so I can’t really review that. It’s nice, though.
Plot vs. Theme is a very cute drawing. It’s coloured and all! I really like it, even though I don’t really understand it. It’s quite excellent and your writing is very neat!
I love the animal drawings; they’re so cute. I love all the drawings you have here. They’re really cute and original. They remind me of my drawings and doodles and scribbles, most of which I plop on my DeviantArt.
Site
On this page:
that named should be that name.
Lovely gifts! Makes me feel the need to put my own up! You have some Photobucket images that don’t exist anymore. Also the very nice gift of your name in the snow; it’s taking up a LOT of space. You might want to turn that into a thumbnail or something.
Mmm. Good credits page. But what about some of the images you use (like the ones in your free layout)? And the programs you use, and your host, and so on!
On your affiliates page you have quite a few dead Photobucket images. Fix them! Also, all the buttons are of different sizes. Make them all the same, or just use text links. Things will look a lot neater.
Me
I would prefer if it was called ‘owner’!
Your favourites section needs to be spaced out. It’s hard to read and some of it looks like this:
Color: Black Colors Together: Blac, Pink, Blue Animal: Panda or Giraffe Anime: Prince of Tennis or Shugo Chara! [Doki!] Manga: Prince of Tennis, Full Moon o Sagashite, or The Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross Band: Yellowcard
And of course it would be better like:
Color: Black
Colors Together: Black, Pink, Blue
Animal: Panda or Giraffe
Anime: Prince of Tennis or Shugo Chara! [Doki!]
Manga: Prince of Tennis, Full Moon o Sagashite, or The Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross
Band: Yellowcard
You spelt ‘black’ wrong so I put that in bold.
twelth should be twelfth.
Host
This just links to your host!
Originality & Creativity
I quite liked the style you showed in your site. It was very original and though a few things were things I’ve seen before, but not too often – like the backgrounds for the icons. I think you could make actual avatars rather than just backgrounds, and make them more universal rather than just for iconator.
I think you’re very creative and you have original ideas for your site!
Organisation & Errors
Pretty well organised. I would align text to the left though. It looks messy in the center. And I did spot some grammatical or spelling errors, and some PhotoBucket images that didn’t come up. That’s about it.
Overall Comment
Vivien, I enjoyed reviewing your site. I think you have some unique designs here and some unique content. I really love the drawings – they’re very original.
I’m impressed with your good coding. I didn’t check every page, but I’m assuming that you did – of course, that is preferable.
I’ll just list my suggestions for you:
- Make your header image a bit smaller.
- Don’t center the main text. And make your little signature smaller.
- You need to improve the quality of some graphics so work on that.
- Of course, fix all errors I’ve pointed out.
- Definitely add more of what you’ve got, or anything else new. What you’ve got is a good foundation that just needs some optimisation.
- Make avatars, not just backgrounds. Backgrounds after a while get boring!
- I’d like to see more layouts in your style. Fix that single one you have.
That’s about it. If you work on those, your site will improve a lot!
