» owned: katrien
» host: sitesled
» since: 01 October 2005
» version: "The outsider"
Stats
Date: 2006-1-12 Site:Starletica Owner: Louise and Darcy Review By: Hannah
Review
First Look: (8/10)
Well, I had to switch browsers because I could see your IFrame's border, but once I switched to Internet Explorer it was ok. My main complaint is that it's almost completely white. It needs something in the background or something. I love the CSS you used with all the blue, maybe you should add a light blue background to match, it would look very nice.
Layout: (16/20)
I'll grade each skin seperately and use the average as your score (rounded to the nearest point)
Cloud: (17/20)
Once again with the background. It needs something. This one not as much as the main layout. I love the little cloud you made, and I also really like the zig-zag underneath. I also really like how you did the images for the links. The box border looks wonderful surrounding the links. I can tell you just have paint(I think..), so for two people that only have that graphic program, that's just fantastic! I only have a few suggestions with this one: move the line "let the sun come out" over to the right a bit because the cloud moves a little that way, so it would look nicer and I don't understand the hearts. Everything in this one is like.. raining and sad and the hearts are happy. Maybe change them to raindrops, that would look adorable!
Retro Skies: (19/20)
I love this layout. Compared to your others, this is probubly the best. I really like the little pixels again. And you have a pretty colored background here as well! The circles look a little mixmatched though, like they were just thrown on randomly instead of neatly placed. And by the navigation, you have this rainbow.. thing.. I'm not sure what it is. It's pretty, but it doesn't look like it's placed correctly. Other than those two little things, I really like this layout.
Fun Layout: (10/20)
I'm really not sure what I like about this one other than the yummy sundae. It really just looks like you slapped three images ontop of some brushes. It needs order. Maybe choose just one area (ex. food, flowers, etc.) and use that for a layout, but if one has nothing to do with the other, it doesn't look good. Another thing is the blurriness. It has very, very bad quality. As I right click, I see you saved it as a gif. What you need to do is make it a higher quality gif. I know that the higher quality makes the image larger, but it's worth it to have good quality. Right now it's all spotted and doesn't look neat at all. And lastly, the text. It's really not a horrible choice of a font, but the placement is terrible. You need to move it where there's more empty space because at this time you can't read it hardly at all. Personally, I'd put it on the bottom in the center of the layout image. And once again, the background. It needs some sort of background.
Movie Star: (15/20)
I won't say too much about this one because I don't think you drew the image. After seeing your other layouts, I can tell you didn't make this. As I look into your credits, I can't see who did. If I'm wrong, correct me and take it as a compliment because it's so amazing I would think someone else made it. I think you should change the background to a pale purple rather than this pale blue/teal color because it would match your "star's" eye shadow and look better. And lastly, make the entire border on your star black because right now it's like black dotten, then black, then gray, I don't even know. It would look, once again, much neater if it was all black. I like the idea of the star though, clever!
Cinnamonroll: (18/20)
This one is my second favorite just because the scribbles are very precious. I already talked about this one, so that's all I'm really going to say.
Content: (12/20)
Since I have to grade your graphics in another sections I'll skip right to the music section (note that I am rushing a bit because there's so much to review).
Music: To be honest, I don't understand this section. Is it a review section or what? I thought I'd be able to find MP3s and lyrics, maybe you should put that somewhere so people know what they're entering into. And by the way, who's Maggie? You should mention that too, because this is the first time I've heard of her.
Fashion and Beauty: I really like this section. My major suggestion is to add where you can get the articals of clothing you mention in your fashion area. I'm seeing the clothing, but where did you get the image? Did you make it yourself or what? I, as a visitor, would like to know incase I want that look.
Entertainment/Your Life: This is an interesting section. It's making me think you should seriously call your site an "e-zine" because it's like a mini magazine. This section really seems to be just full of forms and polls, so there's really nothing I can say about this section. A lot of it does seem to be filler content, ideas being taken from magazines, but it works and keeps visitors around,and that's what you need, right?
Organisation: (8/10)
The first thing I'm going to mention isn't technically organisation, but it deals with the neatness. On your links to your different layout, I recommend you to make the text on them smaller and maybe on the bottom left/right. The bigger texts look quite sloppy and don't give your site a good impression.
Another thing, I wouldn't call your different sections (graphics, music, fashion, etc.) "mini sites", they're more like sub-sections. I think that name fits them a lot better. Your links also need a makeover. I think you should make a few other sections: WWW/Site, Darcy, Louise, and FAQ. Right now, all those links look sloppy. I really like that you make a point to differentiate between you both and you're fanistings, blog, etc.
Errors: (4/10)
I noticed that you misspelled "retro" in your image to switch to that layout. I don't know if it was an accident or not, but you really need to change that. I also am noticing a lot of grammatical and spelling errors in your fashion section. When I say a lot, I mean almost every other sentence. I would go through and check everything.
Coding: (2/5)
You have a lot of bad coding I noticed. I viewed your source and saw that you use "font color" codes all the time and you never close them. First mistake is using them, second you always need to close all of your codes. After your text that you want white, you need to put this: </font>
And instead of using the font color code, add in your CSS this: .white {
color:#FFFFFF}
And to make your text like that use this code: <div class="white">TEXT HERE</div>
I also noticed that you don't use stylesheets, you keep your CSS in each layout, right there. To make it easier on yourself, try using stylesheet pages. All you do is create a style.css file, copy all of your CSS, paste it in style.css, delete the "style" codes, and upload it to your site! To put it onto your site use this code: <link rel="stylesheet" href="URL_HERE/style.css">
Other than that.. I didn't see too many errors. I do seriously recommend you to learn more HTML and possibly PHP. It would make your website life much, much easier.
Graphics: (8/10)
I really don't have any complaints with your big graphics, but the smaller graphics aren't so good. I'm actually shocked to see how good they are, especially compared to your layouts. I'm not sure what styles you both prefer now because in your layouts it's all pixels and scribbles, but your other graphics have more celebrities and models.
You both seem to have a talent for things like blends, but when it comes to pixels, you're lacking a bit. The avatars are a bunch of random sizes, so I really think you should go through and have more standard sizes (most people only use the standards like 100 by 100, 50 by 50, etc.). With your pixels, I could only see myself adopting a donut and maybe a notebook. The rest just don't seem like adoptables, more like things you'd use on a layout like a brush. And once again with the quality, I noticed some pixels have really bad quality. Please try and fix that, no one uses things with poor quality.
Now for the layouts, which I feel are about 80% really good for what I've seen so far. The striped layouts I would probubly get rid of because I really don't think anyone would use them. Try sticking with ones like your adorable elephant layout, it's precious! I don't think anyone would use the "Princess Power" one either. It was a good idea, but that's not a real popular subject for layouts.
You're hiatus signs aren't all that great either. I noticed that your enter signs were pretty good, most of them, along with the welcome signs. But with the hiatus signs, they look like some random lines with some basic white text slapped on them. It seems like you rushed making these.
Unique: (5/5)
You're site is quite unique. I like that you have different sub-sections for music and fashion. You get the full 5 here for sure!
Overall: (5/7)
I think you're site needs a lot of improving, I wasn't that impressed. Neither of you two seem to know much HTML or much about making graphics. I really think for a site that does have little knowledge, you're doing a great job! I strongly recommend you to read tutorials on more advanced HTML and graphic design. You have the originality, you just need the knowledge to back it and you'll have a wonderful site.
Bonus: (0/3)
I don't think I'm going to give you any bonus points.. I'm really sorry but I wasn't impressed. I think I expected more; I'm sure you can bring everything up to par in no time though. I have faith in you guys.
