In depth. Review me, review you.

Very nice! Looks very...erm..."3D"!

But I would suggest you add some mouseovers to your menubar.

Quote: Originally posted by jackchen
Very nice! Looks very...erm..."3D"!

But I would suggest you add some mouseovers to your menubar.

I tried mouse overs, drop down menus, text links and many different variations and came up with the result that text links looked poor, rollover and drop down menus added too much code to each page. As the nav bar has to be available at all times its got to be quick.

The current nav bar image is about as fast and densely packed as I can make it and it gets cached so appears almost instantly as you surf through the site.

Ok onto your site.
http://www.goodbookmarks.com/

Very nice looking site, Id like to see a space inserted after Webdev times on the front page. It seems too close to the dangelowebdesign.com link.

Also your main logo seems to suffer a little from being a little illegable. quality links to quality sites. The "Quality links" part of the logo could do with having a brighter fill colour to make it clearer.

Well thats it, quick review for a quick review!

Can I please be entered into your software, Multimedia, Music, Webmasters - articles, Graphics and web design lists? My site covers all these. If thats not allowed then Graphics would be fine.

I was browsing your site earlier when i seen you post on another topic.

Your site has alot of information. I like it. The colors are nice, I like the reds and blues, dark like that, it works really well on your black background.

Your navigation bar should be moved below your logo. The colors on your bar are good too, maybe have all the links out, then have them being pushed in somewhat when there is a mouseover.

Your logo is blurry. I suggest remaking it, and making two images, one with this text: The creative resource, and the 2nd image saying: SC2 Project. Save them as gifs, and they will blend with your background better.

The bottom corners of your page, they have been reduced in quality way to much. Making the black color into blue. Try using gifs instead of jpg's on the corners of your site.

The information is good, and the light switch thingy, thats cool.

The nav bar on the right, the glow effect on mouseover is cool, and it looks good too. The bottom of that doesnt have anything in it, maybe put ocntact us down there or something.

Good site.

---------------
Ken Prescott
http://www.21studios.com

Well I have no problems with the design, but your graphics need some work. First off, all the graphics are fuzzy or grainy looking. Try saving the images at a higher quality level if you can, 'cause it's not looking good. Second, all the edges/corners are jagged. I'm tired so I have nothing else to say...

Hi Ken!

Thanx for liking my site

You brought up some very keen points! I so wish I`d starting using gif for the site corners in the beginning but silly me I didnt, and now there are about 8000 references to those jpegs so changing them is not an option. I`ll resave them with less compression though see if that helps.

The navigation bar does want to slot down below the logo doesn`t it? Your right, but if you try and surf at 800x600 you`ll find the nav bar fits perfectly in the screen without scrolling. I find this point more important than a small asthetic of moving the nav lower down. I like the idea that people can move to any main area on the site without scrolling.

The logo, the top part of the logo is supposed to be blurry, but if you mean the jpeg artifacting then yup, but as the logo is only a working title, the real logo is MUCH sharper, so that will replace it when the site launches in december on its .com address. The site will not be called SC2Project.

Thanx for highlighting those points though, you`ve pushed me into redoing those corners now, cant put them off any longer! ehehehe

Now onto your site
http://www.21studios.com/

I really really have to say that the grey background looks totally wrong for the front page. It should be pure white to fit in with your main image/links.

Your portfolio page, I love the way you have used images for the links, I love that, seeing a taster of what the site looks like before I get there. But I think you are driving the table too hard with three columns. Two columns with much more padding/space would be much better and asthetically pleasing.

The bottom of that page you have "Copyright 21studios", this text looks very cheap and nasty. I`d redo it so its much sharper.

Finally your resume page is drab. Some eye for layout here would help. Something to give the page a more professional feel rather than a plain text page. The background image seems to fight with the text too but its not so bad really.

Thanx for the review!

I know this is for you site, but the white bg, that was an error with the default color on browsers. How do you recemmend i fix the resume, to make it look better, and the text at the bottom, how do you think i should make it better? Any good points about my site or.. : )
-------------
Ken Prescott
http://www.21studios.com

Quote: Originally posted by Grandmaster
I know this is for you site, but the white bg, that was an error with the default color on browsers. How do you recemmend i fix the resume, to make it look better, and the text at the bottom, how do you think i should make it better? Any good points about my site or.. : )
-------------
Ken Prescott
http://www.21studios.com

I always like to see tables with nice padding so there is space between the text and the wall of the table. It just looks better and gives the text room to breathe

So if that were my page I would make the table two columns wide with a cell padding of at least 5 pixels. To give it a nice spacous feel though I`d try out 10 pixels and see how that looked. Your page will be a tiny bit longer going for two columns instead of three but it would be easier to read and look sharper.

As for that bottom logo. Its tough. I have big problems creating small graphics that look clean. You have a frame around your lettering so the smaller the text the harder it is to keep the definition.

anti aliasing to your blue coloured background I came up with
http://www.sc2.redhotant.com/stuff/c21studios.gif
which is a bit clearer and the same size. Thats my favourite font of the minute there btw, Square721BT.

[I didn't really look at all of the replies, so if this has already been stated just... bear that in mind.]

Alright, first off the Colors look exceptionally drab. All over the place it's like you kind of went nuts with colors. A developed color scheme will make it so your web site doesn't burn itself into my retinas.

Mouseovers on -one- part of the page? That just looks bad.

The buttons look too contemporary. That whole bevel thing wore itself out...

That background scrolls... add a lil' CSS attribute which makes it -not- do that--it'd look a lot better.

The logo just doesn't look in place...maybe it's off balanced because it's so colorless.

Anyways, I think you should -at least- develop a 'design' scheme and liven it up a bit.

** EDITED BY JS TO ADD AN EXPANDED REVIEW BY THEGRAPHICSEXPERIANCE **

Bevel Buttons, to me, just look completely worn out. [Ugh, I remember when I used them like two years ago, so the concept -can't- be new. .] Really, what I believe is 'in trend' as of late are things like what XRS did [that is to say the mouseovers.]

Now, about image size: No problem! Just make the images smaller in actual pixels. From what I see there is a big 'void' along them.

Another thing to do is make your main body site look like the outer bounding parts. Really, I think the jump from many colors to two or three colors isn't a good 'jump.'

[Edited by Justin Stayton on 07-24-2000 at 11:19 AM]

I really like the choice of colors used in this site. I too have a problem with the somewhat grainy images but I love the right-hand rollovers.

Overall, it looks like you have an excellent, unique site developing here. Keep up the good work!

Also, if you choose to review one of my sites, please review http://xrsolutions.com/, my latest one (still working on it).

This post was edited to change the complete contents

The post to graphics experience serves no purpose without the other posts, graphics experience would appear to not have had a chance to reply to my post as things stand and this is not fair. If one post goes, they should all go.

So I`ve removed my initial comments and would now be happy to see this whole thread deleted. I got some good and bad feedback. I`m using the bad feedback to get an idea of what I need to change in my site and the good feedback to get an idea of what is working.

Its a shame Im not allowed to question reviews without being threatened with banning but Im just a newbie here. I guess debate on reviews is not allowed here, for debate will always be considered as argument. Just depends how you look at it.

I hope I get a chance to review the graphics experience again and he does me. One thing I know is that he will be critical of my work and not just says its fine. lol

I bare absolutely no malice towards the graphics experience and I hope he does not with me. But for mentioning this i`ll probably get banned anyway so never mind, lol

[Edited by Garry Lacey on 07-24-2000 at 05:57 PM]

Quote: Originally posted by xrs
I really like the choice of colors used in this site. I too have a problem with the somewhat grainy images but I love the right-hand rollovers.

Overall, it looks like you have an excellent, unique site developing here. Keep up the good work!

Also, if you choose to review one of my sites, please review http://xrsolutions.com/, my latest one (still working on it).

Its becoming clear to me that the images/icons, at least a lot of them need to be completely redone. A lot of people have highlighted this. So thats something Im going to start on next, redoing those across the site.

I`ve had a bad run of reviews lately about the colours in my site, its nice to hear someone liking them. Initially I got a lot of good feedback when I trialled the colour rich nav bar and colour coded sections. I just have to keep on looking at what everyone is saying and put it together as a whole to get a feel for what most people think.

Thanx for taking the time to review the site.

Onto your site now
http://xrsolutions.com/

The penny drops why you may like my site a little! You have a black background. Very brave of you. Black is not the in colour right now is it? Perhaps things will swing around our way in a year when the white fad wears out? ehehe

I immediately got the impression the site was weak looking. But the moment I started using it my opinion changed. I love the navigation. The way you can use it from the top or bottom of the page.

There are some very small design cues in this site which I like. You website list is nicely put together. The mini thumbnail of the sites is a big favourite of mine. I think all links list should take up this approach.

Overall this site does what it needs to do and it does it quickly. Despite the current trend for very flat design I would like to see something that raised the site up a little. Subtle bevelling or subtle drop shadow work is not something to shun I dont think.

Check out any successful magazine and you`ll see both practises are used becuase they work so well within design. Inner beveling is a new look which seems to work well.

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/

check out the subtle drop shadow and inner bevel work going on (front page) in one the most state of the art and fresh looking sites of the moment.

anyway I liked your site, did I say that? Its got a nice feel about it but that little something extra would be nice to give it that instant appeal.

Ok, here's a little background before I get into my post. I came here today to TWF, and noticed that this thread had about 16 reviews since yesterday. I thought "wow, I wonder what's going on." Well what was going on was an argument between Gary Lacey and TheGraphicsExperiance. Gary thought that TheGraphicsExperiance's review was just a personal attack on his site. Gary then went on to personally atack TheGraphicsExperiances site and they continued arguing. So now I'm here...

What I've done is deleted all the posts attacking each other, and have just kept the actual review posts. If I see anymore arguing between you two you with both be banned. Please do not reply about my post in this thread, as I would like to keep it specifically about review of the site. Either e-mail me or e-mail each other privately...

Ok, here's an expanded review from me...

1) The logo. Like I stated before, it's very fuzzy and grainy looking. You need to increase the quality of the graphic. Also, I think you should try using all the colors you use around the site in the logo. Right now it's kinda... grey.

2) The menu. I kinda agree that you went crazy with the colors. THe first two menus that use red and blue look good, but the next one that uses teal ruins it. I'd keep at most 3 colors for the menu (or whole site for that matter) and try using those colors throughout the site. Also, the graphics are grainy and fuzzy like the logo.

3) The page. Why is the marginwidth and marginheight attributes set to 0? I think you should have some margins for the page, and can see no reason why they're set to 0.

4) The main content area. Everything is spaced out nice, but all the graphics you have are of really low quality. Especially the table curves you have. For a graphics site I'm dissapointed that all your graphics turned out grainy and fuzzy looking. Not very impressive in my opinion.

5) In Netscape. Wow, have you looked at your site in netscape. It's really messed up looking. This is not good at all. It leaves out about 15%-20% of your likely visitors. They won't be impressed.

Please note: I do not class myself as a web master, more an advanced home page creator!
I like it, please let me know when your site goes live

I will check it out in Netscape when I get home, I bet it does not need much code tweaking to work in old NN. I too prefer black rather than white backgrounds and for your site I think it works well.

As a potential visitor I would visit often based on what I see already.

If your gonna visit mine, be gentle with me eh

There ya go, some positive feedback for ya.

Yup, it certainly screw up on Netscape, worth installing and seeing for your self as there is too much to describe!

It's your tables mostly, need to check that code.

Okay, I don't have time to read what everyone else said, but...

I actually like the 3D buttons and the different colours used in this case. The bottom part could be done in just one colour though to make it look a bit less busy (those colours don't seem to coordinate with each other that well anyway). This is a very unique looking menu IMHO (grahpics quality needs to be fixed of course)

The 3D buttons at the bottom need to go though - it's too complicated down there and the words just seem to get lost. A simple text menu would be fine for that. I really like the right side menu with the glow effect on mouseover.

The main header really jumps out of the page, but "the creative resource" part fades back way too much. That part could just be in plain text with no special effects I think.

Don't use small black text on a dark gray background. It's very hard to read.

Overall I think it looks very good. I wouldn't worry too much about optimizing your graphics. Your target audience is probably people who either have fast connections or are willing to put up with a little bit of slowness for the sake of good artwork. This came up very quickly for me on my dial up. You could do like Scream Design and have a fancy high graphic content version and a fast plain version.

I'd like to see the gray that you use for a background a little lighter. It tends to be to low contrast on my laptop display.

Also I would put rounded corners on both sides of the text boxes or else eliminate the round corner on the top right of the header.

I also saw quite a few color differences on the header graphic.

Other than that I really liked the site. If I ever need some 3d figures I know where to go.

Hope this is productive for you. Really impressed that you were able to get so many responses. I'll have to try the reciprical post some time.

http://www.shoutingrock.org/troop214

I guess I'm the kiss of death for any website critique topic.

Maybe one of you guys would be so kind as to review my site.

Ok, here's a review of your site Jim...

1) Why is there a little black dot at the very top of the page? I don't think that's meant to be there.

2) I like the color of the sub-pages, but I think you should try out a few different background color. Brown just doesn't float my boat. Also, why is the entire mainpage gray? I think all the pages should be the same color.

3) For most of the tables on the site I would use the same color you have in your header image. Try to keep the entire site uniformed.

Justin - the main page is grey because ... read the main page

Jim - I think the way the images are feathered into the one big 'experience' is very nicely done. One suggestion that you might want to think about is having a 'previous' link in the image window that opens from the large feathered images so that I can go back to a previous image instead of all the way round the loop.