REVIEW REQUEST: Stumpy Moose

This isn't bad but I think that a lot more could be done with it in terms of creativity and (literally) breaking out of the box. I like what you've done with the logo, especially the moose on the yellow star background. That should really be a more prominent feature of the design, and the text shouldn't be so close to the borders like that. The logo should have more space.

As I alluded to before, the layout is boxy and boring. I would remove some of those boxes, reveal the moose in the background a little more, and try to intruduce some more interesting shapes, like maybe a curved outline for a navbar or a diagonal outline of some sort. Some of the other pages are better (like the "Life with Limited Technology" pages), but even those could use some added interest in terms of shapes or curves.

Speaking of navbars, yours have got some problems. The one in the top-right corner is impossible to read with the white text on the yellow background. The longer horizontal one is okay, except the text gets so small on mouseover that I can hardly read it.

Some sort of information about what this site is about would also be helpful.

Overall I think the concept is good and very unique but you could elaborate on that further and make things even more distinctive.

Edit: Thanks for doing some other reviews as requested, we do appreciate it. I hope you'll stick around and check out some of the other areas of the forums.

I agree with Megan about the boxyness of the site and the logo/header does seem to be somewhat squished up at the top. The colours I think are fine and so not blue!!! LOL On the first page it looks a little odd where the three columns finish at different levels and on your contact page I get a horizontal scrollbar at 800*600

Megan, thanks for your advice. You said there was a problem with the to right navigation. This should be a set of buttons in a horizontal bar with white text on a dark brown background, rolling over to dark text on a pale brown background. Is this not happening? Which browser/OS are you using?

Lee

http://www.stumpymoose.com

Oh, okay, the brown backgrounds for some reason aren't showing up in Opera. I don't know why this would be - it seems to have a problem with the background-image call (nice way of doing rollovers BTW!). It shouldn't though (it's not a matter of not supporting that attribute...)

You could always just put a background-color call in there just in case.

Got it. They should be alright now. I'll look into the thing with Opera and the background image.

Not sure why the second navbar goes small on rollover though..

Cheers for the help.

Lee

In NS7 the banner isn't displaying and the link buttons are black with white text but yellowy with black text on mouseover
In Opera6 (as Opera6) the buttons are black with white text and yellow with tiny text on mouse over (as you pointed out above).
I quite like the colors and layout (index page) but the theme changes on other pages, your not using the black with colored links.
The links on other pages are black, same as the bold text, very hard to work out what is a link and what isn't.
There are also a lot of broken links.

After a few pages NS7 displayed the banner and mouseovers

yea...that layout is definitely overdone...all the new sites that go up in a short amount of time have those "quick-fix"/premade look to it...make it more flowing

Stumpy Moose..hehehe Interesting name. What does it mean? Your FAQ says you can't tell but you must tell us.

I think the site looks good. I am not crazy about the brown but that is a personal preference. Have you considered using the yellow colored background in that center section on the home page? I think it would look better than brown.

I do think the gray background that you have on some of the pages (reviews for example) should be changed to match the yellow colored background that you have on the rest of the site though.

You might want to give a better explaination of what exactly the site is about on the home page. I still haven't figured that one out.

The site is really clean. Just wish I knew what it was about.

I too am a little confused as to the real purpose of the site as there seems to be some odd stuff on there. Is it just a personal site? I did enjoy reading some of the Tales from Suburban Bohemia, so what's a British guy doing living in Prague? DJing?? Writing about football? Journalist? Film critic? You have me intrigued now I have to read on.......

Love the top banner/menu bar. Extremely well done. Very small space, yet very clean and clear.

Not a big fan of brown, but I think it is well used here. No problem reading any of the text.

The box-look is quite common on the internet, but I don't have a problem with that. Sometimes it just makes the most sense to do.

Well done site, intriguing content, already passed some links to my friends.

Thanks for the advice on this everyone. The site now displays nicely in Opera.

Could someone please check the site on a Mac - I've been told there is a problem, but I can't check for myself.

Lee

http://www.stumpymoose.com

Off topic here....but is sambeckwith and leee the same person?

Or am I confused this morning?

If you look at the contact page there are 5 people that work on the site

Quote: Originally posted by The Webmistress
If you look at the contact page there are 5 people that work on the site

We're definitely not the same person! I mostly look after the content and Lee takes care of the design.

Thanks for all the feedback.

I'm particularly interested in the consistent comment that people can't tell what the site's supposed to be about.

Most of that info is in our FAQ but I realize now that we have to make it more obvious.

By the wa, if you're interested, this is what our homepage used to look like:
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:3DumlBB-rXgC:www.stumpymoose.com/+%22Stumpy+Moose%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Much better now

So basically it's sort of a group personal site with a bunch of fun stuff you've thought up. I kind of gathered that at first, but maybe you could put a line somewhere at the top of the page to make that more clear.

The links are much better now in Opera...