Amarantine: Combined Review
Combined Review of Amarantine
Date Submitted: November 13
Date Completed: December 14
Design
I can’t *completely* comment on your design because I know you got your supercute header image from someone else, but since you designed the rest (coding, color selection, etc), I’ll comment on those things. First of all, your sidebar looks a little wacky in Internet Explorer. It’s not just the images; it’s also the background color, link display, and spacing. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the difference, but you might want to test some changes in coding for your IE visitors. :)
While I love your layout, I do have to say that the blue candycane background is a little bit distracting. It matches and it doesn’t look bad, but it does draw attention away from your blog/content, so I’d consider softening the colors if you can. The only other coloring comment I have is that the headers on the sidebar (”Site Navigation,” “Archives,” “Currently Reading,” etc), as well as the blog entry subjects, are the same colors as the links. They’re not in small caps as the links are, but someone might still think they’re links. Something to consider. :) Maybe bring in more of that blue?
I’m one of those silly people who enjoy justified text more than the left-aligned, but I know that’s based on preference. Yours is padded well and the text is large enough to read (perfect sized, I’d say), so I have no complaints about how your words fit in your website. The only complaint I have is that on pages with your writing and other larger blocks of text, it seems a little small as you continue down the page. My suggestion would be to slim your sidebar a little bit (there is a lot of unnecessary padding there) to allow more space in your content bar.
A coding error I’ve caught:
On “My New Puppy,” the paragraph tags show up. In addition to that (and probably because of that), there are no paragraph breaks!
Content
Here’s where I can really get into detail and start praising you. :p Just kidding, I’ll try to be subjective. First of all - and this is something that was pointed out about Book Craze - the “Book of the Page” random book changes with every refresh. I would take the same advice and write “Random Book” instead. I definitely like that you include that on there, but the “Book of the Page” thing doesn’t work.
Site Information
I can’t comment on anything I’ve read the first time since I’ve already been through your website but I do have some comments on grammatical errors and what not.
For the construction of Content Management System (CMS) I use WordPress.
Something about this doesn’t flow correctly. It seems like it should say “As my Content Management System (cms) I use WordPress,” or something similar to that. It’s just that “for the construction of” doesn’t seem to quite say it the right way.
For the design of Amarantine I use a lot CSS & div layers.
I think you mean “a lot of” but you probably don’t need to put that in there at all. You’ll get your point across fine just by saying “I use CSS & DIV layers.” Right after that, “There” is typoed into “THere.”
I can’t believe anyone thinks you’re cold-hearted! You’re one of the nicest people I’ve met online. Another typo in your site name section - “sound of the word & hten when…” It’s always awesome to see the concept behind people’s site names, so I am glad that you decided to include that, and to include the lyrics as well. Speaking of the lyrics: “Artist:Enya” should have a space between the colon and the E.
You have a lot of really interesting information about your website and I wouldn’t change any of it (except, maybe, the typos :p).
I am really happy also to see such a comprehensive credits list. A lot of webmasters won’t take the time to note everything that has helped them, including their FTP progams, so I’m always glad to see such full lists.
On your previous versions page, I suggest putting some padding between the images and the text - either by a line of code in your CSS or by adding a padded border on each image (I suggest the first, it’ll be easier). Try this:
img { padding:5px; }
Typos/errors:
This version of Amarantine was it first one that I designed.
I think that “it” is flying in there and it shouldn’t be.
I just felt way to confined
should be “way too confined.” Same with “I am to big a fan” and “looked to normal” later on the same page; the “to” should be “too.”
Your past layout descriptions are very interesting and I hope that you’ll continue to write detailed information about them in the future. However, the font face and style changes after the first horizontal rule. It looks like the reason might be because they are not defined in the paragraph tags - they have end tags for the paragraph, but no opening tags.
Personal Information
I know you are a private person so I’m not going to tell you to write a lot more about yourself, don’t worry. You already have a very descriptive about you page. However, I have noticed a few typos/grammatical errors:
Her children names are Mac and Candi. Candi is a Chihuahua she was born on April 24, 2005, she is the funiest of my children.
should be: “her children’s names;” the second sentence is also a run-on. There should either be a semi-colon or a period after the word “Chihuahua.” “Funiest” should be “funniest.”
So I am still working on commission and not got my shop set up yet.
This should have another verb - “have not got my shop set up yet,” or something like that.
can not figure out
“Cannot” is one word. :)
I can do the graphic part just fine it doesn’t give me a huge headache
Again, another semi-colon or period after the word “fine.” And with the “to/too” again - “I have to much problems.” I see that several more times so I won’t point it out again.
I am not holding it against you, of course, that there are errors - just pointing them out so when you have the time and energy you can go through and fix them if you’d like to. :)
The word “eagerally,” which is in your TV shows paragraph should be “eagerly.”
I have always loved your selection of signature tags. They say a lot about your interests and that you love pixelled images; don’t worry if you feel “crazy” for having too many, because I personally enjoy looking through all of them!
Some of your fanlistings images are broken - Both of them are in the animals section.
Writings & Articles
I’ve already mentioned the coding error in the puppy story, I think, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot wrong with anything else (except as with the previous layouts page, your text runs right into your images). However, because of the coding error it is really difficult to read the whole story. After a few paragraphs it just gets jumbled up, since there’s no break in the text.
You have unique content in here and I’d love to see some more appear. Your opinion articles are not ones that I have seen (usually it’s just abortion or vegetarianism or things like that) and it’s always good to see some new opinions. You’ve also constructed good arguments and it’s clear that you have done some work to get them written and that’s always better than “because I said so” arguments.
I wish I could comment more about your writing but as I said, it’s hard to read the puppy story without any breaks in the lines.
Cross Stitch Sections
I would suggest that instead of having a section for your wishlist and a separate one for your patterns, just have one “cross stitch” section and provide links to both of those locations. That way these sections will be more organized, and it will also match the rest of your website. That way, if you ever want to add more about cross-stitching (tips and tricks would probably be really awesome for those of us who also like the hobby), you can just add it to one page instead of having so many tangent sections on your sidebar.
As for the wishlist page, the same problem occurs as what was on the previous layouts page - your text changes because it is outside of a paragraph tag.
It seems repetitive to say the following:
I tend to go towards floral, animal & fantasy designs. But if it is a wolf or House Mouse design then those are for my mother. She is the one that is crazy about those two subjects.
It is on, I think, two pages of your website (I could be wrong). This is another reason why my above suggestion would work out. You could put this statement on that page before the links, and then it would only appear on one page instead of being repeated every time you mention certain patterns. Just a suggestion. :)
Comprehensive Reflection
I just want to note before I forget that the out-of-format text again appears on your archives pages; in addition to the lack of paragraph tags there, your sidebar disappears!
Your website is very well done and I can tell you’ve put a lot of work into it. There were quite a few typos and grammatical errors, but I know that you can sometimes have trouble with that kind of technical stuff. I’m sure no one holds it against you, but as a reviewer I thought I should still point them out.
The only suggestion for design that I have still stands - the background is too attention-grabbing and it takes away from the calmness of the text. As I suggested, one solution would be to fade the blues a little bit so that they aren’t so dark, but that’s up to you of course.
I apologize if this review seems objective, but it’s hard for me to review people whose websites I visit often. I tried, though!
14 December 2007
December 15th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Thanks, Michelle. I will get those problems fixed. I have looked at those pages so many times that it all blurs together, lol. Thanks for the heads up.