REviewee: Ashikiyoko designs
Site: Ashikiyoko DesignsOwner: Master Pogi
Start review date: Sep 17, 2007
End review date: Sep 22, 2007
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First impression
I really love this layout that Master Pogi created. The colours used in the colouring are very blue and the CSS used interwines beautifully. However the vibrancy in this banner, the contrast and sharpening are too emphasized, making the anime girl's face look like it was done on MS Paint. The blue hues around her face and hair have a major impact on the face of Ashikiyoko.The fonts that were used are a little bit too varied, seeing that the headers are Courier [New] and the semiheaders are century gothic, as there's another font used for the content. There should only be two fonts to keep things consistent for the public eye.
But over and all, on a first impression, the textures and little details that are used in this layout are pretty impressive.
Design
The light textures that were used are a very good idea if you wanted a more detailed look. But not only do the light textures bring out the blue vibrancy in the girl's face, but it isn't very good on the eyes. The more brightness that brings out the luster of the banner's blue, the more it hurts my eyes. I suggest you do whatever it takes to take away the brightness of the banner. Remember, sites like Yahoo! are famous not only for content, but their overall look is impressive because you can stay staring at the site for several minutes, and it won't hurt your eyes; a glance at your banner, and some people will be driven away by it. The cropping of the banner's too shaggy and also needs work in artistic aspects. Maybe a little more feathering or blending would succeed better for more appeal. The girl's feathers and style of the cartoon match your font used for your site's name nicely.Unfortunately, there is more blue and red hues in the banner, which makes the green border-rights a bad idea for CSS. The border should be either a blue or red. I don't know where the green came from, but it isn't a bad idea to add some more colour to the layout than just the blue and red. But you could use an aquamarine/turqoise and a marine blue along with the red for your three major colours, because they're the three major colours on the banner. It's like clashing colours of an outfit--you don't want a certain colour to burst out too badly. But thankfully, it doesn't. The green has been repeated for the borders around your icons and definitely is a start. And speaking of borders around images, in your CSS, you forgot to add the img{border:0px} when there's URLs with the image. You can see an example of this on your Contests & Reviews page.
Then you should seriously work on the notebook pattern you used on the left side of your site's layout. It clashes badly with the beige hues and the grey background colour doesn't link the content background colour with your site's background colour, which are both similar. You could make a gradient for the background to replace the grey, making your layout look like a true notebook, instead of a faux one.
Your content and navigation headers and blockquotes are somewhat consistent except the green border-right area. If you want the green to fit in with your colour clique, you should repeat it more often than the charcoal colour you used for your content font. The best decision I've seen you make on fonts so far, is definitely the Courier [New] font that you used for the header because everyone knows that it's used for meshing with stuff that's been sharpened because the font itself is very clear. The transparency you've used for the blockquote for your content is very subtle and improves the look of you site since you can see some of the beige background's pattern.
Your banner's right side isn't cropped well, so the circle textures you've used are cropped off. But the flares and dotty textures are very subtle and creates a good sensation for the user, which is one of the best things about your banner. There's also the yellowish finger-like thing that's touching the blue hair on the girl on the banner which seems very disturbing, so you should remove that because it looks like the PNG wasn't extracted properly.
Then there's the white hearts that are also always being repeated: they're not done right, because on the banner, it's very close to the right, but when you repeated it on the background for the content, it moved to the left a little more, which is off balance. Consistancy is always an owner's best tool to bring the public eye to your site.
And the content blockquote's are very far from the second one. The navigation doesn't use that much space in between, so why should the content? You could save some space while you're at it, as well as looking finer.
But one general mistake is definitely the background colour you used. It's such a close colour to the banner [and the notebook layout] background colour, so why didn't you make the background colour the same? If you can't find the right hex code for it, make a background pattern instead and repeat it. This way, your site looks more collaborated. But if you do want the background colour to be a seperate colour from the other beige-ish colour, than first make the notebook pattern right, to make your layout actually look like a notebook.
