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EatingCrayons has 6 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on EatingCrayons. Jump to review form?

1. 

   paintedskies gave it on 26th Dec 2008 and said:

   Hi, I'm Scott and I will be reviewing your website today. I will try to be as honest as possible and will hopefully not dishearten you. I know this review is going to be a long one, so I better get cracking...

   WOW, am I on a piczo website? Seriously, I don't want to sound mean, but this really does remind me of piczo. Nothing catches my attention with this layout, except the bad quality edges and the irrelevant title you have in bright orange. What has this got to do with the actual layout? I quite like the simple background and the colours. You need some padding for the content as they touch either side of your 'curved' box. Also, try centering your box, this could improve it a lot! Also, the 'XOXOXOXO' thing is really annoying. Why don't you display your links properly?

   Your titles are really hard to read. I believe this font is Impact, or something like that. Maybe try arial, verdana, trebuchet ms or something like that. They're nice fonts to use. Oh, Georgia will look nice, aswell. Your main typeface is giving me a headache - I think you need to increase your line height by a few px.

   You put your website up for people to review it, so don't tell people they can't view your coding. This is the whole point of a review. You could at least write... "I'm sorry my coding isn't valid, but I'm going to be working on it. I'd appreciate it if you wasn't too harsh on me about it", however you didn't, so I'll be reviewing your coding aswell as the CSS.

   CODING: 15 errors and 15 warnings isn't the worst I've seen, but this could be fixed. There are many awesome websites out there to help people like yourself. Tutorialtastic.co.uk is a fantastic example of this. I wont tell you how to fix the errors, because I don't believe just telling someone how to fix something actually helps. Reading tutorials or messing about with the coding yourself is the best way. At least you'll be able to learn.

   CSS: 51 errors and 21 warnings. That is awful. Again, Tutorialtastic.co.uk, Clean CSS and running your site through a validator will help. Also, try googling "css shorthand". Again, I will not tell you the errors. This may solve them, but next time this happens you will be stuck in a rut.

   ^ As Kay said, get rid of Cutenews. This is a very unsecure script. There are many blogging systems / CMS' out there, but some can get quite difficult when you aren't use to coding. Fanupdate and WordPress are ones you could try. However, Fanupdate would be better as it is most like Cutenews.

   Moving on to your pages...
   VISITOR - I'm not going to review all of your visitor content, but I'll pick a couple of things I dislike, and maybe a few things I do like.

   Okay, these coded layouts are awful. No, not because they're celebrity images, but the CSS doesn't work at all (I'm using FireFox). As people have told you already, using Celebrity images is illegal, so it would be best for you to just remove these. Your PSD's are terrible! If you're going to publish these (even though this is also illegal), then take care in cutting them out. This has just been rushed.

   I don't use brushes, but these ones are okay, I suppose. I'm sure people do use these, however these sort of brushes are everywhere. There isn't really anything I particulary like, so I'll just move onto your 'owner' page.

   Your punctuation isn't the best. It doesn't look like you know what a comma is. There are so many missing commas that this is pretty hard to read. No, I don't always use punctuation correctly, but I do try to. I understand people have problems with using correct grammar, but maybe you could have someone read your pages and help you correct any errors you have? I'm sure someone will be kind enough to do so. Oh, and please learn how to use paragraphs. :)

   I think your 'friend' page is a really nice idea. This shows you appreciate your friends and I'm sure they will be very touched by this.

   SITE - let me just tell you this. This is not a web design career. If this was a career, you would probably be getting payed to do this. Also, slapping some HTML codes and CSS onto a subdomain doesn't make you a web designer.

   Oh no, your previous layouts are all using celebrity images! These aren't the worse celeb layouts I've seen, but they aren't the best either. Hopefully you will take my advice and get rid of these.

   Now I understand... your site title has something to do with lyrics by 3DD. That's nice... but very irrelevant.

   If you ever want any help with anything then please contact me and I'll be happy to help. I know I'm not the best at designing or coding, but hopefully I'll be able to help you improve and even teach you a few things.

   This review makes me look like a right arse, but I like to be as honest as possible. I hope this review doesn't upset you in anyway, but I feel that you can improve a lot. Hopefully if you take my review on board and improve a few things, I'll come back and re-review you. Hopefully bringing the rating up a star or two. I hope this is helpful and can help you improve. And please don't forget to contact me, if you want too!

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   omgitzvicky's Response:

   Wowza!
   Thanks for the review, trust me I've had worse.
   I shall try fix the things in the New Year..

   I just wanna know... how are my lyrics irrelevent?
   They're just part of the header image, and they're lyrics that caught my attention.

2. sassa12489 gave it on 19th Dec 2008 and said:

   Viewed in: Safari
   First impression: A bit turned off. Those rounded corners are really bad quality and they’re very rounded which causes the huge white space before you can begin your table. With your title, you might want to add more padding so it looks neater. I wouldn’t know your website name if I didn’t click to review your website. The background is nice, very soothing, nothing overpowering. The layout bothers me. The huge text is weird to have for a layout. Think of your site this way, if you want people to use your stuff, with your layout, show them why. I would not browse your website with this layout. Your layout (how ever simple it may be) should show you have graphical talent because if it doesn’t, why would I want to use your resources.
   Visitor>>Coded Layouts: There are some pretty bad ones. For example, your first one I’m guessing is supposed to show some type of textured bckgrd but it doesn’t. Before you offer premades, you might want to validate your own coding so visitors will feel confident to use your stuff. But even if the coding was validated, the Olsen one is pretty bad. So is the Cyrus. Bynes looks surprisingly good. Nice. Why don’t you use that for urself. That is a very nice layout. I don’t like the Lohan one. It’s very random and unorganized. Why is the header image so big the text is starting literally at the bottom of the page. Wow at the Hannabeth layout. Very cool. The Britney one is plain and boring. The Gerald Way layout is low quality. The problem with image maps is what if this person wants to put extra links in their navigation but they can’t. So I’d advise against image maps unless you’ll personally design them for someone. Depp one is okay but it’s boring. You could have at least added a coloring effect or something but the css is nice. The sidebar is hard to read so lighter text would be best. The extra picture of the guy is random too. To spice it up, you could have added some coloring to it. The light texture is kind of cool. The layout’s still a bit boring but it’ll do. The scratch texture is low quality though. I’m noticing the same pattern with your layouts. None have any image coloring which makes it boring. Add some textures or coloring.
   Visitor>>Brushes: Text: Delete this. Everyone has fonts and everyone knows where they can find fonts. Your written text is okay. There’s nothing unique about them to entice me to use though. Your grunge shapes are really low quality. It’s cool you offer torn paper but you cut them off so I wouldn’t want to use them. Your last text has some cool points. The swirl text and the wavy text, that’s cool and unique. Do more of stuff like that perhaps.

   BTW, is that advertising at the bottom of your page? Why is it at the bottom? Most put it at the top in a more visible area. Just a thought.
   Visitor>>Uncoded Layouts: You already know but if some are terrible, why put them up? Do you want your site to quality control? Something to think about.
   >>Icons: none are really that good.
   >>Music Codes: Are these just youtube video codes? What’s the point?
   >>Cutouts: Your png’s aren’t good quality either.
   >>Wallpapers: wouldn’t use them. Not very good
   Owner: Pretty long, looks interesting. Good. No problems here. Love the links on top of your photo gallery and quotes.
   Past Layout>> This is where I become confused. Some of your layouts are horrible but others are cool. My favorite is the Fall Out Boy Christmas one. Very nice. The first Paramore one is nice. I think I remember seeing your ste with the Gossip Girl layout which isn’t bad. I also like the Do You Remember Me one too.

   Overall: Who cares that you have celebrity images? Copyright, smopyright. If the authorities really cared, sweetandtalented.com would be gone so no worries on that. I’d just say work on your content and graphics along with coding if you want to offer coded materials.

   Using Safari on Windows | Report This?

   omgitzvicky's Response:

   Thank you :) Helpful helpful advice!
   I agree with you on the celeb images thing!
   Once again, thanks for the advice. Found it really helpful

3. jakeboyles gave it on 17th Dec 2008 and said:

   Ok, First thing I noticed is that the main paragraph needs some padding its hitting the left wall of the container. I would also darken up the nav, it goes by un-noticed since its white and its a little hard to see, maybe if you just darkened it up a bit it would show up a lot better and it would be a better element for the design. I would also get rid of the sylgo banner at the very bottom, its taking a lot away from the design and its really that good of a graphic. Just add like 5px padding to the main paragraph and that will help a lot. Anyway good luck!

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4. 

   Kay gave it on 15th Dec 2008 and said:

   I'll be using Google Chrome on Windows XP; 1024 x 768 screen resolution.

   Upon first impression, I see that you're site name is nowhere to be found. Not a problem, if only your website name was printed in the title tag. I see "If I go Crazzzzy <3 Eating...". Most title tags feature the name of the website, hint, hint.

   Your layout is pretty simple, and aligned all the way to the left. I feel like it should be a bit more centered, but thats just my personal preference. I don't get the quote "If I go crazy, will you still call me Superman", so I won't go into that. I'd just like to touch on the fact that your main body of text needs a bit more padding on the outside, so that it doesn't swipe the rounded edges at the top. Easily fixed by adding another two or three pixels of padding.

   Before I tackle the content, I'm going to run your code through an HTML Validator. 13 Errors, not bad, but not good. All of these errors are simple, and easy to fix. Try adding an "alt" tag to your images and remember to open and close your tags properly. I'm taking a look at your source code, and it looks like you've used an image and put a DIV on top of it? Correct me if I'm wrong. You don't have to do that. You can declare the background of that DIV using CSS classes. Speaking of CSS, let me run that through a validator. No errors! Congrats. On to the content!

   You're using Cutenews as a content management system. I think you should take a look at Jem's article on unsafe PHP scripts. There are better alternatives to Cutenews. If you're not interested in using a database driven CMS, might I suggest Flatpress? If you'd like to use a database driven CMS, and you never have before, I would suggest you start out with FanUpdate.

   The visitor section features a lot of celebrity images and blends. This is highly illegal! And after reading your rules, "DO NOT TAKE THE CREDIT OFF!", I'm going to direct you to another article of Jem's you might find interesting: the one on copyright violation.

   Your about me page? No paragraphs, no punctuation, oh well. You did a good job of describing yourself, your interests, and how I can talk my shit, but I still have to ask: how old ARE you? A photo gallery? Oh wait...a bunch of pictures of you in a short skirt and bra. How interesting. *rolls eyes*. Again, HOW OLD ARE YOU?
   Oh, and your favorite quotes page needs Quotish -- badly. =]

   The site section needs some anchors and the first paragraph is really unnecessary. Under history, I see you started at Neopets -- "where most graphic peoples start!" -- and then switched to Pizco. I don't know anything about Pizco, but I haven't heard really good things about it, so it scares me that you got most of your experience there. Regarding the past layouts: Oh em gee, a Michael Jackson layout, kill me nowwwww. The "Brendon Urie" layout is a cool concept -- though still, highly illegal.

   In conclusion, your website screams newbie, though you're pretty original in your name. I suggest you kill the celebrity images, change your CMS, fix the coding errors, and better organize your content. Then, we'll talk about your potential.

   Using Safari on Windows | Report This?

5. 

   Greykitty gave it on 13th Dec 2008 and said:

   Firefox 1280 x 1024 resolution.

   The layout is ok. Nothing that blinds me, which is a plus. lol Your background however doesn't line up with your main page. I'd also suggest you center your layout. It makes it more professional looking. The font you use is ok. I'm not a big fan on orange but it doesnt look bad either. The random xoxoxoxxo at the top of the screen I don't think should be there. If you want to link to someone do it on a seperate page. Most people will not click on them because they don't know where they are going or what to expect from the link. Mystery meat navs/links are a bad idea.

   Try to add some padding to your text, it runs right into the edge of your site layout and that makes it look kind of squashed.

   You have a nice ammount of info about yourself, which was good, your visitor content is ok. The graphics have a lot of potential just wish there were less celeb blends and icons.
   Nice to see a bit of site history too and previous layouts. You have had some nice ideas with your layouts.
   Rather than making all celeb blends maybe try using your own photos or just making some nice texture type graphics with stock photos of animals/scenery.

   Overall you have a nice little site, it has some great potential. I think you should try to make some original graphics with no celebs in them. Also would suggest you use something like wordpress for blogging it cuts down on almost ALL the spam I get with some nice plug ins. It takes a little getting used to but once you do it's a great tool.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

6. 

   Liz gave it on 13th Dec 2008 and said:

   I'm Liz and I'll be doing this review. Reviewing your coding if you like it or not! ;D I mean it's helping your and it'll make your site better if you improve! Why not make your site the best it can be?
   Windows Vista, Firefox

   Layout and overall design
   This layout is simple and cute. UGHH!! I know that song lyric! What is that from? I do think you need your site name somewhere but the simpler the better. Your navigation is easy to distinguish from other links. Your font size is readable(: The whole round corners/drop shadow thing is nice of course but I do see that the edges do look a tiny bit sharp:
   The solution to this is just to run it over with soften in photoshop.
   You might want to add a bit more padding or make your content a tiny bit smaller because some of your words in your blog almost run over the sides.
   So you're content with cutenews? Let me tell you that fanupdate and wordpress aren't hard to install whatsoever. If you do install them:
   -Your site will be much much safe if you continue to use cutenews you could easily be hacked
   -No more spam(: they both efficiently block spam unlike cutenews
   Well if you don't care about cutenews and you don't want your coding reviewed? Why sign up for a review? Take criticism because we're all trying to help:D
   I love your background it isn't distracting yet it looks quite nice with your colors you chose. Your footer looks like it's from a previous layout! Back/forward links are pretty much useless as everyone uses their browser buttons.

   Coding
   Your coding isn't totally horrible, you just need a bit of help not many huge problems. The meta tag thing should go below your html tag. Also end you head tag after your css.
   Of course at the very end of the page you should have:
   </body>
</html>
   There are other things like at the bottom of your page the center tags which are basically doing nothing you can just take those out. If you're using <center> don't forget to close it. The same with br tags and make sure that they're lowercase. One of your affiliate links is closed with </x> it should be an "a" instead of "x".
   Some of your images need an alt but that's a pretty minor thing. Just a bit of cleaning up to do here.

   Pages
   >Coded layouts; And you were doing so well....*sigh* celebrity images. To me any site can take these illegal images and edit them and put brushes all over them. Truth is it doesn't make the images yours. It's stealing to use another photographer's copyrighted images without written permission! Try using stock images instead! Refer to my article on this subject here Why you shouldn't use celeb images.
   >Brushes; These all look similar the scribbley lyric things with random color bursts on them in the previews. I do like the circle set.
   >Icons; Yay for non celeb things(:
   >Music codes; Are you aware this is illegal as well? The distributing of an artist's music without permission! It should say right on their CD. This is basically a lawsuit waiting to happen!
   >PSD's; Ah psd's so cutting out some random celebrity image means you can distribute it? NO! It's illegal

   Owner
   >Your about me is in depth and you've done a great job of describing yourself.
   >Friends; I lOVE this idea(: quite unique! You give great descriptions of your friends and I love the whole Polaroid thing.
   >Gallery; These pictures are great candids! I'd create a layout with some of these maybe? UGH @ the layout with the badly cut out picture of Cobra Starship. I mean I see the pattern you used and reflection(: both nice just work on the whole no celeb picture thing. Since it's displaying your pictures of friends why not use your photos in that layout?

   Overall
   I feel you have a TON of potential! Clean up your coding and get rid of the celebrity images. You have a unique site:D good job

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

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