Rock Candy Sweet

Rock Candy Sweet

***-- (Rated by 5 people, viewed by 180 people)

A resource site with tutorials, Myspace goodies, graphics, downloads, and lots more.

Added by rockcandy in Graphics

Rock Candy Sweet has 5 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on Rock Candy Sweet. Jump to review form?

  1. [img: avatar]
    katili gave it ****- on 27th Dec 2008 and said:

    // Layout:

    I like the top part of the layout. The green and grey combination is cute. The shade of green is very vibrant and bright without being garish (and believe me, it's easy to pick a horrible shade of lime green!), which is a plus. Unfortunately, underneath the banner is a tragic lack of color. It doesn't need a whole lot of color to liven things up, just a bit. Perhaps making some small element in the content a similar shade of green would solve that problem. Switching the active and hover state of the links is the first (and quickest) thing that comes to mind.

    The site is pretty well organized, and things are easy to find. Simple, without feeling like something is missing. Nicely done!

    // Content:

    I admit, I did kind of gloss over the content and didn't look at every single thing on there, but I did hit all of the sections.

    The tutorials seem to be pretty solid. I don't know that any of the things on there are things that I personally would use, but then again, I've been doing this type of thing for a long time. I can see how other people would benefit from these tutorials.

    The backgrounds are pretty cute, though many of them don't tile quite right, which is a major pet peeve of mine. There were a few I was interested in but they didn't look right on my desktop.

    I do enjoy a lot of the brushes though! I don't use brushes as often as I used to but I still downloaded a bunch to add to my supply.

    There's a bunch of other resources on the site that can be used for many different things; I think there is something that will appeal to everybody in there.

    // Originality:

    While I do like this site, it does have a bit of a "generic" feeling to it. There's a bunch of websites out there that have this style of layout, with the same kinds of content, etc etc. It's a little cookie-cutter.

    // Overall:

    This is a great starting point. There's certainly a lot of potential for growth here :) I think with time the site will evolve into something more original and I look forward to seeing it grow.

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    rockcandy's Response:

    Thank you so much for your feedback :D
    And yeah I know some of my backgrounds need work >.<
    But once again, thanks, and I will definitely take your suggestions in my next layout []:

  2. [img: avatar]
    Liz gave it ***-- on 27th Dec 2008 and said:

    Layout and overall design
    The large blend of some random "emo" band doesn't stand out to me. Just about everything in it is black and your site tittle doesn't stand out enough. It then looks a bit worse with random bursts of neon green here and there and other random vector brushes. Your navigation is a bit huge with some random font squeezed together beyond recognition.
    You should try a simpler layout here and work some more colors into it. Also do the same with your navigation not just on the side of the layout but put it more in the layout.
    I also recommend putting your layout title more on your header then at the end where it isn't very noticeable.
    I see you've hidden your affiliates alllll the way at the bottom like a footer of some sort. Give them a section in your sidebar it's only fair if they do the same for you.
    Your color scheme is a bit borrrring though you layout looks pretty organized you could make your font a bit bigger then it is (12px or higher).

    Pages
    As I click on your resources page I'm greeted by a couple of neon green bars that hurt my eyes with links under them that also do the same. Make sure in your next layout it isn't like this.
    Most of your content here isn't noteworthy random icons and blends of celebs (Which is illegal.) Any one can slap a few brushes and scribbles on something and call it a "layout base" it's up to you to make something original that's appealing and keeps visitors coming back.

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  3. [img: avatar]
    Pocci gave it ****- on 26th Dec 2008 and said:

    Hey there :) I'm going to be reviewing your site in Firefox with the screen res. of 1024x768 so things might look a bit weird, but lets start!

    First impressions & layout-
    Your site is still loading for me. I don't know if its just me, but it took a bit. Now that its loaded, I like the colour scheme- grey and green. What I don't like about your layout is that it uses celebrity graphics..You need a bit more green, its too grey. Other than that, your layouts good. I think the green you used in the header is too dark, make it brighter. And maybe use some more green in your CSS.
    In your sidebar, add some padding to the left? Its a bit too aligned to the left for me. I was also wondering why your affiliates are placed at the bottom of the page, not in your sidebar. It seems a bit weird to me, because I usually notice stuff in the sidebar, not at the bottom of the page.

    Moving on to your content, you have a lot, which can be good if its high quality but not so good if its low.
    Your avatars are alright, I think you should try and avoid celebrity related avatars, with the copyright infringement and all. I like the effects you've used for some of them, they're good!
    When I came about your striped background page, maybe centre the whole thing? Its a bit weird for me having it all on the left, but thats just me. I won't review them all, since my computer is slow but from what I've seen, you've done a pretty good job with your backgrounds.
    Again, you've used celebrity images for your blends, like some of the avatars but I really like that you've put some effort into them.
    I'm not going to go on, because I can tell you've used alot of celebrity images for most of your graphics. So I'm going to move onto your Downloads and Design tools.
    I love the previews for your brushes, very cool. They look like brushes I would use for my layouts.
    Your colour palettes are good, I haven't seen some of those colour combinations before, so good job there! Also, its good you put the HEX codes, alot of sites don't do that and its good cos it saves the hassle of opening whatever program people use to get the HEX code.
    Good emoticons, but I think they're a bit big.
    I won't say anything about the scans, so moving onto your patterns. I think they're pretty simple, and a bit plain.
    I like your photoshop actions, the colour tints are pretty cool and the tip you gave is very helpful =)
    The layout templates are alright, but I don't like the blue and pink ones because of the thick border around it. Also try some new colour schemes, those ones are quite common.
    Your textures are nice, I like the grungy effect of some of them.
    Onto your tutorials..=D
    I'm not going to look through all of them, simply cos it'll kill my computer, but your ideas are pretty cool, unique definitely.

    Overall, I think your site is pretty good, so I'll give you 3 and a half stars for that! You need to stop using celebrity images, try using some stock images. Keep up the good work though! =)

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    rockcandy's Response:

    Thanks for your feedback!
    And as for the header on my blog with the dark green - I tried to fix it before (it was the header color from my last layout) but for some resaon the color wouldn't change, and since it's green I just thought it was matchy enough.

    And yeah I know that I needed to add more green into my CSS. I couldn't use the limegreen from my layout because then the text would be too blinding, and I tried to use darker colors, but they just didn't match.

    But again, thanks for your feedback! :)

  4. RachelL gave it ***-- on 25th Dec 2008 and said:

    Hey =) I don't want to say the same thing as the reviewer before me, but I do have some suggestions for fixing the blinding green.

    Maybe instead of changing the color of the whole word to green, you could change just a part of it? That way I don't think that the color would be blinding. You could make a fun bottom border or something for it, you know? I think on the main nav I would try a dashed bottom border beforehand, and a solid one on hover. I like that effect of dashed becoming solid :)

    Again, WAY jealous of your vacation in Japan >.<

    Much love!

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  5. [img: avatar]
    Greykitty gave it **--- on 25th Dec 2008 and said:

    First Impression

    It loads fast, but I hate that the layout is not centered, and it's a little TOO grey, I do like the green against the grey, but the rest of it needs more color!

    Ze Layout

    Celeb images are a pretty big no no in designing. Unless you have rights to the photos, art, etc it's not advisable to use them in anything you create as it's copyright infringement and you could get in trouble for it. As I said earlier I like the green and grey concept, however your layout is very dull, I think you could use more green, make some of the text green, like the bolded fonts. The bright green bars are kind of distracting though, too bright against a dull background. Maybe use a darker green. You need to find a good balance with your colors. I'd also suggest keeping all your text aligned to the left or the right, pick one and stick with it. Bouncing back and forth makes it more difficult to read. I find your text a bit too small as well maybe up it by one or two points.
    I'd also suggest incorporating your content box a bit more with the layout. Right now it looks like your content is diconnected from the rest of the layout. Overlap the image or make a solid box that contains everything...just something to bring it all together.

    Content

    Icons, look ok but they are all celeb images. Backgrounds look ok, just watch out on the copyrighted characters. Blends...look nice but, well I won't go into the copyright thing anymore. You get the picture. I'm just gonna stop reviewing your graphics cause I will say the same thing for mostly all of them. XD

    Other Stuff

    The about page is ok you have some links etc, pretty basic for all sites. The tutorials are nice, but you should really consider naming the tutorials rather than just 'image effect 1' and 'image affect 2'. I have a hard time rememering what tutorial I clicked on and sometiems go back to one I already looked at, and if someone wants to come back for a specific tutorial and can't remember the number they'll have to just go through all of them again. The blog is ok, but since it's not the main focus of the site it doesn't have to be super interesting or updated that often.

    Code

    You have a lot of coding errors in your site. I see you are using an external style sheet, but you have:
    &#60;body bgcolor="#E8F0B7"&#62;
    You should customise this in your css stylesheet.
    Like this:
    body {background-color: #000;}

    To shorten your div layer coding on the actual page instead of this:
    &#60;div style="position:absolute; top:503px; left:10px; width:504px; background-color:a9a9a9; padding:8px;&#62; "

    You should specify it in your css, call your div something like:
    &#60;div id="maindiv"&#62;

    And then in your css you can specify where you want it with something like this:
    #content {
    float: left;
    width: 620px;
    padding-left: 10px;
    padding-right: 10px;
    padding-top: 0px;
    padding-bottom: 10px;
    }

    I hope all this shows up in the review... XD Anyways, you get a general idea of what I am getting at. You should study up some more on css, and try to get your site's code validated or at least try for less errors. Check out this site if you'd like for some really great tutorials http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/.

    Overall

    I think you need to work more on your coding and try to branch off from using so many celebrity images in your graphics. You can edit them nicely and have made some nice graphics, but you haven't used anything original. Your site does have some great potential though. Try finding some good stock photos and try making layouts and blends from them.

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    rockcandy's Response:

    Thanks for the layout advice. I agree that I should add more color, I just didn't know what shade of green to use. I experimented with darker shades of green but it just looked..off. xD And I couldn't use the lime green because it'd be too bright/blinding.

    As for the CSS, yeah I know how to do all that stuff; I used a lot of that type of CSS before I converted to PHP. Since I used a tutorial on PHP includes, the CSS just showed up like that, and ever since I've been too lazy to change it, haha.

    But thanks for your review! I'll definitely put some of your tips into my next layout, and I'll try to make more non-celebrity graphics.

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