Love Chem

Love Chem

****- (Rated by 7 people, viewed by 419 people)

The personal site of a teenage university student named Erin.

Added by Erin in Personal

Love Chem has 7 Reviews

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

  1. [img: avatar]
    Ben gave it ****- on 9th May 2009 and said:

    I'm so sorry it took me forever to review your site. I said I would over three months ago but I guess I just kept procrastinating. Well here it is.

    First Impressions As you know I've been on your site quite a few times before and I just love it. Your layouts are simple but that's good, that way we don't get distracted from your beautiful writing.

    Layout As always, it's very nice and organized and I really like these colors. There are a few things I'm not really liking. The first one is the blue and brown stripes in the layout image. I think it might be better if it was just left out or if you want to leave it in I think it might be better with either the brown or blue or maybe even both matching the blue and brown in the rest of the layout.
    I also think your css for the navigation at the top could be better. Maybe you could try changing to a different font that's maybe a little bolder, or you could have a background when you rollover it.
    I think it looks a little odd right here: http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w157/waldo1-/Untitled-1-1.jpg. I guess it's because there's a lot of space between the links and the "About Me" and then a lot of space again before the next text. So maybe a little less space would be good. I also think making the "About Me" a size or two bigger might make it look nicer.
    I like what you did with the underline on the navigation on the bottom of the page but I think it would be better if when you rolled over the text was a darker gray or maybe a dark blue. Besides that, it all looks pretty good.

    Pages As you must know, you're writing is fabulous in whatever you write on your website. It's always done in an organized and interesting way. Your About section is very well written. You talk about a lot of things in just that one page, which isn't really telling your whole life story but just the interesting parts.

    Wow, those fonts are very nice! I tried making fonts once and found it impossible so I'm very impressed with these ones. I'll have to remember to come back here late to download some. The Wordpress Theme you have is pretty good. If you could find time, I think it might be cool to see a few more of those. Some of those brushes are really nice too, good job.

    You have really good articles and very detailed too, especially the one on Dormitory Life. Like I keep on saying, your writing is amazing! I love your writing pages, there's so many different pieces of writing. I remember the first time I went on your site I spent quite a while in that part of your site, your writing is really what got me to love your website.

    Conclusion I really enjoy visiting your site and I love all your writing and the downloads. Great job with it all, hopefully you keep it up, despite being busy with university life :)

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  2. [img: avatar]
    Shadow gave it ***** on 9th Feb 2009 and said:

    First Impression

    Clouds! I think clouds are beautiful. This layout is soothing. The blues are soft and pleasing to the eye, and...clouds! They look like clouds and not globs of...stuff.

    I can't find anything wrong with the layout. But I'm wondering; maybe the other two clouds in your header can be empty without writing. It's not that serious, but I'm curious.

    Blog

    Well-written, but that's expected since, you know, you're a college girl and all. I'm able to read everything on here, even without my glasses. The font is a great size, the color is readable, and nothing is smushed! Great padding to the left and right, and line height brings it all together. Readability, you win here.

    Footer

    The only thing that I don't really like is the gradient at the bottom. It's not a total annoyance, but maybe it would work with just the solid blue.

    I like the box that has the stuff about you. We want to know a little about who you are, and having it highlighted in a different color makes it pop out more.

    The other pages

    About Me: Thumbnails. Nice. That's rarely seen. I don't know why, but the "preschool dropout" thing made me laugh. Very nice stuff in your basics. But *shudder* at chemistry. I hated that subject. I always feared blowing my school up. I enjoyed making soap though. Anyway, I love your photography, especially the ones at Bushkill Falls (waterfall pictures get me every time), and your drawings are cute.

    I'm thinking something though: should your website history be in your about me?

    Writing: *rubs hands together* I love writing sections, because I like reading what writing enthusiasts write. I'm writing this review close to my nap time, so I'll have to look through all of these when I'm not too foggy, however, I did read a few. I love "A Touch of Irish Luck". Come on, leprechauns are the coolest mythical creatures ever, and it was set on St. Patrick's Day.

    I look forward to reading more, so keep this area updated as much as possible!

    Domain: Short and sweet. I had a feeling that it had something to do with chemistry. I didn't get the command part though. :(

    Links: It's rare that I touch on the exit/links page on sites, but I did with your site because I love how yours is set up. You have the site owner's name linked, and a description of them and their site. I don't think I've seen that anywhere before. Good idea.

    Misc: I was drawn to your fonts immediately because you made them with your own hands. All chemistry themed. Nice! And they're really cute. So are your brushes.

    I'm enjoying your articles as well. This reminds me; maybe I should pick up The Crucible again. That was one of the few books I was able to stand when I first read it.

    Coding

    Valid coding. Great job! I...can't find anything wrong here either. Wait, one thing. When you list your links in your footer, instead of having a list class and linking it to every link, why not use actual lists (<ul> and <li>) and style it just as you have it now? Nothing too serious, but just something for future reference--that's actually a semantically correct way of creating lists of links.

    All in all...

    I couldn't really find anything absolutely wrong with your site. I could say that I don't like your favicon, but I'd be lying to myself (it's functional). The colors are gorgeous, everything you've written is written in perfect English, and...CLOUDS AND LEPRECHAUNS! *ahem* Sorry about that outburst, but I'm in love. Great job. And good luck on your double major. :D

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    Erin's Response:

    Thank you for the review!

    I'll see what the two small clouds look like without text. I suppose the text might be a little overwhelming for such small objects. I changed the footer to a solid blue instead of the gradient, and I think it looks a lot better!

    I've also changed my list of links into actual lists. I knew I could do it that way (seeing as my top navigation is made with an actual list), but I guess I didn't think it mattered. But if I can achieve the same effect while being more correct, I suppose it does make a difference!

    Thanks again for the review, and I'm glad you enjoyed my leprechaun short story! :)

  3. [img: avatar]
    Mimi gave it ***** on 9th Feb 2009 and said:

    Reviewed with:
    Mozilla Firefox 3.0.6 | 1440 x 900 Resolution| Windows Vista
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    First Impression:

    Let's see here.. at a glance?

    1) Colors are pleasing to the eye.. CHECK.
    2) Font is large enough to not hurt my eyes.. CHECK.
    3) Layout is creative without overdoing it.. CHECK.
    4) Blog is more than "OMGZ I ttlly lyk, wanna go owt with himmm!!".. CHECK.

    My first impression is that I am extremely impressed. I feel a bit relieved, since I picked your site literally at random, that it won't be one of my standard reviews. It seems that all I do is comment on bad CSS, clashing colors and small text. A girl needs a break now and then! Let's just get down to business, shall we?

    Coding:

    Your coding is XHTML valid and lean, which is wonderful. Your CSS is also valid but I spot a few things that could be done to improve it. My main area of interest right now is CSS Shorthand. For instance, let's take your body section in your CSS file. This is how it looks:

    body {
    margin : 0;
    margin-bottom : 0;
    padding : 0;
    height : 100%;
    background : #86b0ce;
    font-size : 13px;
    line-height : 21px;
    font-family : Verdana, sans-serif;
    color : #8c8c8c;
    }

    First of all, you do not need to have that margin-bottom: 0; in there because you have already stated that there was to be no margins, using margin: 0;. Next, why do we have height: 100%; here? There is nothing constraining the height of your layout so far, so I see no need to have this included. The next thing I would like to address if the separate font stylings. Using CSS Shorthand, you can combine a lot of that. Once I optimize this section, it will look a little something like this:

    body {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    background: #86b0ce;
    font: 13px/21px Verdana, sans-serif;
    color: #8c8c8c;
    }

    It might not seem like much but if you skim off a few lines throughout the document, it can drastically reduce the size. Also you should probably convert your font sizes and line heights to either Em or % for accessibility issues. When you set a font with a size in Px, it remains this way no matter what. If a disabled user must increase the size of your text, they will be unable to because the Px does not allow it. Using Em or % does, however, so it is a wise conversion. For the easy route, I suggest using the Px to Em Calculator. All you do is enter the number you have your font size or line height set at in pixels and it automatically shows you the equivalent in Em measurements. :) So your font size of 13px translates to 0.81em. Wonderful!

    I see that there actually are some CSS shorthand elements being used in your CSS document, so perhaps I should just give you the link to a very good shorthand reference so you can see all of the other ways there are to shorten! I suggest this shorthand guide. Once you have this accomplished, you might try and run your CSS through the CSS Cleaner to see if there is anything else you can shorten or clear up. I absolutely love that cleaner!

    Design:

    As stated before, I love the simplicity. On sites like yours I tend to just make lists of little things that I think could be improved but that aren't necessarily in bad shape. So here goes!

    - I think that the bevel that you used on your clouds all over the layout is much too harsh and makes your clouds look a bit odd. My suggestion, if you must use bevel (I think it would look just fine flat, personally), is that you make it softer and rounder, more like a cloud. I made a little example of what I mean with your title image (I hope you don't mind.. it's just for example purposes!) and in case you wanted the settings for Photoshop, you can download the style here. If you aren't sure how to load styles and you want to use it just send me a PM and I can tell you how. ^^ Oh yeah, here is the example picture I made!

    http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/iategijoe/lovechem.jpg

    - I adore the navigation but the gray color that the background changes to is a little off I think. Maybe add a little more blue in the gray? It's not a horrible combination at all or anything, it just looks slightly off to me. Of course it might be my monitor as well, who knows!

    - On your subpages I like how you use a little picture next to the links (I do too on my website! :D) but I think it would look better if the text that was next to it was sitting in the middle of the image instead of at the bottom. To do this simply add align="left" in your image tag and it will make it float to the left instead of just sitting concrete like that. You might need to add some extra line breaks or add something like <div style="clear:both;"> to stop the images from mashing down on each other.

    - Really the only other thing I can think of is the "A little about me" box. I think the chunky table thing looks very early 90's when everyone was using them and doesn't really fit in with the rest of the smooth layout. You know what I think would look nice? A rounded corner box! Either that or just a flat colored box. I think the font color in this box is a little too close to the background color, it's a little hard to read for me anyway.

    Content:

    I'm just going to kind of randomly skim through things, forgive the erm.. randomness of it all. :P

    I don't see the point in the Academics page, I mean.. How many readers care what classes you take in school? I'm sure a couple probably do but other than that eh? I don't care what someone is taking in school personally unless we are having a private conversation and I specifically ask. It's not hurting anyone to be up or anything but I wanted to state my opinion on that matter I guess.

    Oh, you were a doller! Hehe I never did the doll thing, I was into Sailor Moon. My first sites were in, hmm.. *thinks* 1995? They were all Sailor Moon, man! Your art is nice, there aren't many drawings though. Or different types of drawings, but they are nice the same. Same with the photography, it's nice but it's pretty much the same kind of pictures within the categories.. Not much variety. Now I am not saying they are BAD at all, so don't get me wrong!

    I don't ever read the writing section of sites unless it's a very close friend (just because writing isn't my thing) so I am not going to judge your writing or anything. I prefer graphics and art, visually appealing things. :) I did take a peek and it looks like you are a very good writer! So I'm willing to bet this is a nice, rounded section for the avid reader.

    Your fonts are just fantastic, that's all I can say. I am going to download a couple of them and it's so wonderful to see people offering fonts they MADE on sites now. It's not quite a trend yet but if it becomes one I think it is one to keep! I mean if everyone on the net made their own things and stopped redistributing others' work, wouldn't that be so lovely? Well, kudos to you for making goodies yourself. :D I have been wanting to make fonts but I am not sure on how to go about it really.

    Brushes are typical things nowadays, even I offer them on my site. I think they are all pretty much the same anymore but I leave them up there in case someone still wants to download them I guess. *sigh*

    Final Thoughts:

    My final thought? "YAYY!" I like your site. A lot. It's very nice and has minimal work to be done on it. The only thing I really think is lacking is variety in the things I mentioned above, I'd really enjoy seeing that in the future. Look into that CSS shorthand and really you will just be improving on something that is already great.

    UPDATED 09 Feb 09:
    Hmm.. the link for the style doesn't seem to be working so here is the link again:

    htp://mimi-goodies.com/lovechem-cloud.zip

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    Erin's Response:

    Thank you for those CSS resources! I knew there were ways to condense CSS, but I wasn't aware of everything you could do to make it as compact and clean as possible. These should be some really helpful sites for me to make my stylesheet neater. Thanks for the px to em site as well. I actually thought about doing that before, but when I Googled a px to em calculator, different sites gave me different calculations, so I wasn't sure which one to trust!

    You make a good point about the clouds look abnormal. I guess I didn't fiddle with the effect settings very much when making them. But I've made some adjustments to them now, and I think they look a little better. I don't know if they're the best they can be yet - but without such harsh beveling, it's definitely an improvement.

    A couple people have questioned the academics page. I blog a whole lot about my schooling (seeing as the subtitle is "blog of a teenage university student"!), so I thought people would make that connection between student and academics. Perhaps it would be better suited as a sort of "more?" link in the Education section of my Main Story page.

    Anyway, thank you for all of your tips and suggestions; I will definitely take everything into consideration!

  4. [img: avatar]
    Greykitty gave it ***** on 8th Feb 2009 and said:

    Layout

    It looks nice, I like blue so naturally I'm more inclined to like it. XD It's simple but that's not a bad thing. Though I would suggest you add a bit more too it, maybe more clouds or something. It might look kind of neat if you made the content encircled by the cloud. Might make the layout feel a little more connected. Right now the cloud header feels a bit out of place with everything being square.

    All your font is a nice size. Maybe make your header text a different face though to break up the font types a little. I think that might look kind of nice. Maybe incorporate some of your photos into a layout design? That would look kind of spiffy.

    Content

    Your blogs are pretty darn interesting so I don't really have much to say on improvement there. Your About page is VERY complete and pretty easy to keep my interest in it so nothing else to add about that really. Your drawings look very nice and you have so many writings, I could never go through them all in a day. lol Your photos are pretty nice, some are a bit fuzzy but meh still look pretty good.
    I'm almost tempted to say move your articles/opinions etc into the writings section since they are your work.

    Your brushes look pretty nice and the fonts too. You make me want to come up with a font of my own now. lol!


    Overall

    I really don't have many suggestions for your site. It's packed full of content and the design is pretty good. Few suggestions there but yeah. Overall a very nice blog/ personal site. I think this is one of my shortest reviews.

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    Erin's Response:

    Thanks for the review! I thought my layout looked a little disjointed, but I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. I'm trying to keep the cloud idea going throughout the layout now, and I think it looks a little more cohesive. Thanks for the suggestion. :)

  5. [img: avatar]
    INSUBHAZE gave it ***** on 18th Jan 2009 and said:

    First Impression:
    I absolutely love this site already. It looks clean and professional. The css is good as well. One thing I will say though is that you should definitely center your horizontal navigation since there isn’t enough links to complete the whole row.

    Blog:
    Very detailed but, I guess it should be since the site is mainly based on the blog. I read it. Wow not only is it detailed it’s kind of interesting. And I like the fact that you asked questions at the end of the blog. I guess that gives the commenter something more to comment on besides the actual blog.

    About me:
    Oh I love the little icons next to the links on this page so cute. The main story is very lengthy but, I read it and survived. I looked at your artwork as well and you are very talented.

    Domain:
    Nothing much I can say here. It is what it is, Domain information.

    Links:
    Same as with the domain section; It is what it is, links.

    Extras:
    Brushes!! I like these. I also love the way when you click the brush sets the image comes up on the screen. I never quite knew how to do that. I would love to learn.
    Oh my goodness fonts!!! I love trying out new fonts. I can’t believe you made these. I’ve always wanted to make a font out of my handwriting but I don’t have a printer :( I really like the double displacement font that one is my favorite one.

    Overall:
    I like you site. Its neat, it serves the purpose of your site and it has a good theme. I know your site isn’t a graphics site but maybe you should add a graphic site as part of your network or something because you are pretty good at web designing and your content is good and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it.

    -insubordinate haze

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  6. [img: avatar]
    candycob gave it ****- on 7th Jan 2009 and said:

    Hiiii =)
    I like your site, for first impressions! I really like [i]plain[/i] and not [b]overdone[/b] sites. So this caught my eye. ^^

    Your text is big enough to not [b]bore[/b] me when I read it. And your sidebar is free of clutter @.@ Although, I kinda hate it when people write about themselves in 3rd person.

    Your navigation is really cool :D

    Okie. Uhrm I see you have alot of pages, which will take quite a while to review every single one. So i'll give you a sum-up.

    [b]OWNER: [/b] Everything sorted & neat, although I think it's a bit random you have marks from school. This is my opinion, maybe you have reason. It's been categorized, which can get a person bored, I would suggest keeping some things [b]all together,[/b] & only a few pages categorized.. [3 maybe?] you can leave behind the things that aren't necessary, and shove it all into one page, but, just make sure that one page isn't [i]long,[/i] [b]or boring.[/b] This is important. =]

    [b]DOMAIN: [/b] Gah! Perfect example of what I was trying to say above! ^.^ I think you could make [b]past layouts,[/b] I guess it's nice viewing peoples past layouts.

    [b]LINKS:[/b] Uh this could easily go under 'domain' in a new page. Otherwishe there's nothing wrong with this page..

    [b]VISITOR:[/b]
    [i]Brushes:[/i] I like these, but I must be honest, I HATE the school ones. Otherwise, the rest are pretty cool =]
    [i]Fonts:[/i] You made these?! Are you serious? Wow cool. If not, I suggest take them down. I'm pretty impressed by these, if you did make them..
    [i]Reads:[/i] ... Nothing wrong here. It looks lke you like reading.

    [b]WRITING:[/b] Whole new layout? But it's nice.

    SUMMARY:
    You have a nice site. It's simple, and try to fix everything, and yeah. That's basically my point of view. My opinions etc.

    Coke

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    Erin's Response:

    Thanks for the review. :) I see what you mean about combining some pages. I could definitely could merge my grades and courses into one "academics" page - I talk about school and my studies A LOT so instead of going on about it every blog, I made some pages for it.

    And yes, I did make the fonts, using a program called Font Creator. I drew most of them out with Sharpies and scanned it in, except for Periodic, which was made with my graphics program. :)

  7. [img: avatar]
    spockish gave it ****- on 7th Jan 2009 and said:

    Hello, Erin. (: Specs are 1400 x 900 resolution using firefox 3 on Mac OS X.

    first impression Well I have seen your site before. It is simple and beautiful. The theme isn't overdone or boring and the styse of the website matches the content.

    layout My favorite part is the the type in the banner at the top. It is really lovely. My least favorite part is your footer. I'm really glad that you actually have a footer, it seems lots of blogs/small graphics sites don't and that bothers me. Your footer isn't bad, it doesn't do anything wrong in itself, it is just a little boring.

    extras -- fonts Okay so your fonts were the first thing I went for in your extras. I absolute adore typeface creation. I'd love to see a multi weight (at least light, book, and bold) and a regular and oblique not necessarily text font, screen font is ok typeface. I like what you've done and you are pretty good at it. A full typeface is not just because most free type faces are single fonts and not all that usable.

    extras -- brushes Your brushes are kinda cute. They look pretty well made and it's nice that you give image packs because lots of users don't have your particular program. I use photoshop instead of paint shop pro, but maybe also giving a psp brush version that's easier to install? Assuming psp works that way. I'm kind of thinking along the lines of photoshop. It's kind of a pain to define each brush. So definitely keep the image packs, but having an easier version is nice too.

    about Your about section is in depth! Wow! I definitely appreciate all the science love. Geeks are awesome. Although honestly I didn't take Chem 2 and beyond because I couldn't handle the 4 hour labs.

    Your writing is good. Your site is nice and simple. I like it.

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    Erin's Response:

    I was intrigued when you mentioned my footer because I never really thought that much about making my footer more interesting. I guess it was always kind of an afterthought for me.

    I know what you mean about making the brushes easier to install, actually, because I use Photoshop on my Macbook now, and I don't even feel like installing my own brushes individually! They were all made on my old PC at home, but I suppose the next time I'm using that computer, I can make them into downloadable brush files in an easier-to-install package.

    Thank you for the review and the suggestions. You offered some good tips. :)

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