Project 2am

Project 2am

***-- (Rated by 4 people, viewed by 91 people)

Just another personal blog/website. Fairly new. I'm looking for feedback on anything and everything!

Added by Kristelle in Personal

Project 2am has 4 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on Project 2am. Jump to review form?

  1. [img: avatar]
    lillie gave it ***-- on 7th Apr 2009 and said:

    wowwiee. I haven't seen a freewebs site as well built as yours! Well done :) I'm not going to give a full review. But here we go anyway!

    First Impression & Layout:
    Your layout looked really nice but when I started to observe it a little more I saw a few flaws. First of all, the shadow-ish line going down the middle of the page: It's weird because all the other edges are flat except that middle line, it throws things off in my opinion.
    Your sidebar's okay, (you're really pretty btw! :]) but your picture is cut off (your arm); you should align it to the left instead. The menu is cool (: because of the description when hovering over it!

    Overall
    Your site's really nice! The layout's okay considering it was made in paint. Although, I think you could have done more with it. (The header, it's just white and boring to the eyes).
    By the way, your exchange.html page is missing.
    You should also switch to PHP includes. I enjoyed giving you this short review! :D.

    Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

  2. [img: avatar]
    Cindy gave it ***-- on 4th Apr 2009 and said:

    Hi Kristelle, thanks for reviewing my site a while back; I'm going to review yours today. :) I'm using Windows Vista (1280x800 resolution) and Firefox.

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    COMPOSITION: Clean layout, good good! With a font like the one for Project 2AM, it's easy to add a bunch of crazy effects to match the ornateness of the font. I'm really glad that you didn't fall into this trap. Instead, you stuck with a black/white color scheme with nicely placed hints of purple and turquoise -- bravo! You have a great color scheme and a central focal point of your layout (the "Project 2AM"), but I really think that you can build off of this. For example, there's a lot more you can do with the site title, especially since you have this awkward white space. With an ornate font like that, you can afford to experiment with the placement; you don't have to have them on two straight lines. Rotate the text, try different font sizes for Project and 2Am, insert some purple or turquoise, etc! Those are all suggestions, but whatever you do, make sure you use your space effectively. Right now, you've got a bunch of whitespace near your site title, but you've got to make effective use of it for your layout to stand out. Do something dynamic with this central point of your layout but keep the same cleanliness of your layout, and you've got something!

    Other layout-related things:
    - I'm not too fond of the little gradient on the right side of your blog area. It doesn't really do anything for me stylistically.
    - There's a huge chunk of space between your image of "Project 2AM" and your blog content, which looks awkward.
    - If you scroll down to the bottom of your page, you've got all your Rotations buttons, which I think belongs on the sidebar.
    - The kiss lips image at the end of your blog looks awkward placed at the very end. Is this supposed to be something like a "signature" or a trademark or a way to end your blog posts (kind of like xoxo)? If so, I would suggest adding the kiss to the end of every blog entry. I would also make a bit smaller. An example of this would be here (http://nubbytwiglet.com/) -- notice how she ends every single entry with her signature. It's definitely something to consider, but if that doesn't float your boat, then I'd suggest deleting it altogether as it breaks the flow of your blog content.
    - I strongly recommend putting your blog entry titles on a separate line than your actual entry. It'll make your content look less cluttered.
    - Adding more leading (the vertical space between lines of text) to your content text would do wonders to clean up your layout even more. Just use the line-height CSS property for that.
    - The sidebar text is pretty small, and since it's light text against a dark background, that makes the readability even worse. To prevent this, try making the text size as big as the text size for your blog. That way, you get more consistency and cleanliness!

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    CONTENT:
    - Maybe I'm slow, but it was initially hard for me to find your menu because it's in the middle of your sidebar. Remember that visitors have a tendency to read from top-down, so don't make them look for the navigation, because that kind of defeats the original purpose of navigation. :P See if you can place the navigation at the top of the site, like the top of your sidebar, under Project 2AM, etc.

    - One thing I do like about the menu is that when I hover over the links, I can see a description. However, if I were to see a link called "Typage", I wouldn't exactly know what I'd be clicking if it weren't for the description. The descriptions are definitely helpful, but see if you can make it so you don't need them. Users don't necessarily want to click a link where they don't know what to expect.

    - NARCISSISM: Since this page is about you, it'd be a lot better if you had your Basic Info as the very first thing instead of your Twitter updates. Your Twitter updates might be better off in your sidebar. Either way, your Basic Info gives the user a great idea of who you are, whereas Twitter updates don't necessarily do that. I also noticed that you had a link to your photos on the Kristelle section of your sidebar, but I don't see this link anywhere on your menu or Narcissism site. For such a gorgeous girl, you should have that linked at other places besides your sidebar!

    - Speaking of your photos page, you should definitely organize this! Remember that a lot of people have horribly slow Internet connections, so having all your photos displayed will definitely slow down a browser. My suggestion for this is to have resized thumbnails that link to the full sized image. That way, if you click on a thumbnail, a new window/tab will open with the original image. Also, if you could incorporate a description/caption for each image, that'd be helpful for the visitor.

    - POETRY: The huge chunk of space between "Poetry" and your poems needs to be reduced. Also, if you're going to be adding poems, you should find a way to organize all your poetry so that the visitor doesn't have to scroll down a lot just to read a certain poem.

    - BOOKS: I can understand marking a book as your absolute favorite. I don't, however, see the point of putting one asterisk (*) for "recommended" books. All of those books on that list are recommended, so wouldn't you be putting up asterisks for each one? I suggest just putting one asterisks for your absolute favorites and leaving the rest unmarked. For the purposes of readability and formatting, you should italicize the titles. Since you've got a lot of titles on that list, you should organize it in some fashion. For example, you could order alphabetically by author or title, you could categorize by genre, you could order this by preference, etc. There are a lot of ways to better organize this. Also, it would be awesome if you had a brief description of those books. There are some books on there that I've never read let alone heard of, so the description would be really helpful. When you extend this into a book review section, you can elaborate those descriptions and talk about why you liked the book and what made it interesting. Either way, this section needs more organization and content in order to keep the visitor interested.

    - MUSIC: Again, there's too much space between "Music" and the content. Quotation marks surrounding each song title would be especially helpful for readability. Also, it'd be really cool if you could give a short description of the song where you can talk about why you like that song. Like the books section, you should make this less of a listing of songs and more of a section where the visitor will understand why you like those songs.

    - RESOURCES: I love the setup of this page, but think about ordering the list alphabetically (i.e. Colors, Communities, Fonts, Laughs, etc.). Whatever you do, Miscellaneous should not be the very first category, since it generally implies "all the rest of the content."

    - NETWORKING: Since the last two Project 2AM buttons are the same size, those should be on the same line. Try not to add a ton of spacing between Affiliation, Listed At and Rotations. For Rotations, listing all of those buttons on separate lines (vertically) is not a good idea. The user has to scroll down a lot to be able to see all the buttons, and it looks a bit sloppy. What I suggest is to have all the buttons of the same size on the same few rows, so that it appears more organized.

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    CODING: Awesome, Valid HTML! :) One thing you should consider is going from HTML to XHTML, since it's becoming the new coding standard. Valid XHTML is stricter, but it's definitely doable since your site structure isn't complicated or anything. For XHTML, be sure that all your tags are closed. For img and br, self close them with / >

    - I am against iframes, because they're not very time-efficient with loading and they're not very flexible because you have to define a specific size for it. With iframes, there's always this dilemma: your main iframe defines a height of 2000px, but if you don't have enough content to fill up 2000px, you've got this unnecessary whitespace. If you have too much content that takes up more than 2000px, you've got an ugly scrollbar. Instead of taking time to define some non-arbitrary size for the iframe, I definitely suggest using s and completely doing away with all iframes. If all your content is on the same page, it loads much faster. You should definitely take out the iframe, and place the content under the bodyframediv. divs will adjust according to the size of your content, unlike iframes, since there is no height to be specified.

    - I don't know if webs.com supports this, but if you want to be able to create pages without having to copy and paste the same code over and over again, I highly suggest that you look into a simple php include. Make a text file, paste all your header code (all code that goes before your content), and save it as header.php. Then make a text file, paste all your footer code (all code after your content), and save it as footer.php. Then for every page, save it with a .php extension instead of html, and all you need to do is this (:
    < ? php include ( "header.php" ) ; ? >
    content goes here
    < ? php include ( "footer.php" ) ; ? >
    Trust me, it's way more efficient than iframes. If the above code doesn't show up probably, just go here (http://www.tizag.co/phpT/include.php).

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    CONCLUSION: I definitely see potential here. The key to improving your site is the presentation of your content! I see lots of unnecessary whitespace that you can definitely do without, and all the vertical placement of the majority of your content (the book list, the music list, the photos page, the Networking page) makes the pages look disorganized. Placement is a very important aspect in making your site look its best. Notice how your Myspace page has these great, clean bullet points of info that provide the reader with just enough information that's both detailed and concise. Take that same principle of balance and apply it to your content and layout, and you'll definitely have something that'll have visitors coming back. :)

    Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

    Kristelle's Response:

    Hello Cindy. Oh man, I dont even know what to respond to first! Actually, I've already been working on changing almost everything you mentioned. Your input just reinforced my thoughts. Thank you SO much for this review, I can hardly express how helpful it is. xox

  3. [img: avatar]
    reeshas gave it ***-- on 27th Mar 2009 and said:

    My first impressions are this looks interesting which is exactly what you want from viewers. Grab their attention and lure them into your site for all eternity! The bright colors don’t make the site look tacky, but fashionably sassy. Not sure what project 2 am is about but there’s Tetris 2pm so that kind of makes me thinking. It’s kind of funny this site feels like you don’t sleep, like city nights and lights everywhere. Does have that sleepless feeling so insomnia fits perfectly xD I get it now, you update at 2am? Why is that the only time you can find, that’s cool. So your entire site name is based on when you update the site! It’s funny you mention narcissism; my personal blog is called Narcissistic! Alright we all love web design, or most of us I hope. Ok, so my eyes go right to the title, which is beautiful with all the brushes and vectors. Next I see the large Kristelle in the bold lime. And a picture, guessing that’s you, fashion model? You give away too much about yourself on the first page, keep people guessing about you. Make the profile a little smaller and then say More? But I really like how you have your contacts right there, and spelling out your email gets you another star! So here’s where I see trouble that people might run into, the same sized but this time bold titles for your updates are distracting me, so every time I try to read the tiny sized words on the update, I kind of drift back to the title INTERVIEW, NERVES, so on. You should make that a little else attention grabbing please. It’s adorable how you have the heart and than your name. And that kiss on the bottom, PRICELESS! I’m freaking loving this site! Alright as I scroll down I see the links of links you have and they look messy and disorganized, why don’t you move them to the side so it doesn’t look like your layout just got cut you know. Or make a bottom image for the layout so it looks neat and separated. The site links don’t really look like anything but just words, glad you added that MENU to help guild viewers. Alright on Narcissism, there’s a lot about you, ehh, I’ll stalk you later right now let me finish the review. Keyboarding is your regular index page. This one time is kind of funny, you kind of have words in there not for 13 or younger, and more mature content so you should warn little kinds to scram on your front page. And I also like the pink or fuchsia color you used to make the title with, use that instead of the huge gray bold font. Your poetry page is prefect, centered is what I was looking for and there it is. You read quite a lot of books, so do I, or used to xD but that’s good. The link says REVIEWS of books though, I don’t see reviews, I just see what you recommended and what your absolute favorites are. You could add a brief review on all of those books to give viewers a better idea of what the books is about, or you could make a chart that categorizes different genres of books like horror, comedy, science fiction, biographies, non-fiction, fantasy, stuff like that. Wow a lot of songs, this is a personal site right, so this is great. This gives me an idea. Resources really just means credits, people might misjudge that link and find credits on there when they thought you offered resources that you made. And it says the best online resources, that’s really an opinion but you sound so sure of yourself it’s kind of disappointing when these are clearly not the best resources xD either you’re kidding around or egocentric. Ok, here’s the unfair part to your site, under the affiliates, you have their links in little lime colored names, and they look more like a border or divider. But here you post images of yourself, that’s out right selfish, link them back with their names, site names, proper URLs, and their banners, I go so far as to even giving the site type and category with an explanation of the overall site and how many times I’ve been there. That just got me angry I’m sorry, affiliates are like family, you don’t do that. PERIOD. Since you already have your linkages on the side navigation, I don’t see why you just re-linked them in the same manner, add some info please. If you want to be linked and someone to use your banners, than you have to make some changes and link your affiliates with banners too. Give and receive. You have a lot of listings. But since * means pending, don’t put up those directories yet, why should you advertise them when they haven’t listed you. You have tons of rotations so I’m wondering what rotations are exactly. I submit that question on your chat box, so answer my question when you get the time, maybe around midnight, on my tag board or comments, or where anywhere want. Thanks so much in advance. As for the plugs, they work, I tried, hehe, I’m now part of this site till my banner falls off. And finally the site info on the page which really is just credits that you’re repeating twice. Is this not your layout? If a webmaster makes their own layout, they don’t have to go around linking their own credits on every page, they do have to put it on the credits page so no one else goes stealing them, but still. Don’t do that, that’s the only tacky thing I spot. As for the Menu format: is organized but the links could be arranged to a better degree. They kind of look messy because of the strange words you use. Maybe, when we hover, you have the normal words people use to link those links. That way we know what this link is, and the first link is never yourself, it’s normally the second or third link on a personal blog/site. The key wording should be the first link. And the credits you don’t need since you made the layout. The Design: it’s very simple, the large image on the top that shouts your site name is alright, I’m sure others would hate it because they hate large banners, but I like it because I have the same deal on my site. The color of the site is just boring old black and white which now a days doesn’t’ get that much hype. So find some bright or dim colors other than W & B. fire, forest, aqua life, space, futuristic, oceans, and vista type designs are the themes getting most of the attention. The font used isn’t half bad, not so clever when it comes to titles and headings though, the colors you could definitely play around a bit. Alright, considering that’s all there is, I’ll see you later.

    Using MSIE on Windows | Report This?

    Kristelle's Response:

    Hello Reeshas. Thank you for the detailed review! To answer your questions, yes I usually update around 2 in the morning. I have trouble sleeping so I'm always up late! and I liked the sound of it.

    I was already thinking about making my blog titles a little smaller, so thanks for mentioning that.

    I'm confused about my menu. You said it looks disorganized, but it should just be a list, all lined up to the left. I'm using a javascript that shows a description when you hover. From what you describe I don't think that's showing up correctly.

    I never even thought about my language, hehe, so I will definitely make some kind of notice warning younger people.

    About my book section, I thought about organizing them somehow but every single one is historical fiction! I have written reviews of them just havent gotten that up yet.

    I agree with you that affiliates are like family. I don't understand exactly what you're saying about that section. I put up banners for people to grab if we link exchange but I don't expect people to use them, especially since I only use a text link. I WILL take your advice and add more info about them though.

    Rotations are a way to get your site advertised on other sites. It's a button exchange. You join a rotation and they give you a banner to place on your site. That banner refreshes a different site each time. And every person who joins a rotation displays this banner, so your're button shows up on other sites as well. It's kind of confusing! A great one to check out would be
    http://shattered-rotation.shattered-whispers.com

    My credits and resources are basically the same thing. This IS 100% my own layout, but there are sites I refer to for help and those are linked on that page.

    Thank you again for the review!
    xoxo Kristelle

  4. misswildfire gave it ***-- on 27th Mar 2009 and said:

    Reviewed using Firefox in Windows Vista

    You definitely got some good points going on in this layout. I ike the font used in the title for the header. It's pretty sweet. Your font all over could be a little bigger. It's a tad hard to read and maybe increase the line spacing so it's not squished easier. That would help it. I don't think that that shade of purple in your sidebar is working. It's a tad bit too dark. Try a lighter shade. Maybe try making the sidebar look more like a sidebar instead of font that you placed over the background.

    I like that you have content on your site like book reviews in such. Good job on voicing your opinion on stuff!

    Overall, good site and has lots of potential.

    Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

    Kristelle's Response:

    Thanks a bunch, I'll change the font size and color.

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