viewing: dreamling · rev.iew.me · community web page reviewing

Dreamling has 6 Reviews

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

thistudio gave it on 7th Sep 2009 and said:
This is my personal opinion, you don't have to make changes or take any advice I may give :)

First Impression: WOW, i love love LOVE this layout. It's very simple, yet very pleasing to the eye. The colours used throughout the layout work well together. I like the banner look you have for your navigation area, very original. I've never seen that anywhere else before :)

Aisling: I always enjoy reading about the owners of websites. I especially loved this page the most. I like the graphic you have used on the side and the decoration around it. It isn't too much and it's not very distracting. It makes the page more interesting and really grabs the attention of the reader. I especially like your name. I totally got it wrong when I tried to say it lol. I like the use of dynamic sidebars for this page. Once again, very original.

Media: Once again I love the little graphic used on this page. It really spices things up! It makes it more appealing to the visitor, well.. me anyway lol.
- Art + Photo: I really like this page, It's well organized and very pleasing to the eye. I like how you have them separated into their categories, makes it much more easier to navigate around. I personally really like the Things page, the photos look really professional :)
- Articles: You have a great variety of articles. I'm not sure if i like the way the navigation is set up. I think the extra writing takes away from it, but at the same time I like the extra writing. It tells the reader a little bit about the article.
- Film: This is once again, a very original aspect of your domain. I enjoyed watching them :) I loved the 2nd, and how parts of the video fit in with the words. Like the "we danced anyway" and someones dancing :D. I think its a great idea, filled with great memories :)
- Recipes: Once again I have never seen this on a domain. A lot of them sound very yummy, maybe one day I'll get ambitious and try a couple of them :)
- Techie Stuff: I'm always looking for new "goodies" to use. Maybe I'll be back and use a couple of them :)

in conclusion to that, I loved this section of your site

Site: I like this page, you explain in great detail about your web design experiences along the way and how it came to be.

Oh.. I never noticed the footer of your website until now, I guess I never scrolled down far enough, my bad lol. I love the 3 sections and how they are sectioned off. It's very easy to read and i know when one ends and another starts. The starts in the corner are very neat, i like them :) . Cute birdy for your Twitter tweets :D

Over All: I love browsing your website! Since I am a new visitor, I'd definitely recommend it to others. I'd for sure, come back and visit again.

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bex gave it on 13th Jul 2009 and said:
Hello! :) You're one of the first members I'm reviewing a good while, so I apologize beforehand if I'm not using all the lingo/terms that I should be.

Mozilla FF3.5, Windows XP. Default browser font: Times new Roman, 16pt.

Entrance

I was a tad taken-aback by the contrast of the magenta on black/gray, but it was a good surprise from all the common white-washed blog layouts these days. They all seem to be 'light background-white container, black text'.

I wonder about the cupcake though. The pink part on the baking paper, is that implying that we can see through the cupcake to the inside of the wrapper??

Ahh giant feed button! D:

Also, hooray for Canada :D

Layout

I like the chunkiness of the navigation and sidebar. Nice, big and clear. No tiny text/buttons to search for, or wonder where your navigation is. Win++;

One picky thing I will mention though, is the spacing between paragraphs. Your line-height and margins between paragraphs seem to be very similar, so it looks like the paragraphs run together. Looking at the page from afar, I just see a giant blob of text. I just looked at your CSS, and all your line-heights/margins are combined percentages and 'em's. I don't usually use these, but I would say your margin-bottom for each 'p' element should be another 5-10px. Just because the font-size is rather large, line-height is also quite big, the margin on the bottom of each 'p' looks too small.

As for the sidebar, I'm a fan of the large chunky buttons. Very clear. :) One thing I will say though, is the gradient on the sidebar. There are no gradients (except for the radius-type gradient on the footer) on the rest of your layout, so they don't really match alongside the content/header.

Content [Media etc.]

A nice full "About me" section: yay! I like how the sidebar complements the content on the right.

Media: Lots of stuff! I looked all around prior to reviewing, and liked it all. I'll probably try out your recipes at some point - I'd like to make the alfredo sauce. Nice font's too :)

I like your links page -- sorted by starting letter. It makes sense for such a voluminous list as yours. I've seen sites with no sorting whatsoever and it's just a giant page of links.

End

Your blog entries are nice and full of content, your non-blog sections are full of content. In my opinion, that is what makes your site well done.

I welcome any replies :)

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hazard gave it on 27th Jun 2009 and said:
Hi there my name is Aimee and I'm going to be reviewing your site today :D

Site Name: Dreamling, very cute! I love it :D

Layout: I really love the colors, they go well together. Its also cute that you went with putting random pictures (shoe for the foot, a head for the header lol) It doesn't look overcrowded like some sites I have seen. I really enjoy the footer as well, you have alot of information. I also like that you have your font big enough to where I don't have to squint just to read your stuff.

Blog: You sure do write alot but that's not a bad thing! Visitors (like me) love a long (not too long) blog. I hate when ppl write a couple sentences and thats it. What's the point in even writing if you have nothing to say? A blog shows the world who you are!

Aisling: This page is really good except to me it seems like your sidebar is kinda crowded (boy you are listed on alot of stuff!) Although I love the random fact idea, instead of making a long page about your random facts, they're actually random lol

Media: Its really cool that you actually explain yourself for each page and the history. I love your galleries, you're a very good photographer :) The articles are good (I actually read most of them while doing this :D I like the Holocaust one) as well as the recipes page. Those recipes sure sound yummy! You made me hungry lol! However you might want to add more to your Techie Stuff page and might I suggest you just add your videos to a youtube page? For people who have slow internets, it must be a hassle to view them.

Site: I love how you wrote the history of your online life. The only problem I saw was the side bar. Instead of writing out all your credits, you should make a list so it looks more organized. I also like that you made a suggestion box, maybe I will take that idea ;)

Links: Not bad! It looks really organized and now overcrowded with link buttons and explanations.

Overall: I believe you just earned yourself a returning visitor :D

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jellypanda gave it on 25th Jun 2009 and said:
I really like your style. You have a great aptitude for putting together colours, graphics and styles to create a cohesive whole from what might be seen as disjointed elements (cupcake, pinstripes, gothic text and pink :) i think you have a nice way of communicating and your blogging style is really interesting and draws the viewer in.

I think the style has a comic book style to it and it does look quite young and fresh. I am interested in what you have to say based on the elements you have put together and think you could have a good future in design or web development.

Very impressed (especially that you started at 11 and built from there) will keep my eye out for you, good luck for the future.

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Roxy gave it on 25th Jun 2009 and said:
Just the design and overall layout, correct? Well here I go...

Believe it or not, but the first thing I noticed on your website was the ribbon navigation. I was a little disappointed, since I see this as a common trend on most blog sites I visit. Then my eyes ventured to the large cupcake and I instantly thought of sugar! (haha)

I'm loving the header, as you already know, the title font and look is fabulous. I'm just not a fan of the tag line below. For one thing, it's hard to read. Try flip flopping the colors; pink being the fill and black being the border.

Funny thing I noticed this (since you mentioned about it in Jem's last layout), you have too many shades of pink, in my opinion. And to me, they don't all go too well with each other. For instance, the darker shade of pink in the navigation doesn't go well with the light and vibrant pink in the cupcake. Odd, because it looks OK in the footer. Either its strictly just me...or just something else.

The footer with the copyright info, while not many people sit there to read it, it's still difficult to read because of the solid black background color. Again another shade of pink that just doesn't go well there (especially since it's blinding to the eye). I would suggest matching it with the pink shade for links in your info boxes above.

I hit the media page and see large blocks of more pink in the sidebar. I'm going to assume, probably the same hue from the cupcake? Again not a huge fan. I probably would have gone with the shade from the navigation. It just clashes to me. The rollover color is worse, I feel like its a dead and moldy pink that needed to be used before it died.

Other than the shade of pinks, I really like the overall design of this layout. The shoe and head graphics were genius and really scream YOU! Which is a plus in any personal website. Great job!

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Aisling's Response:
I'm pretty close to ditching the tagline altogether, simply because it's already in the title, and therefore suiting a SEO purpose, unlike the image tagline which does nothing.

I disagree with the shades of pink thing. I've used... 6 shades, which are broken up by large blocks of grey shades and on a black background, unlike Jem's layout in which everything but the main navigation was a shade of blue.

I do agree with the use of pink in the sidebar. I'll be changing it to a greyscale theme in the near future.

Thanks for your review!
omg_francine gave it on 25th Jun 2009 and said:
Ello. I'm Francine. :) I'll be reviewing your site.

|Layout|
I'm loving the colors. :) Good combination. OMG! I'm loving how when you click on the shoe, it takes you to the bottom, and when you click on the head it takes you to the top. :D And then it slides, it doesn't just go there. Kudos to you on that. And when you hover over the top banner, that it says "home" over your site name. Clever, and very cute too. I'm loving your layout so far, but I'm not liking the size of your text for the main section. It's too big. Make it just one size smaller. :) But otherwise, I'm happy with your layout. ^_^ At the bottom, it talks about your site a bit. I suggest putting that on the sidebar instead of on the bottom. That would make more sense.

|Aisling|
For the picture of you, I don't suggest writing "This is what I look like!" Well, of course that's you. Would you put a picture of your Great Aunt's Mother's sister? I don't think so. Good job on talking about yourself. A lot of people have trouble with that and some don't even start with their first name, which is annoying. You wanna know who you're reading about when you're reading about that person. xD

|Media|
I like how you started out telling people what this page was. Some people aren't familiar with those terms, so it's nice to explain what the page is. That's a nice page too. You have a lot of interests! Now I know why you put them on a different page. :) Good call. Also, I like how you put links to your different recipes, photos, etc. on the sidebar! Makes a lot of sense so that people can easily navigate through your interests. :P

|Site|
It's interesting to learn when the site started out, how old you were when you started being interested in owning a site, and all of that good stuff. I don't know if it's good to put that you offer hosting on that page, maybe you should make a services page? I don't know, just a suggestion.

|Links|
Ooh! This is a good page if somebody is bored and wants to explore the internet. I like this page. :) Not very informational, but it's nice. It doesn't NEED to be informational, so don't take that as a bad thing.

|Overall|
I really like this site. I will be visiting you in the near future. :) Good luck with everything! I hope that you and your site progress (I'm sure you will, and fast too). Have a wonderful day. :)

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Aisling's Response:
Hi there, thanks for your review.

I enjoy the text at its current size, since it is easiest for me to read. However you can use Ctrl - to change the size on your own.

I don't feel that putting the little blurb about the site would make sense in the sidebar. It is a copyright notice, after all, which is traditionally found in the footer.

The picture of me says "This is what I look like (on a good day)" which is just to imply that I'm certainly not always so put-together, and to add a bit of focus to the picture instead of JUST a picture.

I actually DON'T offer hosting, as it says on that page. It says that I DO host close friends of mine, and let's the close friends know that if they need it, they can contact me. It is by no means a "service" and I certainly do not want people I don't know to be emailing me begging for space.

Thanks again, for your review!