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Ishiwong -- Version 10 has 5 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on Ishiwong -- Version 10. Jump to review form?

1. 

   LoveTyranny gave it on 30th Jun 2010 and said:

   Hello! My name is Chelsey and I will be reviewing your website as of today. (:

   First Impression
   I love your layout. (: The colors are opposite colors: cold and warm, but they fit together nicely because you used a nice shade for both of them so that they compliment each other. Your footer is also very cute--it corresponds to your overall site theme. Although, the footer could be widened a bit. In general, your layout and header look fairly nice, however, I don't really like the grass. The grass looks like it's in really poor quality. I also don't think your header font is the right font for your layout. A more settle and simple font would have been better.
   Your navigation bar looks a bit cluttered and I don't like where the "Index" link is. Do you think you could put it elsewhere?
   Also, I don't think that you should leave the chatbox so up high. If you wanted to place a chatbox somewhere, you should either put it in the sidebar, or place it somewhere near the footer. Placing it up high may get a bit annoying for some first-time visitors.
   There are also two broken images in your footer. You should try and get those fixed because they don't look very attractive in comparison to the rest of you layout. However, I love the little blue bunny thing hiding in the grass in each of your tags. Those are very cute and they are a unique yet creative and appealing twist!

   About
   You have a very detailed "About" page. This is a good thing. (: Many websites nowadays don't put much effort into their about page, so it's a good thing you did. I enjoyed reading what you had to write about your website.

   General Website Pages
   Your Credits, Links, Terms and Contact pages all look fairly good, detailed and honest. Good job in keeping those organized. (:

   Graphics
   You have the most amazing talent for such ... I swear. Your pixels and premade layouts are just awing to look at. I envy your artistic talent. I've downloaded your birthday card--it is just the cutest thing ever! As for your wallpapers, I can't seem to download any. Is it because of the program you used to display the picture? (Is it lightbox or something of such?) I especially love your site charms because I have never heard of those. You have created something unique of your own, my dear!
   All your graphics are very high quality and your visitors will be pleased. You present to them a lot of quality graphics. You must have put in a lot of effort! There isn't really a lot of can say about them--they are pretty much flawless!

   Resources
   Alike your graphics, your resources are just as amazing. You don't have a lot of brushes, however. Do you plan to make more? My favorite section are your doodles and your emoticons. I especially love your slime emoticons. (: They are simply adorable.
   One of your PS Actions, however, seems to change color in the previews. Is that the actual PS action? Does it actually change color? Or are you just showing that you've packed multiple actions into one download?

   Articles
   Your articles all seem to be nice and detailed. You could become a great teacher. (: I would like to see more articles in the future--they are all very good.

   Final Suggestions, Thoughts and Overview
   Well, you certainly have a lot of talent! I like how you are adding more and more doodles of your own. May sites' sole purposes are just to distribute renders of celebs and anime and I am glad that you are trying to add some more variety to your work. After all, it is the original work that captures most visitors!
   Anyway, I enjoyed reviewing your site and I personally think that you have lots of talent in you. I will continue to visit your site and view your improvements and I am sure that your site will become very successful in the future.
   I have rated your website 4 stars--keep up the fantastic work! (:

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

2. 

   swcreations gave it on 30th Apr 2010 and said:

   First Impression:
   When I look at the layout I gotta say its amazing, I love the dark colors that blend together, very nice.

   Although the sky doesn't really blend great with this beautiful layout. Maybe if it were less bright then it is now. It also kind of to much eye catching, whenever I come to your site I just can't stop looking at it when I want to look at more of your content.

   Navigation:
   The navigation is well organized, and well formatted. The colors and simple and not detracting. Nothing mush else to say :).

   Overall
   The site is beautiful but the header sometimes gets in the way. Your graphics are beautiful and I mostly love the vectors. Keep it up :)

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

3. 

   Vera gave it on 3rd Jan 2010 and said:

   Once upon a time... I said I'd make a note and review you. I didn't forget... I'm just that lazy. Ahem, so the awaited review. I can't count how many times I restarted this, but now I really really want to finish this. If nothing else, because your site's not the type I generally review.
   I hope you'll still be able to use this review... for something :P

   = First Impression =
   --------------------------------------------
   Cute header image, but not too fond of the overall setup. Oh and your text size is minuscule.

   = Presentation =
   --------------------------------------------
   The cute box-bunnies on the header image are a really nice touch. I'm not too fond of the overall look of the layout, though. I get the feeling that there is a cute header image on top... and then that's it the rest of it is squeezed into the content area which goes on and on... and oooon. This could be fixed, I believe, if the grass started lower, and the content area overlapped it slightly. The position of the bunny picnic is fine.

   Your font size is a serious turn off. I wear glasses, and my profession requires me to spend 8-10 hours a day staring into the computer monitor. So I expect to be given some sort of slack when I'm not working. Looking at your code, however I see that you specify a decent size (anything over 0.8em is fine). On a closer inspection of the design, I believe it's the font color which bothers me. The shade of blue you use in the main content area is too close to the background color. I can read the white (bolded) text easier, since there's a larger contrast between that and the background color/image.

   I'm not too fond of the centered text in the headings. The main heading is fine, but for the rest, I'd integrate the image into the post and have the text wrap around it. For a more interesting effect, try to alternate the images and their positions (once on the right, once on the left). Also, perhaps try to use some images, which relate to the post's content in some manner. Since your posts are rather short, I'm mostly left with the feeling that this page has a lot of bunnies in the grass in it (i.e. you repeat the same image over and over). If you don't feel like hunting for relevant images, how about using the bunnies as some sort of avatars, like one sees on LiveJournal blog entries?

   I see you use the same heading style for the introduction text, the tagboard and the fine print (or copyright notice), this is not a good idea. The last two are not nearly as important as the welcome message. So use a different style for their heading. Furthermore, your tagboard's rather badly positioned. I assume you put much more emphasis on your content than interaction with users, I suppose you still want users to leave you messages on the tagboard, right? Well then don't put it at the end of a really long page filled with lots of past updates that nobody cares about anymore. I'm not saying to get rid of the updates, it shows people that you are somewhat active... although having a date accompany them would be even more helpful.
   Either place the tagboard on the sidebar, or right below the introduction, see http://aethereality.net . Then again, as a personal preference, I'd recommend guestbooks, in place of tagboards. They're easier to customize since most of the time you'd be the one hosting the script. But eh... this is more a preference stemming from "oh... people still use tagboards?". Meh, won't affect your overall score, if that worries you.

   Your links on the sidebar, are very easily ignored. While a first glance did leave me with an impression of "this is a two-column design", I couldn't have told you what the sidebar contained. Furthermore, you use multicolored text for the main navigation... WHY? WHY WHY WHY??? It's distracting as well as annoying.
   I suggest you use a larger font size, and check out the vertical lists from Listamatic: http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/. You can find a handy tutorial for semantic vertical navigation on Tutorialtastic: http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/tutorial/semantic_css_block_navigation

   Moving on, once I actually look at the content on the sidebar, I notice that (of course) it's filled with useless stuff. But let's take it stepwise.
   1) Info - I, as a random visitor, come to your website in search of graphical goodies for my site. Why would you find it interesting to tell me where you are hosted, how long it took me to load your site, the current date, and the number of visitors (I presume that's what the random number means).
   1.1) It's very nice that you link your host, but since this is not very important to the site's content, move her link somewhere to the bottom of the sidebar.
   1.2)I don't care how many seconds it takes me to load your site, beyond: loaded instantly or I had to wait a small eternity. Yes, you will lose points if I had to wait a lot, but you will not gain points if it loaded instantly. That's just a given, seeing how my internet connection is fairly fast.
   1.3)Computer's have their own calendar, or the visitor had a watch witch one... or there's physical calendar on the wall. You have way too much useless text there as it is, why add more?
   1.4) Visitor count... first of all, not everyone will know what the random number there is. But even if they do... the number of people visiting you is not indicative of its quality. To make a parallel: when you want to make a new friend, would you find it normal to introduce yourself by mentioning the number of friends you've had up till now?
   In conclusion, get rid of 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 and move 1.1 to the bottom of the sidebar.

   2) You have too many links to various sections, and badly organized. Instead of having some code (in your case the blue star icon) to how people what sections have been updated recently, just have a list with the 5 recently updated pages/sections/whatever you want to call them, which will of course be labeled accordingly.
   Visitors' attention span is extremely small, so it's quite possible that they'll not read the star's meaning or just plain jump over the description text.

   Moving on to your navigation's layout, you direct your visitors toward completely useless pages (most of the time), as far s they're concerned. So let's take things stepwise.

   2.1)Link to Home -> most people claim that this should be the last in the list, because one (generally) starts visiting a site from the home page. Personally, I'm fine with it being either first or last, as long as it's properly labeled as home/index/start ... So this page is fine, however I'd advise you to settle for one-word descriptions. As said before, visitors' attention span is very small.

   2.2) Contact -> Seeing as this website provides all sorts of information, I'd expect people to look for this link as a last resort. Not too sure about others, but I usually look for a contact form/info, when I can't find what I want on the website in question. Seeing as I've yet to look to the rest of the pages, I shouldn't feel the need to contact you.

   2.3) Join Contests -> well... this depends. I would agree with such a link to be in a position of importance if it were like an advertisement. For example, e-commerce sites have special deals from time to time, and they'd have some flashy banner/ad where they'd direct visitors towards the relevant page. Still, these are never part of main navigation, seeing as these contests don't run for all eternity; they change relatively often.

   2.4) Awards -> this would be alright as a subsection of an about page, but not as one of first links a visitor sees. It's fine to talk about your achievements, but seeing your top works is much more impressive, than seeing some badly designed pixel award for finding x,y,z on a,b,c's site's hidden who knows where.

   2.5) About -> finally a link of "real" importance. I'd personally put this first in list.

   2.6) Terms -> useful, however since I've yet to see any of your work, not really interesting. I get the impression that you try to somehow intimidate the user into thinking that you're much more than you are. I know that a lot of graphic sites use a similar way to set out their link order, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's good practice. Besides, are your graphics that amazing that every single person wants to steal them? Even if they did want to do that, you seriously think that a ToU page will deter them?!

   2.7) Credits -> basically a list of links to other sites. I've yet to see anything of yours that you offer to me, so why so keen on sending me away?

   2.8) Links elsewhere, links to you -> this has the blue star... which means it has been recently updated. I can't decided whether to laugh or roll my eyes in annoyance. Why exactly do you think that a regular visitor (who comes here to see your work) would care if your list of links has been updated or not? And if he/she/it DOES care, wouldn't that mean your site's not interesting enough to hold a visitor's interest?

   2.9) Graphics, Resources and Written - are all right as far as information goes, but there's too much of them. I'd suggest just having main 3 main links and have the list of related sections on a subpage. Oh and instead of "written" use "articles", unless you believe your visitors are illiterate morons, of course.

   2.10) Affiliates -> this should go in the list of links, ultimately - that's what they are, to visitors.

   To recap, you have way too many sections/links listed on the sidebar. Organize these into some main sections, which have pages directing to individual sub-pages. Don't offer visitors too many choices, because they're bound ignore the lot of them.
   My personal suggestions towards sections:
   About - this should contain 2.2, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8
   Graphics and Resources - from the titles, I don't quite get why they're separated, so I'd count them as one single section. Of course, if you still feel that it's imperative that they belong to a different section... by all means, put them into different sections
   Articles - this would contain the tutorials and tips and tricks
   Contests - this would contain 2.3 (of course)

   And that's it. Now tell me, as a visitor, isn't it easier for you to go to a site, which has 5 ( 4 + the link to the home page) main links, as opposed to the 25 you have now? Quality over quantity.

   = Content =
   -----------------------------------

   And now on to your actual content. I'll be using the sections' names as stated on the sidebar.

   - You want to-
   Interesting contact form design idea, but it needs to be more spaced out (more bottom padding) and left aligned... unless of course it's geared towards people who write from right to left. Also, add a bottom border for the text area as well. At first I thought that there was just some gratuitous blank space between the submit button and the other fields. You should also specify which fields are mandatory.
   Out of curiosity, I tried submitting an empty form, and it duplicated the text in the input fields.
   You should color error messages differently (in red for example), to make them stand out. And no, just having error in red is not enough.
   There's a problem with your "clear" button. After I clicked on it, its size and styling changed. Fix that. It's the input:focus CSS declaration. This affects both the text fields (name, email, http etc) and buttons, seeing as they're both HTML inputs. Give classes to these inputs instead and apply the pseudo-classes to them.

   Eg:
   
input.text:focus{
/* styling for text fields when focused upon*/
}

   input.button:focus{
/* styling for buttons when focused upon */
}


   I wouldn't display the tagboard on every page. It's not that important (unless you're incredibly insecure in your site receiving enough attention), plus it takes up quite a bit of space.

   By the way, there's a very annoying lag, when I change pages, and more often then not I have to refresh the page for it to load fully. The pages definitely don't (completely) load in the time specified by the javascript.

   Join some contests shows a list of contests YOU entered. From the link's name on the sidebar, I assumed this would be something for your visitors. Change the name, as it's misleading. Also, use smaller graphics; there's no reason why some logos to contests should take up so much space.

   Your about page is titled "About [Blank]" ... I don't get it. What's that supposed to mean? My programmer mind tells me that "[Blank]" should perhaps be replaced by something relevant. Where you using a template from elsewhere and forgot to fill in all blank space?
   Information about the purpose of the site, should precede information about the current design. After all, one would assume that your site's purpose won't change, while your design will.

   The name Ishiwong is a variation of my online screen-name, ohiamyell0w. I means... well, I... as in "me, myself, and I"; shi is the Mandarin equivalent of "am"; and wong is my last name, which also means yellow in Cantonese. So if you translate that and keep it in English, Ishiwong essentially means "I am yellow". ^^

   That's one hell of a complex way to phrase a definition. How about, the following:

   The name Ishiwong is a variation of my online screen-name, ohiamyell0w. It essentially translates as "I am yellow".

   I notice you have a tendency to type lists as just words separated by comma. If they're long lists, please use the appropriate list tags, to make them easier to read (ul or ol).

   What's with the flash from doll-doll.com? There's a a text that says click, but when I do I'm asked for a password? I notice that you provide and explanation for all other images on this page, but not this one. Why's that?

   Your page of Terms and Conditions starts with a "Hint**", not too sure what the two asterisks are for? The text's bolded after all. When I see those symbols, I expect them to be some sort of footnote, or explanation for something, but I can't find a replica of them on this page. Or did you just put them there... for the hell of it? If so remove them, they're tacky.
   Not too fond of the hover styling on the lists, since the change of text color would suggest a link. I also dislike how the list image disappears on hover.

   Do not steal my current, previous, or future site layout(s) in any way or form.

   Erm... someone stole (tried to steal) your future layout? Whoa! Some talented visitors you have there.

   You state "not to be edited" way too many times. I'm starting to get tempted to do just that. If nothing else, to spite you. *rolls eyes*

   Google is not a valid source for crediting images. You should either credit the photographer or artist who drew the images. Same goes for stock.xchng: credit the individual artist.
   Also, just because you're not using the anime/manga images for profit, it doesn't mean it's legal.

   - Graphics -
   Your pixels are adorable. You should definitely make more. But your anime/movie/live-action related graphics are just average. You should get rid of them, and instead focus on the pixels. That's your strength.

   I looked at the screenshot of your designs, but since I don't have time to review them all, I just chose to examine your latest. Which is also the best looking of all.
   The "Monkey Music" design - it's cute, but the black hover color for the main navigation is too sharp, compared to the rest of the colors you use. Try for a softer tone of gray.

   Coding-wise, it's mostly all right, nicely indented and well commented, but there are some glaring errors there:
   - you don't close the html and body tags
   - use the paragraph (p) tag for paragraphs, instead of two line break tags (br)
   - the syntax for the link tag is:
   
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />

   While the media attribute can be left out, the type cannot. Also, you need to enclose the attributes' values in between double quotes.
   The CSS is also well aligned, but there are some errors here and there.
   - don't use blank values. If an attribute doesn't have one, don't type out the blank value. Also if and attribute's value is the default one, don't specify it either. The following:
   
background: #c5e4f5 url() repeat;


   should be:
   
background: #c5e4f5;


   - don't change the default values for the cursor. Users are accustomed to the arrow cursor for images, the hand(pointer) for links. Don't confuse them them with crosshair. Besides, this practice has been outdated for a few years now.

   - the following code
   
* {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: none;
}


   applies to all tags, as such it should be the first you specify. This overrides and margin, padding and border specification you have made before. For example, the .navtext has some padding information which is overridden by the code above.

   - when you have a margin/padding where all 4 values are the same, you should shorten it:
   
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;

   is the same as
   
margin: 0px;


   - there's no need to use double quotations for font family if the name is one word.
   
font-family: "Arial", "Trebuchet MS", "Verdana", sans-serif;


   should be
   
font-family: Arial, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, sans-serif;


   - Resources -
   Your brushes look very amateurish.
   The doodles and smilies, like the pixels are adorable.

   I'm confused by the message on the extractions' page:

   Remember, you must Right Click & Save for it to open correctly. If you try to copy image and paste in an image editor, all the places that are supposed to be transparent will NOT be transparent.

   First of all, you have a link saying download png, so why are you telling people to right click on the images?
   Second, why wouldn't they still be transparent in image editors? They're transparent pngs... so they should still maintain their transparency. Unless of course you meant that people will paste them on a non-transparent surface. Either type it all out, or just don't mention it at all.

   Also, you're not allowed to redistribute these images, no not even for free. Same goes for all anime/manga/game related images you use.

   Fonts - I like "Cursive Amy" and "Amy's Writing".

   Mini Time Tellers - why aren't you linking back to the developer who made the javascript? You do ask people to link back to you, after all.
   Aside this, while these are cute, they're useless. Plus if too many people use them, they'll eat up your (or rather your host's) bandwidth, according to the code you give people. Not a very smart idea.

   Photoshop actions - ... they're pretty easy to make using PS's inbuilt functionality, so I don't really see much use for them.

   Textures -> given the size of the thumbnails, there's no need for pagination. They're fine, I guess. Not too much of a texture fan/expert.

   Vexels - you don't specify that you made these, so... why are these not in the extraction section as well?

   - Written -
   The tips are extremely evident, and anyone who has mastered a basic use of Photoshop/Paint Shop Pro knows them. If they haven't, chances are they won't know what you're talking about anyway.

   Tutorials - they're OK, for beginner level I suppose. By the way, you should probably mention this. It would be, however more helpful if you showed an actual example of what happens when people select a certain options, as opposed to just showing how the control panel looks. So that people can see what to expect at every step.

   = Coding =
   --------------------------
   I don't validate. You can do that yourself. I'm much more interested in the logic behind the coding.

   For the most part your HTML is correct and well indented, BUT you forgot to close the body and HTML tags. And also, you shouldn't use the center tag. It's deprecated. Use CSS to center elements instead.

   You use a lot of javascript, which slows down the loading time. Like I mentioned, I have to reload (sometime more than once) a page for it to load completely. This has seriously slowed down my reviewing... not to mentioned, annoyed me a lot. Only your header image and the top of the sidebar would load and then things would just stagnate for about 30 seconds. It's probably one of the javascripts acting up.

   Furthermore, don't use 3 different tracking scripts. Just settle with one, find the best and use that.
   I didn't see you actually use the lightbox script, yet you include it on every page. Either include it only on the pages you actually use it, or don't use it at all. Linking it on every page, makes it load every time I load a page.

   Your CSS is nicely indented and for the most part looks as if you know what you're doing, but there are still some errors:
   
font-family: "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif;

   Ms Sans Serif is the same as sans-serif, so use only the latter.

   text-indent is 0 by default, no need to specify it at such a value.

   Once again, the overwriting of margin and padding for all tags (the specification for * ), should come first. I explained why when I commented on your Monkey Music design.

   Use short codes: margin: 0px and padding: 0px, instead of margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px and padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px.

   Score: 2/3

   I was most annoyed by the serious lag, which made me refresh your page multiple times. Check your javascript, and get rid of the excess.
   Your pixels are adorable, your design is cute, and your coding is decent (though I can't understand why you failed to close the body and html tags, when you're familiar with semantic coding).

   What really dragged your score down, was the poor organization of your links, the small text size, the loading time (firebug reported an error with the Google analytics code, make sure you use the right code, the js has recently changed), and the lack of proper crediting. You demand people to give you credit for every single pixel you make, however you can't seem to be willing to extend the same courtesy to game, manga and anime artists. Bit of a hypocrisy here, don't you think?

   Focus more on your pixels (which are really good), fix your coding and load time error (can't stress this enough), and get rid of the stuff you took from others: extractions, vexels, anime/manga graphics.

   I realize that overall, I've been incredibly rude, so I apologize for that. I do think you have great potential, but you choose to insert a lot of useless stuff which lowers your site's standards.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   ishiwong's Response:

   thanks so much for the review, vera ^^
   i changed some stuff according to your suggestions.. such as combining stuff into one page (about) and getting rid of the javascript (date, loading time, etc) and a bunch of other bits and bobs. i think it's loading considerably faster (at least it's loading faster for me) XD

   and as for forgetting to close the body and html tags.. i just fail at remembering Dx

   and yes, i'm starting to pixel more and making things instead of using stuff like anime scans to make my graphics (: i'll be cleaning up some stuff soon.. hopefully when i change my layout.

   so once again, thanks so much for the review :D it really helped a lot ^^

4. 

   LOVEWISH gave it on 22nd Nov 2009 and said:

   First Look:
   I like your layout. The arty sunset really brings in some colour, too. Your cube animals are cute, and I like the 3D idea. Your 'logo' is really quite cool, I like the effect with the G. Your site name is unique, but hard to spell and remember.
   Layout
   As I said, I like your layout. The header is unique, but I don't think you should have the stars over the sky picture, I think that it really removes the professional feel. You end your header with a gradient, which is a great idea- but if you look closely the gradient doesn't quite blend into your background. I really like your titles on your sidebar, the picnic effect with the knives and forks switching over is unique. Your footer is too big - nobody is going to read all of that. You could try having it in one block with tabs - like cianopi.org .
   Navigation:
   I don't like your navigation. The 'You want to' header is confusing, and really you should be able to tell what is what with a sidebar. Also, the questions and and diffent colours are quite confusing. If I were you, I'd label it 'Navigation' with the links 'Home', 'Contact me', 'Contests', 'Awards', 'About the Site', 'Terms and Conditions', 'Credits' and 'Links'. That way, your visitors will find your website easy to navigate. You have no need for all the other links there, you should really have one page for all of your content links, or else it makes your sidebar look cluttered. Instead, you could add a twitter feed, a search bar, some affiliates and an about me section.
   Content
   Woah - you have loads of content. I won't mention every page, but I'll go through some.
   I really love your icons! Especially the vintage style ones - particularly night life, lost within myself and summer romance.
   Your box toppers are unique - I've never seen anything like them before. If I were you, I'd expand on that section.
   Your Borders PS Action is unique, and very useful for anyone who likes making button bases.
   Valid HTML/CSS
   Your html has one error and 2 warnings. Basically, you need to end the list with a little earlier, right after the list instead of after your '★ = new/updated!' part.
   Your CSS has 28 errors and 2 warnings. You might want to have a look at some of the errors.
   Some people don't think that valid coding is important, but if you ever want to pursue a career in web design and coding, you need to learn to use valid coding or nobody will hire you. It's good to get into those habits now.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   ishiwong's Response:

   thanks for the review!

   i'm not sure what you mean by cianopi.org's tabs thing.. i see it, but it doesn't work. it's just there and non usable.

   also, what do you mean by one page for all my content links? like, should i have gateway links instead of listing them all there?

   i had a twitter feed before.. but i absolutely do not like twiiter, so no thanks about the twitter. XD i don't know how to add a search bar as i don't really have a content management system, and don't really intend to get one anymore. i don't blog, and my updates are not frequent.

   whoo, so many errors! i don't know why, though, since when i validated, it was fine except for some css3 stuff like rounded borders and stuff.. but i got rid of those.. good thing i'm not pursuing a career in webdesign and coding! XD

   i'll try to uhm. shrink my footer.. i really dunno what to do about the rotations, though. most of the rotation rules say i have to have it on every page, so putting it on one page isn't an option, but.. eh.

   again, thanks for the review!

5. 

   Ann gave it on 21st Oct 2009 and said:

   First Impressions:
   It's colourful without being blinding, and you've managed to mix the realistic sky (IS it real? It looks it!) with the cartoon grass and characters very well. I like it.

   Layout:
   Now I look at the "sky" closer, it looks like it's not so much real as done in photoshop. Still very pretty, but the "sun" gives it away, as I can tell you've done a bit of a lens flare effect there, which actually doesn't work so well with it. I'd change that as it doesn't really fit. Another thing I'd change is the stars you've got there - I can see why you've put them there, to link it in with the starry night background, but it just doesn't seem realistic. You just don't see stars in a bright sky like that. I know I'm being picky, but I think it will look fine without them - they look more out of place than the lens flare, actually.

   Those little characters (I don't actually know what they're called so I'll call them animals) are very cute, and enhance the design a lot, especially as I now see that you offer graphics. It's a good idea to have stuff like that in the design as it sets the tone for the site and content. The only thing is that I think the setting sun detracts from the animals a bit - should be fine once you get rid of the lens flare and maybe a bit of the brightness. I'd make the title stand out a little more too, make it a bit brighter and bigger. You want that to be the main thing people see in the header, so they know where they are.

   I have to say, I don't like the footer where it is. Firstly, the button rotations look ugly and really detract from the overall cuteness and professional looking layout. I hardly see the point of having them there too, because I only noticed they were there because I wanted to take a look at the footer design - how many people will do that? The whole point of them is so that people will click through - not much point if they're hiding at the bottom of the page. I'd get rid of them.

   Secondly, why is your footer hiding away in the content space? Is it a coding mistake? You may need to close an extra div tag if so. Otherwise, I really think you need to bring the footer out, and have it stretch across the page like you have the header. It'll work much better. Maybe put a bit more detail in the design of it too, since it looks rather more rushed than your header (no gradients etc.) - it's very cute though.

   I just realised that your tag board etc are ALL in the footer. I really don't like that, I thought they were in the content area because they take up the same amount of space. You need to change that - things placed in the footer are different, so they should have different styling, spacing issues etc. Having that much in the footer really doesn't work unless you spread it all out width ways. Tall footers are ugly.

   Navigation:
   I found it difficult to actually locate your main navigation - you just seem to have a collection of links in your sidebar. I don't recommend this - you want people to browse around your site, so why not make it easy for them? I'd suggest putting the main navigational links at the top of the content area, for example, About the site/owner, Graphics, Contests/Awards, Terms & Credits. Then you can subdivide the rest of the links amongst those.

   Before I go on, I also just noted you use javascript for those little buttons to take you between pages. I find these rather unnecessary as they don't really serve a purpose, I'm quite capable of using the ones provided by my browser. They are also obsolete for myself, and probably >50% of your visitors, as I browse with javascript turned off. I'd remove them.

   I sort of like how you've coloured the main word of the link, but I also find it a bit irritating and childish. It won't be necessary when you change your navigation.

   I also think you should order your navigation according to the purpose of your site - Graphics should surely come first as those are the things you are trying to promote, and your visitors want to get to.

   Content:
   I have some beef with your terms and credits. For one thing, I can't believe you're crediting google images. They don't own anything, they just find stuff for you. No need to credit them.

   Then, I love how you say twice that all images belong to their owners... and then you insist on your credits page that people must credit you and link back to your site or whatever. It's sort of mind boggling how you don't even ask permission to manipulate and redistribute the images, but people must credit you for only using them.

   Don't delude yourself that saying you're not getting profit from these images will get you out of legal trouble, should it arise. It won't, and using images owned by another person without permission could get you into all kinds of hot water, should they find out - especially in the case of Anime, which you have a lot of here.

   Other than the copyrighted images which you are blatantly displaying, the rest of the graphics are very cute and well made - I'm glad to see that you're a Qbee member. I don't like the code you're displaying to put them into use though, for example on your box toppers page. You slip a link in there without saying, which seems quite underhand since this is clearly displayed for those who don't know much about coding. It also has the potential to mess up validated code with the relative positioning, and altogether isn't promoting clean, semantic coding as this sort of stuff really should go in the CSS.

   A lot of the graphics I'm not really interested in, and find a bit useless, to be honest. Each to their own, I suppose, but at each new page I look at, my respect for your site as a professional one just diminishes and I'm taken back to those teenybopper ones where everyone displayed vexels which were never used, and shoved as much content, tutorials and resources on there as possible, mostly of shoddy quality. If this is really what you want to do then choose one area you want to specialise in and concentrate on that.

   I don't see the difference between the tips and tricks, and the tutorials. I also dislike the ones you have, they seem very basic and useless. I hope the sort of people you want to promote your site to will already know this stuff. Don't fill up your site with easy to do rubbish, just to have more content. It will only bring it down. My advice is to leave the tutorials to the tutorial sites who can provide a wide range of higher quality and more professional tutorials.

   You're using CSS 3 but it doesn't validate yet - you should check up on some of those things, they're mostly similar. You only have 1 error in your markup, now I'd try using XHTML, and try validating it as Strict.

   Finally, I see you're using Extreme Tracking for your stats. Apart from the ugly icon you have to have displayed, I find that Extreme Tracking isn't an amazing tracker, I suggest using something like Google Analytics instead.

   Conclusion:
   Overall, I like the design of your site, but that's pretty much it. You design nice graphics, but you have a lot of copyright issues which I find are so common on graphics sites, and this, as well as the other useless content bring your site down heavily. If you want to turn it into a more professional site then you have a long way to go, and a lot of content culling to do.

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   ishiwong's Response:

   Thanks for the review! I just noticed it because I didn't get an e-mail (I have the notifying thing turned on, though, so I don't know what happened..)

   Anyway, I agree with a lot of the things you pointed out. I'm trying to move away from using things like anime images (you might be able to see that from the recent content I put up. I drew my own things and made it into a layout, etc.) But I think I'll keep the other stuff up until I have enough of my own art to prune the rest.

   I credit google for their image searcher. Not the images XD

   I'll look into Google Analytics. I didn't know about that, so thank you so much for telling me.~

   Anyway, I'd comment on more things, but I have to get to school now.~

   Again, thanks so much for reviewing and sorry for the delayed response!

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