Vivid-AVenue

Vivid-AVenue

****- (Rated by 4 people, viewed by 276 people)

Vivid-avenue.net is a personal blog and resource site created 100% as a hobby. My main priority is my blogging, but I also try to offer resources and tutorials about things I have learned in an effort to help others learn. I have been reviewed several times before (not always on here) and feel that I have come quite far as far as progression goes. Enjoy!

Added by vividavenue in Personal

Vivid-AVenue has 4 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on Vivid-AVenue. Jump to review form?

  1. fugabutacus gave it ****- on 4th May 2011 and said:

    Your site is perfectly simply. I like the general layout and the color scheme. It isn't too crowded, which is always good. It's easy to find what you're looking for on the page.

    The navigation is very easy too. I was pleasantly surprised when I clicked About and I was presented with not only a great, concise summary of your website, but a whole load of links. Most sites leave their about at one or two simple paragraphs, which is fine, but you've gone into a lot of depth and detail, yet you've kept it organized in a simply and easy to use way.

    I think I worded that very badly... Hopefully you still understand what I'm getting at!

    One thing I'm not too keen on is the logo. It's just a little bland having it be purely text. I'm also not a fan of actually putting ".net" in the logo.

    Although it's a only a little thing and it could just be me who thinks so, the affiliates module gives off a terrible impression. Those kind of things just scream amateur - they put you in that typical crowd; teenage girls with a website who think 30x80px ads, bright colors, serif fonts and heavily photoshopped fan pictures are the coolest things on Earth. Clicking around some of your affiliates confirms this.

    Like I said, nothing big. I just think it takes a little away from your professional image.

    I also think you could benefit from having more than one post on your homepage. It makes it more difficult to enjoy your content when I have to keep clicking links to read more.

    As for the content itself, no complaints here. ...And I totally agree with you about captchas!

    Overall your site it simple, effective and easy to use. I wouldn't advise any radical changes, just some tweaks.

    Keep up the good work!

    Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

  2. [img: avatar]
    OMGErin gave it ****- on 14th Feb 2011 and said:

    FIRST IMPRESSION-
    I like your layout it is unique with the big header and how the text and layout is laid out and everything.

    SITE NAME-
    "Vivid Avenue". I like it. It makes me think of downtown new york and how vivid it is at night. :)

    VALIDATION-
    HTML-
    Your HTML validates in transitional. Try validating in Strict as well. It is easy for me to do it but I learned a while back. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out what the validator means by certain things. It does have help sections and you can look it up online. :)
    CSS-
    You have 1 error in your CSS and I don't really understand the error myself. For some reason it is pulling up your css from yourdomain.com/error.html Which is weird. I've never seen it do that before.

    ORGANIZATION-
    PAGE ORGANIZATION-
    I am looking at your site map right now and your pages are really organized. I don't have anything to say about your pages. :)
    CSS ORGANIZATION-
    I like how you named your layout and everything. Although you don't have comments where all of your divs are and all that I can still find anything I'm looking for pretty fast. I do still have to search for specific things if I am trying to validate it though. Try separating the divs more and making equal spaces for everything and put everything together in groups.

    CREATIVITY-
    Your layout is very creative. Everything is customized and I don't even see on stone unturned. :) I love your layout.

    PAGES-
    BLOG-
    Your blogs are very interesting. I was writing on here and I got distracted and read your blog. Hahahahaha.
    OWNER-
    I read this and I learned a lot about you. Overall this page is nice.
    PHOTOS-
    I like this page because it has pictures of you and your fiance.
    CONTACT-
    I like this page because it makes it easy for people to contact you.
    GIFTS & AWARDS-
    I like this page because I can see what you participated in and either won or just got an award from.
    PORTFOLIO-
    I like this page because it is almost like a stock layout page except you can't use these images.
    TUTORIALS-
    I like your tutorials. You have plenty of them and they are all written really well. Overall, I really have nothing to say about this page.
    VISITOR-
    You have plenty of visitor content. I checked out your premade website themes/templates/layouts and they are really nice. Your articles are very interesting as well.
    REVIEWS-
    I love these set of pages so much that I applied for a review. Aka I've got nothing to say.
    EXTRAS-
    All of these sub pages are really nice. I especially like the beauty reviews. Although I don't dress up AT ALL I still like the fact that you took the time to make reviews related to beauty.
    SITE-
    I like how this is a splash page and how you have the links set up on this page. Your past layouts are awesome. I remember "Put the pieces together" which is the layout I saw when I first saw your site. :)

    OVERALL-
    I really like your layout and I really have nothing for you to change! Good job!

    Using Chrome on Windows | Report This?

  3. [img: avatar]
    anirameg gave it ***-- on 9th Feb 2011 and said:

    I definitely agree with Sillyish that your header is too big. I also don't particularly like all the colors. A color palette should really only have like 5 or so distinct hex codes. Definitely not 10, which is what I counted to on your page before I stopped. The layout is definitely cute, I just wish it was simpler.

    I also wish the sidebar and navigation were simpler. I have never understood the point of welcome messages. I like the information in there that is about you, but saying "Look around" makes no sense to me. Of course you want us to do that, that's why you made the website! I also don't like when sites have info in their sidebar.To me that information is just totally not interesting and takes up space that could be better spent or left empty. I wish your site had more empty space and less sidebar and more focus on whatever content is showing. The sidebar should only show things that I need to see with every new page, things that would make my browsing of your site easier. Do I need to know that your site has valid CSS every time I go to a new page?

    Also I literally think the sidebar should take up less space. the justified welcome message is perhaps what really throws me off because I don't feel as cramped lower in the page. Or maybe put a little more space between the side bar and the text or a border or something? The text from the welcome message just too easily flows into the text of the content.

    I liked your blog a lot and I think that you have a great writing style. It was interesting and easy to read and relateable, despite the fact that I'm not pregnant and totally hate Valentine's Day. Which is the entry that was up. I read a few others and they were good too, so definitely keep up with that!

    I was disappointed once I started going through the other content though because a lot of it feels like filler. I remember I once got a review that told me quite harshly that unless I was doing something better than everyone else on the web and if it already existed out there, why was I bothering? In regards to your content specifically, I'm not sure that your guide to demarcated code or brushes or plug board are the best of the web... Which doesn't mean that they are bad, by any means. It simply means that perhaps you need to figure out which parts of your content are the best. Or maybe what are you doing on this site that nobody else could do. The reviews are definitely something that only you can offer in your particular way. But who couldn't make the stripe backgrounds in roughly two seconds in any graphic program? The articles are opinionated enough to be uniquely you, but I don't particularly find your earring-making tutorial to be anything I couldn't figure out myself/find a more in-depth tutorial on elsewhere.

    (Random note: In your completed reviews, you say July 2011, when I think you mean July 2010.)

    I definitely think you have some good stuff going on at the site and nothing particularly "wrong" with it. I just think that you could streamline it a little bit more and really prioritize what you want to keep on the site and what might not actually be necessary.

    Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

  4. [img: avatar]
    Sillyish gave it ****- on 19th Jan 2011 and said:

    Hey Kendra, I'm Rose, reviewing your site on a mac, chrome browser, etc etc, all the details are posted by rev.iew.me anyway but damnit intros to reviews are hard!

    FIRST IMPRESSIONS
    -I like the colour scheme
    -I like the basic look. Very simple.
    -I like the font used for the words "vivid-avenue.net" in the header image.
    ---------------
    -I feel like the header is very large at the moment. I have to scroll down to see most of your content. Have you heard that rule, "A header can be no more than 20% of the vertical page"? In some cases this rule was made to be broken, but in the case of this particular layout, especially with a blog content focused site, I think it's an important rule to keep in mind.

    I also feel like the pattern on either side of the header kind of takes away from the look of the otherwise very basic block colour look of the site.

    So I took a couple of screenshots and uploaded them for you to think about:
    This is a screenshot of how your website looks right now
    This is my suggested idea for a possible change to shrink up the header and really accentuate the block colour simplicity.
    I'm not saying this is the be-all end-all, but it's something to think about.
    ----------------

    LAYOUT
    Moving past the style of the header, here are some of my other thoughts on the layout of the main page :)
    -I have never been a fan of the background colour for headers on websites. I've seen it before, but for me it always feels tacky. I also feel like the italicized text in the headers is overkill, considering that it's already big & bold. Again with the screenshots: the way your headers look right now and a possible change that could be made. Not colourful enough for you? The text itself might look nice as a different colour, maybe something like this

    -I feel like your line height is too big (!!) This feels especially obvious in your sidebar.
    I hate small line-heights, and I can tell this is probably what you were trying to avoid, but it can definitely go in the other direction as well and end up being too big. When I read your text I feel like taking a huge breath as I jump down to the next line. The flow isn't smooth.

    Normally I'd say a line-height of 160% is pretty good. 180 is quite high. I have a bunch of typography opinions, including line height over at this page, if you're interested :)

    -I don't like how your links are black and without an underline. I feel like they're too similar to normal text. A good solution to this would be to remove the coloured backgrounds from the headers, as already mentioned, to detract the colour from there, and instead focus on having your links pop out more. Give them a nice obvious colour and possibly an underline as well.

    I realize they get a bottom border on hover but I would suggest axing this and just going with a colour change on hover so that the underline will work without looking weird on hover.

    IF you decide to keep the background for the headers, I would at LEAST suggest giving them 7px padding all the way around so that the text isn't so close to the edge.

    An idea for your affiliate links - instead of having the classic bar link, maybe have each name just plain, but on hover, a heart appears next to the name in place of where the bars currently are. here is an example image (just imagine you are currently hovering on Liah.)

    -Another idea is to have the header image a link to the home page. A lot of people have a habit on clicking the header in order to go back to the main page - I tried to do it several times with your site out of habit.

    -I like the way you have the footer set up.

    -I think the search bar is an important part of your site (says the girl who has no search bar on her OWN site. tsk tsk. But I really should have one as well, because blogs really, REALLY need them.)

    Sooo, having a search bar right at the bottom feels like a bad idea. I'd have it under your welcome text and just get rid of the "ask..." input field. Who uses those anyway, right?

    OK.
    So that's about it for layout :)

    -------------------------

    CONTENT
    I like the start of your welcome box but I think it could use more oomph. You have a twist? What is your twist? You say this and never really elaborate.

    Also, having only the word 'here' a link is bad for SEO. I'd say something like, "Read the whole story over at the about me page" with "about me page" being the link.

    I'd say something like:

    Welcome to Vivid-Avenue.net! This is a resource and personal blog site created by me, Kendra. I'm totally geeky, I'm a great photographer, and I love my website to bits. Want to read the whole story? Check out the about me page!

    The image of you and Eric is super small and dark and hard to see. I think maybe just a nice head shot of you would be better. I love the photos that heather armstrong uses for her 'about me' page. She has a ton of photos, and you only really need one, but it's an example of what I'm talking about :)

    I think that your basic about me page is short, sweet, and says everything we need to know, which is good.

    Under 'contact me' instead of the word 'links' I'd say 'Social Media Links' or something.

    And for the breadcrumbs it does home > contact me, when it should be home > Owner > contact me (same goes for the other sub pages)

    Your photos are cute, Christopher is adorable :)

    Photo portfolio also very nice. Blends I'm not as big of a fan of. I've never really liked seeing 'blends' done by people who do celebrity images and apply some effects. I've never seen anything like it in the professional world and I think it feels amateurish.

    No comment on the tutorials. They seemed fine. I'm hard to impress with tutorials though :P

    Your other visitor content: Honestly, wasn't not super interested in any of your downloads. None of it really 'wow'ed me. Is that a personal thing? I don't know. Maybe see what other reviewers have to say before slashing them all angrily because I bashed them. :D

    Your blog post tips... good. I'm not big on a lot of them (I rarely post questions, rarely return comments, and while I'm not a total dirty swearing sailor, sometimes I talk about drug addicts and use the word shit. So. There.) Buuut, your tips are probably good for your audience, because I've seen a lot of people who practice these same guidelines with their own blogs.

    Review page... always fun. I love applying for reviews on websites :) I didn't read any but I did glance over one and it seemed nice and long, so I'm gonna assume it was good :P

    Interviews are also very cool, and I wish more people did interviews on their blogs :)

    I find it bothersome that you credited "deviantart.com" on your credits page. Since they're just a huge site that hosts a TON of peoples' artwork, you're not really providing proper credit. I think crediting with a link to individual user profiles on deviant art would be much, much, MUCH better. Otherwise it's kind of like giving credit to google. What the heck did they do? Help you find a site?

    History and past layouts were fine. I'm always interested in past layouts.

    -------------------------------
    CODE
    Your code validates, which is a nice start :)

    Have you ever considered putting javascript at the BOTTOM of your document? I know it sounds radical, but Javascript best practices are really moving in this direction. An article at net tuts list item #5 talks more about this.

    Also, semantically, for things like your navigation, it'd be best to have them in a list and then hide the fact that they're in a list with CSS:

    <ul class="topnav">
    <li><a href="http://www.vivid-avenue.net/index.php" class="navi1">BLOG</a> </li>

    <li><a href="http://vivid-avenue.net/owner/" class="navi1">OWNER</a> </li>

    <li><a href="http://vivid-avenue.net/tutorial/" class="navi1">TUTORIALS</a> </li>

    <li><a href="http://vivid-avenue.net/contents" class="navi1">VISITOR</a> </li>

    <li><a href="http://vivid-avenue.net/extra/review/" class="navi1">REVIEWS</a> </li>

    <li><a href="http://vivid-avenue.net/extra/" class="navi1">EXTRAS</a> </li>
    </li>
    <a href="http://vivid-avenue.net/site/" class="navi1">SITE</a> </li>
    </ul>

    and then the css:

    ul.topnav {
    margin:0;
    padding:0;
    list-style-type:none;
    }

    ul.topnav li {
    float:left;
    margin:0;
    padding:0;
    }

    Also, even though you talked in your tutorial about the depreciation of the <center> tag, I see you use it in your sidebar. Hint hint.

    I would Sooo totally recommend replacing your banner ad rotation with a nicer jquery version or with something server side. What you have right now is... very oldschool javascript.

    Annnd, of course, using a table under affiliates is also very bad for semantics, because as I'm sure you've heard, tables are for tabular data only. You could easily use a list to do this properly, a list apart has an article on how.

    The <u> tag is also depreciated, and I see you're using that. So hint hint again :P
    -------------

    OK! That is it!
    I am done!
    This review took me an hour and a half and my head hurts :P

    Hopefully some of what I said will be useful to you!

    Using Chrome on Mac | Report This?

    vividavenue's Response:

    Thank you very much for the review! I think it was extremely helpful. I normally get less than helpful reviews so this was a nice refresher.

    It's so funny that you mentioned the deprecated code that is randomly scattered throughout my site. I said to myself last night actually, "I'm sure someone is going to notice". I've actually been going through it, day by day, and changing things over. A huge chunk of the content on my site hasn't been touched since my amateur days of not even understand code; however, I've just been too lazy to fix it because it never immediately gave me an issue as far as look and feel goes. :-p I will definitely get rid of that junk now though. XD

    I will definitely agree on most of the layout critiques 100%.

    Thank you so very much. This was exactly what I wanted. Someone to ACTUALLY make suggestions and not just ramble like I usually am subjected to. Thank you. :)

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