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Review for The 7th Sense

My ability to give a really excellent first impression is somewhat hindered by the fact that I visit your site at least once a day, so I’m going to the next best thing: sit back, squint at your layout and wait for intelligent, fresh thoughts to enter my mind—other than pink and orange yay. I notice that there’s a lot of orange but not so much pink in the content and navigation areas.

I eventually notice that you’ve clumped the big, bold things, like the waves and the whale, at the top and left the smaller, softer details, like the fish, at the bottom of the banner. I notice that your layout works a-okay in Mozilla, Internet Explorer and the Dreaded Opera of Doom. And I notice that I like your headers muchly.

Information

Site: The 7^th Sense
Type: Resource
Owner: Tiff
Reviewed By: Megumi
Date Received: 6/14/06
Date Completed: 6/26/06
Preview

Presentation

Layout

• The more I look at it, the more odd the waves at the top seem. I like the combination of white, orange and pink, but the only white in your layout is in those waves, which looks a little clumpy. Also, they’re a little bit too tall—they’re there to contrast the…under-the-water sea…so the sea-life should be bigger and more noticable. I do like how the whale is in both sections, though.
• That whale looks lonely…a big orange blob in the midst of tiny pink blobs. If the waves are going to be the main contrast in your layout, the whale shouldn’t stick out so dramatically. Having a slightly smaller whale near the bottom of the banner would balance the poor guy out.
• Another thing I’m noticing is that your fish are all the same size (well, each school is, anyway). A smidgen of difference in their sizes would make them more interesting to look at. It’s also a little odd that they’re directly opposite each other. You could move the school on the right down a little bit, and then they won’t look like the gangs in West Side Story. Fish gangs.
• Y’know, I just keep coming back to those waves. The solid-orange-gradient background already goes all the way across the screen. The waves, which aren’t really a background so much as a piece in your layout, seem like they should be just as wide as the rest of the layout to continue the flow, so you’re not distracted by their length instead of being properly distracted by the details of the layout.
• I have to give you props for those details, though. Everything is drawn in the same style—semi-cartoonish—so there’s continuity. Nothing looks too realistic, nor too unrealistic. Trés props.
• I know that putting your site title in plain view is somewhat boring, but a new visitor might see “Under the Sea” and think that that was your site title (and wonder why the layout was named “The 7th Sense”). It would probably reduce confusion if you swapped them. Another nitpicky thing in the way of fonts is that you have your plain italicized text, you have the curly text, and you have Jokerman (I think) for your site title. Jokerman is one font too many, so using one of your two “base” fonts would look more uniform.
• Your navigation items are surrounded by a shade so nearly-pink that it wouldn’t make a huge difference to go a little further, to match the waves. The headers above them would be a good opportunity to get some white into the rest of the layout, or even just off-white, like #FEF8E9 ().
• You’ve used a lot of light orange in the content area. Shading the update boxes pink would be overdoing it (if you also re-shaded the navigation), so making the headers light pink (#FBF0F0, ) instead of light orange wouldn’t be a bad idea.
• Your update boxes are plain except for the really light seaweed in the corner, which isn’t immediately noticable. I think…I think that those boxes are lonely for some fishes in the top corner! (And I like how the navigation hover images have fish in them, by the way.) Having the seaweed at the bottom is a rather weak substitute for a footer, and you shouldn’t let your lack of footer compromise the rest of your updateness. I don’t know if you were really thinking in terms of compromise when you created the layout, but that’s just too bad.
• A footer would be nice, though. Nothing too extravagant, just a few fish/seaweed/whales at the bottom would wrap up your layout nicely (and it would be a nice spot for a copyright notice, if you are the type of person inclined to copyright notices on every page).
• Fun as they may be, the question mark mouse when I hover over the navigation doesn’t match (I guess it could look like a fish if I squinted though). The default mouse minimizes the use of black (just the outline and shadow) so it doesn’t imperil your color scheme as much.
• Also fun are the different colors for bolded text. I look at the orange bolded text and I think “A LINK! MUST CLICK!” and then I’m very sad when there’s nothing to click. You should either just stick with pink, or make the links more distinguishable from bolded text.
• This may seem inconsequential (and in fact, it is!) but against the light orange background, the hover color, white, for the content links is almost blinding. You could make the links turn a darker color, or you could have a background dark enough to unblind the whiteness.
• I’ve been doing a lot of whining, but your layout really is nice; very nice. I love the originality of the theme and the colors, I envy your vectoring skills, and I’m glad that your content and navigation areas are proportionate and easy to find and read. Don’t think that your layout by any means is bad; I’m just being really nitpicky and I’m stretching the nits into big paragraphs.

Coding

• I’m sure you’ve heard about divs vs. tables till the cows freeze over, so I’m not going to pester you. Your tables are organized and easy to read, so I’m appreciative.
• I don’t see why you differentiate between the h2 and h3 tags, since you’ve defined them with the same properties.
• You’ve used lists for your navigation, so you get a cyberhug.
• In your CSS, you have some lines that look like this [margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] when it could look like this [margin: 0;]. There is no need to specify a unit for 0, since 0 of anything is still going to be zero. (Except units of temperature, but they doesn’t count, here.) Also, when every side has the same value, you can just put the value once and the love shall be shared.
• You don’t name a generic font-family if the one you have isn’t available. You’re probably fine with verdana, but if you want to back up something like Franklin Gothic Book, use font-family: Franklin Gothic Book, serif;, or whatever backup pleases you. (If you don’t, it will use Times New Roman or Helvetica.)
• Overall, you have good coding skills; your site works in all of my browsers; and I’m happy.

Content

Site Related

• I’ve said this about other sites, but isn’t “Site Related” a little ambiguous? Everything in your site is Site Related, right?
• After browsing through your site, I’m a little confused if your site is The 7^th Sense or just 7^th Sense. It seems like there’s a The but make sure you’re consistent on every page.
• Main Page:
  • “…a vector and anime based graphics site…” might befuddle the common visitor. It’s hard to find a concise way to describe a vector, but it’s also hard to imagine someone not having a vague idea of what a vector is. It’s really up to you, but using a less technical term would kind of clear the air around that sentence. (Houston, the temperature of that sentence is seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit…)
  • “…the successor to Kage Tenshi Designs, Tiff’s first successful website.” More triviality, but that’s a lot of successes in one sentence. (The temperature is warming up, Houston.) Also it makes me feel like you had a million other websites and Kage Tenshi was just the strongest little bugger, or something, so maybe you should describe Kage Tenshi as “Tiff’s first graphics site.”
  • I very much like your tone of writing. It’s mature, but not super-serious and it’s not boring.
  • In your latest update, you misspelled Aquilus. Le gasp.
• About the 7^th:
  • It’s refreshing reading an honest explanation about the a website’s name. The only thing in that first paragraph that I can critique is the last sentence, which I had to re-read two or three times before I “got” it.
  • Your site history is written well, but you litter superfluous words throughout your sentences (Sort of like this sentence, huh?). In “didn’t seem extremely right,” for example, “extremely” is unnecessary.
• Credits:
  • What can I say? This page is organized and efficient.
  • The only problems are technical ones: you used “their” instead of “they’re” in the first sentence of the “Support and Inspiration” box, and you put an apostrophe in “WPR’s.”
  • Here, though, is where the same-colored headers are particularly troublesome: it’s hard to tell the boxes apart at a quick glance.
• Links In and Out:
  • Pretty much the same comments as above apply here (except the spelling ones).
  • I’m liking your buttons; you don’t overwhelm me with hundreds of them, but you display four very different ones. Also I like how you gave a link to Photobucket, but be sure to clarify direct-linking. (I know that I’ve seen a few direct-linking websites around…you could link to them.)

Graphics

• Terms of Use:
  • Threatening to terminate a violator’s site is a snappy tactic, but you can make it seem more real by explaining how you’ll do so (contacting their host, etc.). Let your evil intentions be known exactly.
  • I also like how you translated the first rule into “real-life” words like “stealing” and “copyright infringement,” which will probably make people take you more seriously as well. However, the little end note, “and is intolerable,” is a given and weakens the force of the sentence.
  • “You may not edit or alter anything.” This rule could be confusing, so give readers a specific example (”For example, you cannot crop my wallpaper and make it into a layout banner”).
• Layouts:
  • This is kind of a weird personal taste thing, but I don’t like how you have the borders from the browser (the buttons and things) in the previews, since they aren’t really part of the layout.
  • I don’t really expect you to change every layout, but these are suggestions to keep in mind when creating new ones.
  • Three Fighters: The banner is decidedly funky and great, but the follow-through is a little weak: reading the text gives me a headache. You weren’t aiming for a “boxy” layout, but you could probably combine the shapes and patterns of the banner into a readable, sort-of-but-not-really box for the text. If that made any sense whatsoever. I like how you stayed true to the color scheme, though.
  • Breaktime: Again, the banner has lots of interest, but the interest kind of tapers off around the content area. The navigation idea of having circles is a good thought, but instead of straying outside the “boundaries” of the image, consider using the space to the left of the content. Also, try to find ways to work the theme and colors into the rest of the layout so it stays interesting (i.e. making the bold text purple, like that guy’s shirt).
  • From the Shore: I really, really like this layout. You’ve got teh skillz at repeating images in a banner, the colors follow through and the white background is appealing.
  • Uncertain: The setup is great, like From the Shore’s was. My only complaint is that you stopped using light blue in the content area—try replacing the orange headers with blue, since you already have an orange background.
  • Lonely Heart: You’re very creative with banners, but in this layout, the content is way down there when it should just be sort of down there. (Ya feelin’ me, dawg?) I don’t see a clear way out; you could lift the content box an inch or so, and have Eve’s foot layered over it. Also, the links would look kind of funky when they were filled in, since the widths would be different, so maybe a background isn’t such a good idea.
  • Where?: Really dark layouts scare me. I can’t say that the text isn’t readable, but I’m just going to cling to that little hint of yellow in the banner and say, Yellow has rights too! I’m not saying, Make this a happy!bright!layout but a little hint of yellow would make a certain person happy. So there. (I’m so mature, hm?)
  • Irreplacable: If this layout were in an airport, it would be in the “odd sized luggage” compartment, and odd sized luggage doesn’t have square borders. In other words, I don’t think the borders at the edges belong and they play down the interesting shapes you have going. I’m also getting the feeling that you like orange.
  • Penitance: This layout doesn’t have the Special Tiff Sparkle your others did. I think that it’s the style: image, content, navigation, done. The image is pretty big, which may be a factor; when it’s this big, I see some of the art in the background and think “wasted space”.
  • Wish: I’m staring at this layout, and I’m thinking, it needs a horizontally-repeating background. It’s goes straight down with no contrast (not the dreaded word!). Otherwise, the main image is a bit big and the navigation could be moved up a little. (It’s for the C-word.)
  • Memory: Ah! Orange! Really, the main problem with this layout is its lack of another color. The eyes can only take so much orange at one time before they start longing for some…yellow, or pink, say.
  • Bittersweet: Can you guess what I’m going to say? I bet you can. Everyone say it with me…Put some yellow in the content and navigation areas! I have to say, though, you’re very bold with color schemes, and I applaud you for that.
  • Fighter: What I like best about your layouts is that they are all unique. This is no exception. How do you keep pumping out ideas like that?
  • Equinam: Lemme tell you, purple, pink and white is very soothing after bright orange. I must commend you on the colors; I see them and I’m like, “ahhhhhhh.” With the subtle patterns in the background, this layout works very well.
  • Zealous: I’m not into the fuzziness; the background and banner are fuzzy, and you should pick one or the other. Anyway, the idea of having a two-columned navigation in such a small area is risqué, if a link is too long for its alotted area and has to (gasp!) take up another line. The horror.
  • Sky Bright: I don’t like the text alignment of “Sky Bright.” I really can’t give you a definitive reason, but I just have this feeling that the two words should be right next to each other. Another thing, this layout doesn’t really have a focal point; Yuna is really faded into the background, so you’ve got this big space of abstract art and you wonder, Where do I look?
  • A Losing Battle: The title is quite appropriate. Otherwise, I don’t think that the navigation stands out enough, and there’s the Lack of Other Colors besides orange. Dun, dun, dun.
  • Burned: The thick border compliments the image well, but Ichigo’s white jacket draws my eyes away from anything else. So, you might want to make the text white so that it can feel important as well. Text has feelings too, you know.
• 100×100 Avatars:
  • The vast majority of these avatars are very, very nice. However, once in a while you get into a “rut” with a particular style and produce one that’s sub-par. Collectively they’re an excellent collection and you should be proud that you have both Q’s: quality and quantity.
• Brushes:
  • My only inane little complaint is that for the “doodles” set, you might want to provide filled-in doodles as well as just the outlines. Otherwise, I can see myself using these. (My lack of complaints isn’t so much that I’m burned out on the layouts as it is I can’t find any.)
• Textures:
  • Some of your earlier textures fall into the “abstract art” category more than they do the “texture” category; consider pruning some. The newer ones, though, are dramatic and have flair, and can feasably be applied to an image. I’m glad you made them so large, and warned visitors about the size in advance.
• Wallpapers:
  • I won’t comment on every one, so if a wallpaper isn’t commented on, just assume I think it’s hot.
  • Dangerous Flower: Wow. You’ve got so much [nicely vectored] stuff that the tiny background image seems like overkill. Try using a large, bold stripe instead of the checkers to make it less, well, optical-illusiony. Loving the Ricky Martin lyrics, by the way.
  • Fields of Gold: This wallpaper would have a better life as a layout banner instead of a wallpaper. Since layouts usually have one main opportunity to wow you (with the banner), they use a really excellent, snappy banner; but in a wallpaper, things should be simpler—the colors are overwhelming at such a large size.
  • I have to compliment your vectoring skill. It’s amazing, and the vectors give your wallpapers a nice, clean feel.

Final Statement

Wow. You’ve got the skills: writing, graphic-making, vectoring. The only thing is, your love of a color can overwhelm a piece, and you have to remember to keep the colors flowing. Otherwise, what can I say? You’re a wonderful part of the graphics community; your site is concise, neat and quality; good luck in the future!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 26th, 2006 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Graphics/Resource. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Comments to “The 7th Sense”

Sanosuke Says:
June 26th, 2006 at 7:41 pm

You spelled Aquilus wrong…? Shame on you =__=

Tiff Says:
June 26th, 2006 at 9:38 pm

You have no idea how much I laughed while reading this review. Thank you very much for your tips, complaints, compliments, and, of course, humor (or sarcasm). I’ll definately take your tips (wow, what was the other word again) into consideration, especially that bit about my “orange-y-ness”. I never noticed I was such a bright(yippee! [/sarcasm]) person. I do need more blue-y/purply stuff. Oddly, Kage Tenshi Designs was overrun by blue instead of orange (hmmm…).

Hah, but, yeah, thanks again! Mucho appreciated! =) I shall plug you and FHR and you and FHR shall be my pluggies.

And about spelling Aquilus wrong… It’s summer! That’s my only excuse. >__

Megumi Says:
June 26th, 2006 at 9:51 pm

‘S good enough for me. xp

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