Staff

Past Staff

Review for Cloud-Realms

To be frank, I already dislike your site’s organization. What is this? A link to two completely different sections of your site? Or is it some sort of Network Page that links two of your sites? What do you want me to review? Where do you want me to go? Your graphics or hosting/blog site? At least, for the sake of all your visitors’ sanity, be clear on which site you want them to enter. I shall continue in the Presentation part of the review.

Information

Site: Cloud-Realms
Type: Resource
Owner: Cloudy
Reviewed By: Shishio
Date Received: 6/27/06
Date Completed:7/05/06
Preview

Presentation

Continuing on your splash/enter page, not only is it confusing and absolutely useless, you didn’t even bother putting any effort into it. Oh, the horror. Normal, sized 12, Times New Roman text, with two images (that aren’t even screenshots of your two different sites or anything related as such) that don’t even have readable text. I’m appalled at the sheer lack of thought, convenience, maybe even common sense, and effort. Get rid of it. Make your graphics site the main site on your domain.

I’ve finally clicked your “Graphics section” image. And now that I’m finally past your splash/enter page and all the annoyance it caused, I feel better. However, your site fails to make me “jump with happiness”, per say. It does quite the opposite. But, oh joy, your layout works in all browsers. At least you’ve done that much.

Moving on… I don’t know what browser you’re in, but why is it that at the top of your site in every browser there is this?:

<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next >>

Content Management Powered by CuteNews

I don’t see how any webmaster can be satisfied with something like that at the top of their layout. Maybe you really are, as you say, “LAZZZYYYY”. I’m no expert with Cutenews, but I’m guessing all you have to do to fix that is move that part right under your “Posted on 03 Jul 2006 by Cloudy”.

The next thing I notice, obviously, is your layout’s banner. It’s easy to describe it. Bright blue background with strange brushes or default shapes transparent with some outer and inner glow, Clouds/Difference Clouds and some Motion Blur Effect, small screenshots from a game [I presume] on a dark turquoise strip, a transparent PNG slapped on, and fancy-fonted, but hard-to-find site title. [Oh, and look! There’s your layout’s title! I didn’t even see it when I opened your website!] Not to mention, it’s too damn wide (height wise). To put it simply, I’m not fond of this layout. Your actual layout overall isn’t that bad, it’s your lack of thought put in that changes my opinion.

First thing, do you know how to save space? I’m looking at your layout, and you have this enormous gap of NOTHING under your turquoise-strip-thing-with-screenshots. Then I look to the right, and then there’s another gap, again! Funny, you have no space whatsoever between the PNG-ed guy and the turquoise-strip-thing-with-screenshots nor any between that strip-thing and the two titles. Space and placement are extremely important when you design. Keep that in mind.

Your color scheme is also a bit strange. Bright blue with dark turquoise? Some designers can easily handle bold color schemes with varying colors, but you can’t even do that with two different shades of blue! I’m not sure how to describe it or if you even understand, so that’s all I’ll say about your color scheme. It seems quite off to me.

And I scroll down. All the way down. And I’m smacked again. This time, it’s by your footer. What, you have a nicer, bright banner up there and can only finish your layout with a half-assed footer down here? You don’t seem to know how to take all aspects of a layout into consideration. If you start with some bright up there, end it with something that matches it down here. Sure, the footer is part of your header, but you’re missing more than 70% of it down there. Where’s the bright blue and three slanted lines? Re-do your footer.

But here’s a plus! Your layout looks in all browsers. However, the tagboard input areas are brown in Opera and Firefox while they are blue in Internet Explorer. The iframe is also odd in Firefox. There’s a break in the white border. Do you check your site thoroughly in all browsers?

Coding

Your coding is actually better than your designing. But maybe that’s because you let ImageReady do all the work for you (oh, what a surprise!). And because ImageReady doesn’t add quotations to the variables in any tag, you have to put them in yourself. I notice that everywhere you added something into ImageReady’s coding, it has quotations around it. The proper way is to put them around everything.

You seem to like the center tag a lot. You use it when you need it, and you use it when it’s not necessary. For example, you have this:

<pclass=head>About Cloudrealms</p> <center> </center><center> [code here] [view my stats thing here] <br><br> </center> <br> <center> [the two contest banners here] </center>

Why do you have the center tags? They don’t center anything.

<center> [StatCounter here] <br> [View Stats here] <br><br> </center> <br> <center> [two contest banners here] </center>

You can shorten everything into this:

<center> [StatCounter here] <br> [View Stats here] <br><br> [two contest banners here] </center>

It’s also interesting you use Tables for your Content and Navigation. Maybe you’d like to use something like DIV classes and/or IDs instead. They’re easier to manage and clear up all the clutter in your coding. Here is a tutorial on using them. What you have here:

<table> <tr> <td> <p class="head">Header</p> Content </td> </tr> </table>

Can be changed to this (which is a hundred more times less confusing):

<div class="body"> <h1>Header</h1> Content Here </div>

It also pains me that you’re still using the classic, but outdated, way of setting up your navigation. You’re using the <a xhref="" mce_href="" target="_blank"><pbr> method. Consider using the listing method instead. Read a tutorial about it here. And, as we are on the topic of your navigation, I don’t understand why the links in your Affiliates and Network section are centered while all the others are not. True, they are centered along with the image, but it just seems to me that you forgot to remove the center tage or made an error. Be consistent and choose one or the other. Your button switch script is also odd. When I’m not hovering over any of your affiliates’ links, it’s always at Angelic-Dream’s button instead of a default. Check your coding.

It’s also weird that you have a Network box at the end. Is this a graphics site? Network site? Tell me clearly because I have no idea what kind of site I’m looking at. Do you want your visitors confused?

It’s nice to see that you’re breaking down your coding for me with these:

<!—–About Cloud-Realms/Contests—–>

But I do believe that you’re only supposed to have TWO dashes on each side of the description instead of five, four, three, six, etc. (what you have right now).

And now, we’ll go onto your CSS. Here, I again fine useless bits. Anything like this: letter-spacing: 0px; is unnecessary because normal text HAS no spacing and you’ve defined it as such. You can also combine many attributes that you have. For example, you have this under your .head section.

border: #FFFFFF; border-style: dotted; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-width: 1px;

You can change it to this:

border: 1px dotted #FFFFFF;

It is so much easier on the eyes and head. Use this idea and re-do your CSS. It will help.

The last thing that confuses me in your CSS is the similarity between .nav links and normal links. If it’s all the same, why do you bother defining them separately? Eliminate the entire .nav section. You have no need for it.

And we have finally, finally reached the end of this section. To sum it up, your coding has a lot of useless or redundant bits. Edit and proofread your coding like you would with an essay. And get rid of anything like this that nobody would understand:

<!~Even when you hope is gone, move along, move along, just to make it through~>

Was that put in to amuse a reviewer like me? Sure, I’ll try my best to make it through your review even when all my hope for finishing is gone because I’m not even halfway through and this is already around four pages.

Content

Main page - I’ll start with your introduction, as any new visitor to your site would. First thought? “What. The. Heck?!” You tell me I’m at your Network? Then why are there so many graphics here? Or maybe they’re the “various things” it features. But, wait, wait, wait. Now you say I’m at Cloud-Realms the Graphics site? Are they the same site? Or are they two different sites (if that dingy, useless piece of bull that is your network is a SITE) with the same name? If a webmaster isn’t even sure what their site is or features, how can a visitor be? This all leads back to the first part in the Presentation section. I don’t care what you need to do, but make it clear. I’m a reviewer and rather experienced in the structure of graphics sites, networks, blogs, and more, and I don’t understand your site structure AT ALL. How can a novice, new to the site community, do so? Use your head and imagine.

Where was I? Oh, right, still on the Introduction. You go on and describe various other sites that you own or co-own or whatever, but that is UNNECESSARY. How many times do I have to type that? You’re supposed to describe your GRAPHICS SITE and ONLY your GRAPHICS SITE. I don’t care about your MP3s and hosting. Give me a brief introduction to your GRAPHICS SITE. How long has it been online? Who is/are the webmaster(s)? [How can you forget about this? Don’t you want people to know who owns this site?] You seem to miss the point of an introduction. Learn it. Anything else I mentioned above is absolutely bull.

Funny, the next thing I see doesn’t make me any happier. Have you no dignity? You open the site with a terrible introduction, then put CONTEST BANNERS right AFTER it? Aren’t your updates or even latest additions more important? Throw the contest banners somewhere else, but not here! On another page, BELOW your updates, or even on that splash/enter page [It’s already useless, so why not bump its value and put the banners there?]. Ridiculous.

Your language also lacks (I’m currently reading through your current entry). Greatly. Your grammar is terrible. i’m [I’m]? lol? Ones [One’s or One is]? Is this a child’s site? Learn to speak properly. Then, learn to type properly. And, then, finally, learn to re-read and edit properly. You need those skills for a site. Without them, you’ve become the laughing stock of the professional website community. [I presume you’re aiming for something greater than novice or, should I repeat it in what seems to be in your language, n00b?] Get those grammar books out. lol is not a word.

History - The first paragraph needs to be clarified. Badly. Your grammar and way of speech is painful to read. I have to edit everything you write as I read along. Here’s a taste of what I was thinking while I was reading. Striked out words are the ones I mentally deleted, bolded ones were added, while words in brackets are my thoughts.

Cloudrealms started up on 3/8/2002 as a website that showcased my graphics & and stories. The name ~~derives~~ was derived from the capital in my largest story, ~~to date~~ Sanctuary of Sorrow. [What the heck, a capital in your story? What was the capital called? You write? Clarify.] The capital was called a realm because I wanted all the cities to be as such, & and I’m obsessed with clouds.

This, again, is just a taste of the edits I made. As you can see, it’s packed with changes. True, this part I edited is not perfect in any aspect. It’s up to you to change it because you know exactly what you want to say whereas I do not. This is what I did throughout your history. Edit it. I will not do that for you because you have too many errors.

So, I move on, and I’m baffled again. I’m looking through your old layouts and they don’t seem to be in any ORDER? Here’s the list from top to bottom: 6.0, 11.0, 10.0, 9.0, 8.3, 8.2, 8.1, 7.0, 5.1. Why is 6 after 11? And why are there 8 point somethings? From what I know, layouts with a point something after a same number means the webmaster made slight changes each time. In your case, there are skins. Although I understand why you used the points, I suggest you find a better way to display them. Maybe make 8.1 the 8, 8.2 the 9, and so on. All the points are confusing. The 5.1 just makes no sense. Was it a skin? A variation? or just a happy number you thought of?

And why is it that you only link selective sites in the credit sections of each layout? For example, for version 11.0, you chose to not link ANY. And I know that at least two of the sites are still existing today. Link them, if you really are ‘crediting’ them.

Staff - This page is informative (though a little too informative), but tells me little about the person’s designing experience. What programs do they use, how long they designed, etc. You just tell me information I won’t remember after I leave this page unless I’m some sort of a stalker. And, upsettingly, you even have grammar and spelling errors here. ‘Reside in’ should be ‘Resides in’, ‘Job’ under Cloudy should be bolded, there should be SPACES after the colons, ‘Man Fetishes’ should be ‘Main Fetishes’. There are probably more, but you can go hunt for them.

Your staff application made me laugh like this - lol. You are short-handed with NINE staff members? That’s strange. I know sites that are more successful than Cloud-Realms with only two or three people. How can you be short-handed? Even if you don’t have the time to update, surely not EVERYBODY can be busy at the same time! If your staff members aren’t doing the job, you seriously don’t need them. It’s all dedication and your staff aplication doesn’t ask anywhere whether they’re willing to work hard on the site. What’s the point if they have the skill but don’t want to work?

And, interestingly, you say you ‘desperately’ need people who can do certain things, but do you ‘desperately’ need them? I don’t think so. Some sites only focus on layouts and are more successful when they focus on one trade in the designing community. Consider that. What, exactly, are you looking for? If you’re so desperate, would accept any random brush designer with only a month of experience (By the way, why don’t you ask about designing experience? Are you really looking for good, polished designers?), I’m thinking something along the lines of, “Quantity over Quality” rather than vice versa.

Lastly, align your contact forum inputs. They’re terribly ugly unaligned.

Link Us and Credits/Links Out - Because these are so similar, I’m going to comment on them together. My first question is, why don’t you put the Link Us and Links Out together? It makes more sense and it balances the two pages (one of which has almost nothing and the other involves long scrolling).

But, back to the Link Us page, do you understand that buttons are little advertisements for your site? The uglier and less readable they are, the less people will visit. The nicer and more readable they are, the more people will visit. After considering such a speculation, which of your buttons should be pruned? I would say the first two. The first is just a picture with ugly blue text and the second it just a green-patterned background with text that blends in. Remove them. The third button is the best in that it is readable, the fourth that it is more attractive. However, they lack the other requirements: attractiveness and clarity, respectively.

Your credits section on the Links Out page is terribly organized. Who inspired you? Who created the brushes you used? Who inspired you? Who made the patterns you used? Who has the images or PNGs you used? You fail to answer any of these questions. Here are some example Credit pages for you: Aquilus, DigiCreation.

I find it incredibly ironic that you only describe affiliates after they’re no longer your affiliates. You respect and cherish your previous affiliates more than your current ones?

Awards Received - I never understood it when webmasters have awards on their sites. Are you trying to show-off? Be cool? Tell others you’re great at designing? If you’re trying to say that, design like that and show people. Don’t use transient items such as a little image you received from your nice friend who really liked you instead of your site to become better at designing. It’s incredibly naive. On top of that, you don’t even have anything here. Remove the page.

F.A.Q - I expected more here, but you’ve got the beginnings of a good F.A.Q. page. The only problem? GRAMMAR. Seriously, re-read your words! I’m tired of how you talk. Under the first question: Combine the second and third sentences with “, but”, ‘your’ should be ‘you’re’, ‘good’ should be ‘talented’ or ‘creative’, and ‘give us a ring’ should be ‘drop us a line’. Under the second question: ‘I invite you’ should be ‘You must be invited’, ‘eachother extremly’ should be ‘ each other extremely’. Under the third question: ‘neopets’ should be capitalized, ‘back’ should be removed, ‘about the site’ should be ‘about that site’, ‘i’ll’ should be ‘I’ll’, ‘thats’ should be ‘that’s’.

Contact Us - Here, again, your form is unaligned. Use something like a table and make it neater. It’s also quite sad that you only have a form for others to contact you with. What happens if the form isn’t working? Who do they email? Where do they email? You need many different options here for your visitors. But that DOES NOT mean you stick all your staff member’s contact information here. Only your, the webmaster’s, email and contact information should be here ALONG with the form. That way, the visitors will definitely be able to contact you.

Image Gallery - I’m not supposed to be reviewing this, per say, but I have to drop in some of my comments about this thing you have here. I’ll put it in a list form for easy reading.

Why do you even have an image gallery? I never understood these things. These images are not yours to re-distribute. They belong to the artist. I repeat, they are NOT YOURS. Ever. No matter how many times you scan the damn thing.
Are you trying to keep your site rated G? Why do all your gallery sections have “suggestive scenes” or “panty shots”? Do you realize that CHILDREN ages 13 and lower ALSO visit graphics site? And do you realize that they have no idea what a suggestive scene is? And do you know what happens when they click? That’s right, it’s where porn can start. Get rid of these images. This gallery is no longer child-friendly. It’s not tasteful anymore.
As the images are not child-friendly, I refuse to enter your site. I can only hope that you don’t watermark the images (that aren’t yours) because it’s complete stupidity.
I’m also glad you don’t have a terms of use or rule page where you govern how people use the images (again, they’re not yours).
But I’m appalled that you don’t credit the real artists. I don’t see any page that states the images belong to their real owners.

So, to sum up, get rid of this gallery or change it entirely.

DIV Layouts - I will review only the ones I dislike.

Forest of Regrets - This layout lacks in theme, thought, and effort. There’s unused space that could have been filled. The image would have done better with a dark color scheme. Your content and navigation seem like afterthoughts (who the hell can tell the flowers are links?). And the banner is way too wide in height. 800*600 users have to scroll a lot.
With All my Heart - I can’t believe it. Another too wide layout [in height]! The banner fills my screen and, guess what?, I have 1024*768. Now, imagine you’re a 800*600 user. Get rid of this layout. Little thought and effort was put into it.
Crackling Memories - Over brushed or blended background with a PNG slapped on and outer-glowed. This isn’t even the worst part. Tell me, can you read the navigation’s links? Black on dark purple? This layout was definitely slapped together by some idiot who thought they could design.
Real Life, Real Heart - The preview link for this layout does not work. You have an extra http:// in the link. This layout has one of the better color schemes. I see some thought put in, but it’s still the PNG on abstract background like everything else on your website. The banner, is again, gigantic for 800*600 resolution.
Search for Happiness - It’s poorly blended in some areas, the dark, thick borders don’t suit the layout, all the text on the layout (titles, content, navigation, etc.) is either too dark, too light, or too unfitting the layout. Delete this layout. It lacks in everything.
Wedding Bells - What in the world is this? The designer actually lacked enough intelligence to motion blur the image? You do realize that the blurring pains my eyes. I’m trying to focus on it and I get only a blur of something in return. Not to mention, I can’t read your title image and your background consists only of brushes. This layout is horrible.

Table Layouts - Again, I will review only what I dislike.

Come Play with Me - When a thumbnail shows only the banner of the layout, something is terrible wrong. What is wrong with the layouts on this site? How many times to I have to say it won’t fit in 800*600 resolution? Not to mention, you waste space AGAIN and the font doesn’t even match the layout. Are you even thinking when you design these?
Night Myst - HOLY CRAP. Now the layouts are too wide horizontal wise! And there isn’t even a title on the layout! Where on earth is “Night Myst”? The name doesn’t even fit with the layout! Where is it dark and where is it misty? This layout is half-assed. And the content text is even CENTERED. I’m stupefied by this layout. THINK while you design. That’s what the noggin is for.
Seize the Light - This layout isn’t the worst, but I still have to comment on it. Can you read the links on the navigation? If the answer is, “No,” you have a problem. There’s also still a lot of unused space on this layout.
Green Passion - Bright green with a grainy and blurry banner doesn’t help my failing mood. Perhaps you’d like to tell me why the image quality is so bad?
Green Summer - You like green, don’t you? And do you also realize I’m commenting on all your layouts except maybe only three? That says a lot. Anyway, this layout should just be removed. It doesn’t match and, as soon as I opened it, I wanted to close the window. It’s horrible. I’ll even say it’s bull. Pretty penned out green wings and bright abstract black and bright green plus cute girl does NOT WORK. And I don’t see any summer in the image (only in the girl). This layout reminds me of a green hell instead.

Iframe Layouts - It’s the last section! Woohoo! Thank goodness there are only two layouts.

Full of Thoughts and Memories - WHAT THE. An ENTER page? You really have a bad reputation with them. Why on earth do you have it? It doesn’t even match the freaking layout. You don’t need this thing. Remove it. The layout itself burns my eyes. I see you’re trying to incorporate different colors, but, bluntly, you fail. Obviously, little effort was put into this layout. All you did was color, add hearts, and add a content box. Not to mention, it’s also huge (800px?). And why is it that ‘and Memories’ is so small? Isn’t that your title? And what on earth prompted you to use that hideous font? Wow. It’s so great, I want to cry my eyeballs out and shoot myself.
Deadly Memories - First thought: You’re using the hand cursor for the page? You realize that the hand is for LINKS. So as soon as I saw that, I thought your entire PAGE was a link, and I clicked to be sure. Use the default arrow so not to confuse your visitors. Your layout gives me an unbalanced feeling. Do you know how to center and ‘middle’ box iframe layouts? Obviously not. And what’s even odder is you can put all the links outside of the box into the box. Why did you put it out there? It’s ridiculous. You also could have made your layout bigger. Your iframe is so squished to the right, it messes up the nice feeling I was getting from the left side.

Request Layouts - It stuns me you even have this. After looking through all your layouts, I’m not sure if I would WANT to request a layout. There are sites out there who have requesting open and have better premades than the ones here. Not to mention, you have a big paragraph of grammatical errors that I don’t want to read. You edit it. I won’t. What’s even weirder is that you tell others who are looking for custom layouts to go to the Custom layouts page. I don’t see any. And aren’t requested layouts custom made? You’re allowing others to ask for layouts with certain aspects and, probably, following their suggestions or ideas. That, in itself, is a custom layout.

100×100 Avatars - I’m happy. This page makes me happy. It’s obvious you work more on avatars more than your layouts. These are actually avatars I enjoy remotely. Some, however, make me sad. Before I list the ones I don’t like, I have a question. Scroll down on your avatars page. See that gap right under them? Why aren’t you using that space? It always bothers me when people don’t use the space they have and make me click more pages to see the avatars. Put more avatars on one page. That’ll make me jump for joy. And, as I browse, I see a lot of old avatars that are not as great as your newer ones. The age of blinkies and templates is over. So is the age of over-blended avatars. Here is the list of your avatars I find to be lower in quality than your newer ones: 169-167, 111, 102, 088, 086-084, 081-077, 075, 073- 069, 065-059, 056-027, 025, 018, 014-009, 007-004.

Transparent PNGs - I don’t think I mentioned this before, but I can’t read your download and preview links. They’re white on bright blue and white. Change them. As for your PNGs, they look nicely extracted, only it seems the images and their edges are blurry. I’m not going to go through all the PNGs, but I will say that you should remove any extremely small PNGs that people can’t design with. I haven’t found any, but there may be some here and there. Delete the small ones. And it’d also be nice if you had instructions on how to use PNGs. Many do not know how to use them.

You also have to CREDIT the image’s maker AND the site that you found the image on. It’s not your image, is it? You didn’t draw it from scratch. I wonder, do you even know how to credit? You have so many problems with just LINKING.

Enter Signs - I don’t like a single one of them. They look as if they were hastily put together (especially the first one). Personally, I don’t see a need for premade enter signs on the net. What’s the point if someone makes their own layout and uses an un-matching enter sign by you? It’s inconsistent. They’re also too easy to make. I would rather you delete this entire section.

404 Signs - By the way, they’re 404 ERROR Signs. That aside, these are also unnecessary, like the enter signs. Remove this entire section. They are also extremely poorly done.

Wallpapers - These wallpapers need a lot of help. For the post part, they’re simply abstract backgrounds with PNG images and brushes all around. That’s not a wallpaper. That’s a poor excuse for a wallpaper. The only one I like is the one called ‘The Window’. Too bad you didn’t make it. You didn’t even link the maker properly (And do you have permission to re-distribute? Hopefully.). There is an extra http://www/. in front of the link. Overall, I’m disappointed with every single one of your staff’s wallpapers. They’re very poorly made and should be removed. Develop your skills before you release work that looks like that of a novice.

And why don’t you credit the sites you mention? You did this above in your Past Layouts section, too. CREDIT. LINK. That’s what you’re SUPPOSED to do. And why are all your dates 0000-00-00? That tells me nothing. You might as well remove them entirely from all your graphic descriptions. It makes you look stupid.

Textures - The second best section of the site (the avatars are first). All the textures made by Laila look terrific (except that photograph set - anybody can crop photos and they’re not even real textures). However, Cloudy’s does not. It’s just bright blue with flecks of white. How are they textures? Remove them.

Your textures are nice, but not your setup. They’re sized at 100×100, right? So display them as avatars. Some visitors come and look for only ONE texture. They don’t want to waste time downloading the entire set. It gives them more freedom to pick and choose. And you also have enough room for displaying them normally. Change the setup.

Final Statement

I’m done. Finally. At thirteen pages, I’m not sure if I should be happy or sad. But to sum up what I think about your site: It lacks. Everything. Balance, thought, effort, information, skill, and the list goes on. I doubt I’ll be visiting in the near future. I suggest you, the webmaster, to develop YOUR designing skills first before you look for a staff. It’s rather pathetic if a staff member is a better designer than the webmaster. You’re the one in charge. Use your power and your brain. Cloud-Realms is full of grammar errors and useless parts that you need to EDIT or DELETE. Cut anything you don’t need off. Same with your staff. If they don’t do anything, you don’t need them. It isn’t until a gardener prunes his plant does it grow and flourish.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 6th, 2006 at 11:29 am 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.

5 Comments to “Cloud-Realms”

Cloudy Says:
July 6th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
Pretty harsh, but thanks, I didn’t want a buttered up review. It’s opened my eye’s to a lot of things.

Shishio Says:
July 6th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
Glad I could be of help, dear.

EDIT [directed mostly to Cloudy]: I’ve just read your edit on your site, and, frankly, I’m surprised. Contrary to popular belief, I am not the type of person who rips down a stranger’s site without a particular reason (unless I just blatantly hate you). I am actually trying to help the graphics community and others’ sites (in this case, yours) even if it’s but a miniscule amount of care. Do you understand that? Me ripping your site apart means I want you to improve, so it quite pains me to see you so upset over my review. Yes, I may have been too harsh, and I’m sorry if that’s what’s causing you to ditch your site altogether (I hate to kick designers off the web like this); however, if that is your reaction to a review from an overly tempered, and thus flawed, reviewer, I respect it. But, remember, those who quit early fail in the end.

And, congrats, you’re probably the first person (stranger) on the world wide web to pull some kindness out of me.

I look forward to your site in the future.

Cloudy Says:
July 7th, 2006 at 2:09 am
Yes, I understand. I basically put that because of your review, I feel like I need to step back and work on myself more. I’ve been reading those tutorials you linked to and I’m trying them out. If I do close my site, it’s so I can improve. Before I posted that edit, I took a long hard back look and thought for a while, and saw all of the mistakes you were talking about. I’m about to delete that edit though. After I cooled I kind of told myself I flipped a bit. I am going to improve though.

Sarah Says:
August 9th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Personally, I find this review to be full of a lot of holes. First off, a lot of things you say are only opinion. I see nothing wrong with Cloudy’s texture, for example. Depending on what it is used in, it could work very nicely into an image. Also, there is simply no accounting for taste, so the more variety a graphics site can offer, the better. Just because one texture does not fit your taste does not mean it will not fit someone elses perfectly.

Enter signs and 404 Error signs are not pointless for a graphics site to offer. First off, a lot of sites that use them are pagebuilder sites or MySpace pages. They don’t really HAVE a layout to match. Good signs are not as easy to make as you make it sound. Anyone can slap some text on a picture, but to make a good sign takes a little more skill than that. Some blending, text that works with the image, clean cut images, some nice effects, etc. take more skill than a lot of people have. Sometimes an enter sign that is found on a graphics site does work just fine with a layout. I like enter signs that are not just little carbon copies of the site layout, as long as they still fit in. If the colours and images work, there is nothing wrong with getting an enter sign from somewhere else. Finally, just because someone CAN make a sign doesn’t mean they want to. People are lazy, end of story.

The age of blinkies, overblended avatars, and template avatars is NOT over. Just because you do not use them does not mean that a lot of other people do not use them. I see an aweful lot of template avatars, for example, on every forum and blogging site (like Livejournal) that I visit. I see almost as many blinkies used. Just because you do not like them does not mean other people do not like and use them. The age of anything is not over until people stop using it. Again, people have differing tastes, so offering various types of avatars only makes sense for a graphics website. As long as they are not ONLY relying on a certain type, they are fine. If someone wants to use a template avatar (and many people do), they will find one somewhere. Why not offer it?

I do agree that pages should not be in the navigation (or linked, period) until they have actual content, but there is a reason for awards and gifts. Awards help site owners strive for something, which may just improve their website. It also helps boost their self-confidence, which is never a bad thing, as long as they don’t let it get to their head. It may seem like a bit of a shallow reason, but who has never once not had a shallow reason for doing something? It isn’t hurting a soul by being there, and if people don’t wanto see it, they don’t have to. I, for one, actually LIKE seeing what awards a website has won. Always keep in mind that not everyone thinks like you do. If they did, it would be a very boring world. I am not saying your thinking is boring, just that “variety is the spice of life,” as the saying goes. As for gifts, they are simply a nice way of saying “thanks” or “I am glad you are my friend,” and it is considered polite and a gesture of friendship to display such gifts. Actual awards should be based off some kind of achievement, yes, but gifts are just fine.

There is a use for small PNGs. Not in layouts or other large graphics, no, but they are wonderful for using in avatars, banners, and signatures. Not everyone has a good image editing program that will resize images well. Even great imaging programs sometimes don’t resize images as well as would be desired for a small graphic, so offering small PNGs is a great idea.

It is kind of hypocritical to be a reviewer on a website that uses images from an anime in their layout and then to say get rid of the image gallery. Where do you think PNGs come from in the first place? If there were no image galleries, there would be no images to make PNGs with, which would mean there would be no layouts like the one that is used on this very website.

I do agree with some of the things you posted, but a lot of what you said is purely opinion, and it is not necessarily shared by everyone else. It is a fact that dark text on a dark background is hard to read, and is therefore bad design. It is not a fact that an image gallery is useless, that certain types of avatars are no longer used, or that small PNGs are able to be effectively used in graphics. That is opinion. While it is completely your right to state opinion, it should be stated AS opinion so that the website owner can know it is opinion and see how your opinion fares with their visitors. I’ve seen plenty of reviews where opinions were stated, but what the actual website viewers wanted was completely opposite of the reviewer’s opinion. If the website reviewer knows it is opinion, they can make a poll or use some other kind of data collector to see whether or not their viewers agree. If every “rule of design” was followed, Yahoo would not exist. It is far more cluttered than what is generally considered to be good design, but it works for Yahoo because the site users like it that way. You can bet that Yahoo, which will suffer profit losses if it does not cater to its users, does everything possible to know exactly what its users like.

Lucy Says:
August 10th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Sweetie, reviews are pure opinion. You ask for a review, you’re asking for the reviewer’s opinion. Get over it.

On a sidenote, this site uses anime images that are not rated R. Panty-shots aren’t appropriate for most sites, and thus Felixa said to delete the gallery because she was sick of looking at the worthless panty-shots.