Staff

Past Staff

Review for Bottled Sky

I love the choice of colours for your layout. The mixture of brown with teal and pink makes the layout stand out vibrantly. I have seen the said colours coordinate for outfits, but it works better with layouts. The rounded corners gives a nice soft touch and feel to the vector image in the layout. Add to that, the vector image is an original artpiece. Based on first impression, you get a thumbs up.

Information

Site: Bottled Sky
Type: Personal
Owner: Nikki
Reviewed By: Misao
Date Received: 11/08/06
Date Completed: 06/17/07
Preview

Presentation

The only thing I don’t like about the layout is the site title. I am sure you spaced and overlapped the letters to make them look like they are popping out, one in front of the other, however, the letters are also descending giving a sliding off appearance. I am not too sure if this is the desired effect, but if not, ‘SKY’ would benefit from moving a few pixels upwards from its current location.

I really like the organization of the main homepage. The navigations are separated nicely from the blog entries by the faint pink background, which adds to the soft touch of the layout. Text size is appropriate and navigation is clear. Organization looks great. Personally I think there are way too many categories and having all of them listed in the navigation column makes it looks really extensive, but this is a personal blog, so everyone is entitled to their categories and how many they want. The ‘Shoes’ category is spiking my interest.

The site has the touch and feel of a friendly personal website that is updated/blogged regularly.

Content

As mentioned above, everything looks well organized and maintained. However, the line height of the links appearing underneath the ‘Etcetera’ heading does not follow the format as presented in the navigation column. Though the links are slightly different from the others, it would look better with the same amount of line height spacing as the rest.

I see that the format used for the blog entries are very common among blog sites that utilized Wordpress. I like the regular box on either top corner displaying the date the entry was posted. It is really cute and detailed that the corner of this box is also rounded to coordinate along with the layout scheme. The format of title in large text and links to category and comments are listed in slightly larger text than the default is the standard for headings. The little icons next to the links are a great spice to the entries.

I also like the use of icons to go along with the essential site-related and credit links located at the bottom of the page. I took a quick peek at your Cafepress Shop and I must say, your designs are adorable!

Profile

I like the format of this section. For the most part, visitors expect the random facts or basic facts up at the of the page before the description, but I believe the vice versa format has a stronger appeal. Locating a few quick snapshots to the left in this section is a fantastic idea for visitors to read about you and visualize you through photographs at the same time. I am sure this is intentional, but you’ve forgotten your birthday in the random facts.

Portfolio

This is such a cute section. I love visiting sites where I can preview artworks and designs by the web owner. The format of dividing your portfolio into three sections with thumbnail links in the main content area and text links on the side navigation is a wonderful idea.

I really like the Illustrations page. Your artwork is really cute and whimsical, to quote from you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you became an illustration for children’s books. The one thing I don’t like is how you formatted the thumbnails. It doesn’t give the visitors an actual preview of the artbook. The thumnails only offer a preview of a small section, a foot or a lip, and that doesn’t give me a clear idea on what to expect when I click on the thumbnail. Which, defeats the whole purpose of thumbnailS. The other suggestion I have is date. I personally like to know when the date and the title (which you have) of a drawing. It makes it more complete when I can place a time to the drawing. It also allows you and your visitors to compare your drawings from before as there was a comment made about noticing improvement over time.

I love how your artwork were incorporated into layout designs used on your site. A personal portfolio should have that original creative touch to it. I also like your miscellaneous layouts. You should consider opening a design website where you can sell your designs or make designs for commission, if you haven’t already, that is.

The projects displayed under Print Design are really original and well-done. You obviously know how to work with manipulating all types of medians. Personally I thought the third Child Abuse Campaign poster (the teddy bear) was a little graphic (rip at the crotch), especially if aimed at younger children. But I guess you can’t really do it any other way when trying to promote campaigns to stop incest and sexual abuse.

Susan’s Spectacular Spectacles is a wonderful children storybook. If my University had the same elective, I would love to take it just so I could write an illustrate a children storybook. I do have a question though. What age/grade level is the storybook aimed at? From reading it and comparing it to the reading standard we set in America, I would say the book is at a grade three reading level and up.

I also took a quick peek at your store, and some of your designs are really cute. I look forward to seeing more.

Extras

This is an amazing section to compliment your porfolio. I especially like the Black and White Series within Shutterbug. I didn’t get a chance to read through your short stories but your poems are written wonderfully. Since Susan’s Spectacular Spectacles is displayed in your portfolio, there isn’t a need for another link to the story in this section.

I like how you not only provide several LiveJournal themes for free download, but also a few links and descriptions to other websites that offer LiveJournal themes. Many web owners are not that willing to include links to other graphic sites in competition with theirs. The wallpapers are simple but original. The only recommendation for this section is offering the wallpapers in widescreen sizes. Many people nowadays are using widescreen laptops, such as myself, and when we try to apply a 1024×768 to our wallpaper, it looks highly distorted.

The avatars are really cute. I hope these are also displayed on your LJ site as well. I really like the girl on the floater over the pool and the cat sleeping in the window. After seeing the photos and reading the descriptions in Travel Destinations, I am now very interested in visiting the Phillipines. I would have loved to click on the photos you have for the enlarged size. The Get Crafty projects are quite interesting.

Site Info

This section is very informative in regards to Awards & Recognition and credit links, but lacking a little about the site. Why did you choose Skylight before, and why you renamed it to Bottled-Sky after your friends purchased the new domain for you? I like the idea of other miscellaneous links on the side navigation including links to read reviews that you have received. I am glad you chose to only display five random links, because I didn’t expect such a long list.

Contact

This section is pretty straight-forward. Many web owners don’t like giving out their emails but I am glad that you supplied yours in case the form doesn’t work along with accounts you have at other blogging sites.

Final Statement

I certainly have enjoyed my visit reviewing your site. Bottled Sky did not bored me, on the contrary, I am awed at your cute designs and especially with the way you have turned your designs and artwork into something handy like your shop. I really admire that. Though the site leans more towards a porfolio than it does personal, this is by far one of the best personal and portfolio I have visited in a long time.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Personal. 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.

2 Comments to “Bottled Sky”

Nikki Says:
June 20th, 2007 at 1:18 am
Thank you so much for your thoroughness! I appreciate all of your suggestions and will be making a few changes based on your comments. The Etcetera links have been bothering me, too, so I replaced them with a single image link. I’ll work on adding dates to the portfolio next. I will definitely try your suggestion about the lettering of the site title and will upload a revised header if I like the results. I’ll also work on adding a short writeup about why I chose the name “Bottled Sky” to the site info page. As for your question about the reading level of SSS, I was actually aiming for first-graders so I guess I overshot it a little hehe

Thanks again for taking the time to review my site! Reviews like yours have really helped me improve my site over the past couple of years.

Misao Says:
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:18 am
Nikki,

I am so glad that the review was of help. Bottled Sky is a wonderful site and I surely hope you keep it running as long as you can, because it is now on my ‘frequent’ list. =)

Take care and keep it up.