Information

Site: Ritzy
Type: Graphics/Resource
Owner: JennI
Reviewed By: Misao
Date Received: 03/02/08
Date Completed: 11/15/08
Preview

Presentation

The menu column seems uncoordinated. The menu headings and the links should share the same alignment style instead of having one centered and the other right aligned. The text size of the links are a size bigger than the regular text, which may also give visitors a sense of dis-coordination. The introduction is really lengthy and much of it isn’t required. Information such as when the site was created, previous versions, and current theme is extra. These information should be more appropriately placed in a ‘Site’ or ‘History’ page, or similar. All those contest buttons at the bottom of the page makes the layout and homepage look crowded. I would move these links to their own ‘Contest’ page/section.

The HTML is very disorganized and looks to be written by a newbie. The HTML is a mess. Sometimes there are quotations surrounding specifications, sometimes there aren’t. Some specifications are missing the equal sign. Extra table rows are used to display the empty space in-between rows, when it is much simpler to state margin widths. Layout images are retrieved from a series of accounts such as a subdomain account, PhotoBucket, etc. Useless comments. Lastly, Ritzy failed the HTML 4.0 transitional validation test.

The style sheet is just as disorganized and inconsistent.

• table {background-repeat: repeat; - There is no background specified. What are you repeating?
• color: #303030; - Double spacing following the colon.
• cursor: default; - The cursor is always set at default unless a cursor was specified prior to this specification.
• BORDER-left: #5ba596 6px solid; - Is there a reason why ‘border’ is in cap locks?
• font-weight: bolder; - This specification will make the text as bold as the normal bold weight, which in Ritzy’s case, is the same. So there is no need for this.

There are ways to simplify your coding to make it easier for you to monitor and edit. Here is one example for reference:

table {
font: 12px Arial;
color: #303030;
text-align: left;
}
.header {
font: 18px Times New Roman;
color: #0248a8;
text-align: left;
padding: 0 5px 0 0;
border-bottom: #5ab0c7 1px dotted;
}
.subnav {
font: 12px Verdana;
text-align: right;
width: 120px;
height: 16px;
margin: 1px;
padding: 2px 0 0 2px;
}

Content

Again, the introduction is too lengthy. Try rephrasing it along the lines of:

Welcome to Ritzy, a graphic website for icons. Ritzy officially opened its door on February 14, 2008, and is owned by Jenni. Feel free to browse around. You may leave comments, suggestions and even criticism using the comment function to each update entry. I hope you enjoy your stay and please visit my amazing affiliates on your way out.

You may want to redirect the contest links to a new window browser like you did for the host and sponsor links.

Site

Credits - Is this website owned by one individual or two? Because it appears that you cannot make up your mind about using singular or plural pronouns. “If I used something from your site, and didn’t link you on this page, please email us and we’ll put your link up ASAP!”

PhotoBucket does not fit under the Images/Pngs/Icon Bases category. You’re taking images or icon bases from PhotoBucket; you’re using the server for file hosting. Therefore, the link should be placed under a ‘Hosting’ category.

The links to Homicide, Delicate, FEEL, Fioley’s Resources, Fragile Decay, Kyuusho, Starwind Cafe Network, and Bliss are broken.

About - The About paragraph really irks me. Not only is it poorly written, it does nothing to tell visitors about the site. Try this:

Ritzy was officially opened on February 14, 2008. Ritzy is actually the re-make of Aurora Designs and Forbidden Wishes, both of which were graphic sites. I have kept the same focus with Ritzy with some minor changes; Ritzy is currently centered around icon and icon bases.

At the time I created Ritzy, my vocabulary wasn’t all that great, so I went through many pages of a dictionary for a meaningful word, good enough for a site title. Of course, I eventually came across Ritzy, which is a slang for luxurious or elegant. And, that is what I hope Ritzy will become, luxurious and elegant.

All the graphics at Ritzy are made by me, Jenni with the assistance of Ash in coding and miscellaneous duties. You may stumble on a few graphics that were retained from Aurora Designs.

Unless you’re going to write out your full email address as is, I suggest not displaying your email address at all. By submitting the @ symbol with [AT] is not going to prevent spam. As a matter of fact, spammers go for those who try so hard to hide their email address. I believe you meant to write ‘dessert’ instead of ‘desert’ of which the latter means a wide geographical area of only sand. The icon for Ash is broken, the link to Silver Bells is also broken, and other basic information is missing.

Affiliation - “Please read ALL the rules under the section you’re applying for. If you don’t read the rules, your application may be rejected. If you don’t receive a reply within two weeks, then most likely you were not accepted. If you were not accepted and want to receive a response saying so, please say so in the comments box. Good luck!”

The italics are corrections. I don’t understand why affiliation sites must have nice 100×100 icons, but then again, that’s completely personal preferences. Consider posting an online form on this page for a easier application process.

Awards/Gifts - I really dislike the setup for this page. The last you could do (in lieu of an image thumbnail) is provide the name of the gift, who you received it from, when it was received, and to whom/what it was sent to (i.e., Forbidden Wishes or Ritzy).

Linkage - I like your buttons although the text is hard to make out on some of them. There really is no need for a separate ‘The Buttons’ heading. It would look more organized and coherent if the buttons were displayed immediately following the linking blurb.

Reviews - Links to each previous review are working though you may want to consider copying the review to Ritzy if you have any response to make comments in each review.

TOU - Although it is common among the web graphic community what TOU stands for you, you may still want to spell it out in the navigation menu since the phrase isn’t all that long. Rule 5 is not a term of usage. It is more of a courtesy that visitors should respect when they visit the site in general. Rule 6 is a disclaimer and should be located elsewhere, perferably at the bottom of the website’s layout next to a copyright or on a separate disclaimer page. Rule 7 is gramatically incorrect.

Resources

Icons - I really like the icons. They are done beautifully although some of the icon bases look like they were skewered then cropped.

You want to consider including the page links at the top of the each above the icons in addition to the links at the bottom. Reverse the suggestion for icon bases, which apparently uses a different script so the links appear different.

A link back to the Terms will prompt visitors to read it if they haven’t already. You may also want to consider displaying icons in multiples of thre per page since each line can fit up to three icons, and 15 or 18 icons per page to prevent too much scrolling. Instead of reversing the page orders (starting at page 8 and previous), try starting at the top down (page 1 and next). It is a more logical order and creates less confusion.

A drop-down menu is much more efficient and easier to navigate for icon bases section. Remove She’s the Man as there are no icons in this category.

Artwork - This page needs to be named to Wallpaper. I was under the impression that it contact original fanarts or art drawings. You may also want to include information about the wallpaper size and offer more than one.

Request - This paragraph is all over the place and has no fluidity. Try the following:

Please read the Terms of Usage before making a request. I take requests for custom icons and anime/movie screenshots. Please refer to the lists below to see which titles are available for request. I will not take requests for any other titles. To make a request, please use the contact form below or leave a comment on my most recent update.

Note: Some of the titles may say ‘most of the series’. This is because I do not have the complete set but I will do the best I can.

Instead of listing each anime series twice, try shortening the list to:

Air - complete series, movie
Cardcaptor Sakura - both movies
Inuyasha - series (up to 75 and some others), Swords of an Honorable Ruler

Heart of Gree (Chinese) - complete series
Heavenly In-laws (Chinese) - complete series
New York Minute
She’s the Man

You may also want to edit the coding of the contact form table so that the background is transparent and so that the font colour and size is the same as the rest of the page.

Affiliates

The links to Kakumei Designs, A-Squared and Pizzazz are broken. The In-Depth doesn’t do a whole lot since the descriptions are more about the owner and your relationship with them. Whatever information you have on the site and the owner’s designing skills are too ambiguous. Many of the descriptions have grammar mistakes.

Final Statement

All in all, a very cute site. Ritzy offers quite a selection of nicely designed icons although the site lacks a bit in grammar and organizing. You may want to consider having a third party read over your content for errors and copy it into Microsoft Word for a quick spin through spell check.

Information

Site: Crescent Wings
Type: Graphics/Resource
Owner: Resha
Reviewed By: Misao
Date Received: 05/01/08
Date Completed: 09/19/08
Preview

Presentation

Although Crescent Wings has a wonderfully well-made layout, it lacks some fluidity. The space capacity isn’t put to a whole lot of use. For example, try removing all that space above the black horizontal brush separator, extending the length of the header/title background so that runs the full width of the content column, increasing the width of the chatbox so that it also runs the full width of the navigation column, move some of the navigation links from column 1 to column 2 to even the length of the columns, and display the most recent three updates on each page. I’ve made a screenshot to demonstrate some of these suggestions.

A few problems. Let’s start with the far left column. Your counter is not accurate. Because the counter is placed on every single page, every click I make to view a page adds one to the counter. Every time I refresh the window, the counter goes up by one. So you’re simply cheating your visitors by allowing them to think or giving them the false impression that Crescent Wings is actually a really popular site. I’ve estimated that from this review alone, I would have contributed approximately 40-50 to your counter, all from a single visit. Either find a better counter that only counts the first click per visit or only display the counter on the homepage and no where else.

There is inconsistent line breaks between each rotation button link. Some of the buttons break onto the next line when the cursor hovers over the buttons. Although the copyright symbol is used for the site copyright, it isn’t used for the brush credits, which should have used the copyright symbol as well. You need to be consistent.

Now to the second column. Why are all the webpage review links text links except for Devious Reviews? Again keep things consistent. The ‘Submit Graphics’ link should be moved up and below ‘Terms of Use’. Links that are alike should always be grouped together. It should be “Pre-made Layouts”. Pre, which is a prefix, is defined as: earlier, before, prior to; preparatory, preliminary; in advance; or in front of. “Before-layout” is not a word.

Terms of Use
Submit Graphics

Premade Layouts
PNGs
Avatars
Forum Sets
Wallpapers
Abstracts

The skin links should be displayed at the top of this column and not halfway down. It makes more sense to allow your visitors to know that there are more than one skin to choose from, and that choice should be given upon entering the site. The text Crystal Phoenix Design breaks onto the next line overlapping the next sibling link. Tomorrow’s Deception also breaks onto two lines. The right padding to this entire column is inconsistent with the left padding.

Finally, the main content column. There is no need to provide a forum link in the introduction because directly below is a huge graphic link to the forum. There is no need to double link, and the graphic link already overshadowed the text link. Since there is so much empty space in this column, it wouldn’t hurt to include more than one update entry on the homepage. Let’s say about three or four. By having more than one, it allows your visitors to track when and often you update. The comments form (to each update) should be left aligned to match the rest of the page’s format/setup. It will allow the entire ‘remember me/forget me’ link to appear together in one line. Remove the title heading to each comment since it is not being used or replace the —- with the poster’s name and date.

The style sheet looks good other than the fact that scrollbar colours only work in IE and not with Firefox, and the content could be simplified. And again, be consistent. Do not use caplocks in one line and lowercase in the next.

body {
background: #000000 url(bg.png) repeat-y;
font: 11px verdana;
color: #FFFFFF;
}
.border {
border: 1px dotted #348324;
padding: 3px;
background: #f4cdb3;
}
.header {
background: url(header.gif) no-repeat;
height: 20px;
padding: 0 3px 0 5px;
font: bold 10px verdana;
color: #882a05;
text-align: left;
text-transform: uppercase;
}
a.nav:hover {
background: #9f4005;
padding: 0 0 0 5px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #ffffff;
height: 15px;
display: block;
font: bold 11px verdana;
color: #decaa0;
text-align: left;
letter-spacing: 1px;
}

The proper way to define nothing that would otherwise be defined in numeric value is 0, not none. HTML wise, some tags included quotations while others didn’t. For example: <a target="_self" href="domain.php?x=hostess" class=nav1>. The use of quotations is recommended, and is good practice especially when you run into extremely long strings. Some links had the target="_self" tag while some links didn’t; in general, it isn’t required. The remainder of the code looks good although it is really confusing to look at, much less to edit. I suggest reading up on various tutorials on using tables to format your layouts rather than divider layers in absolute positions. The table format would probably reduce the coding by a quarter, and the coding would be more organized and easier to edit.

The organization for layout version 8.2 is a little better, but for the most part, the same mistakes are being made. The skin options should be up at the top of the navigation column, not at the bottom. The information beneath the counter should be centered. The ‘Submit Graphics’ links is missing. Your visitors will not be able to read the individual section titles if you used white text on a white background. Go for the violet background colour (used in the navigation column) as the text colour. Webpage review links are missing. Contest winners announcement should be placed in the navigation column instead of in the main content/update area. The welcome heading background and content does not stretch to the full width of the section. There is approximately five more pixels to the right that is not being put to good use. The credits should be placed in the footer or at the bottom of the navigation column. Brush credits are missing from this skin, while the link to the host and skin script are missing from version 8.1. Click here to see what I would have done.

Content

Even though I am attracted to the site by the layout, I am not so sure after reading the introduction. The introduction paragraph is not fluid, ideas are all over the place, and some of the content and sentences doesn’t make sense. For example, you did not design this website for anime and celebrity; it is an anime and celebrity website. Try re-organizing the paragraph to something like this:

“Crescent-Wings.NET is an anime and celebrity graphics and resource website owned by Resha. CW.net opened on March 10, 2008, and has been growing steadily. CW.net offers a variety of graphics such as pre-made layouts, wallpapers, avatars and more, and resources such as graphic and web design tutorials. Please do not forget to sign the Guestbook or leave a message on the tagboard. We love to hear your opinions, comments, suggestions and feedback regarding Crescent-Wings.NET. Enjoy your stay.”

The following links need to be updated:

• Rotations - Not Caramello Exchange, Gemini Moon, Not Twilight Exchange
• Rotations - The Chika icon and Dark Mousy button are missing links.
• Contest Winners - Kathy, Michelle
• Siblings - Glam Ladies, InuPuppy Chow
• Affiliates - Angelic Serenity

Some of these links opened in new window browsers while some opened in the same window browser. Check the target values.

Domain

About Domain - There is no need to separate About Crescent-Wings.net from History. It coincides with each other, so move the sentence about where the domain was bought to appear after the history paragraph. Again, ideas are all over the place. Compare the following paragraph to the one provided at the site.

Crescent-Wings.net was purchased in October 2007 but the actual website was not launched until early 2008. Though Xanvas and Resha’s blog were already open by November 2007. (We’re talking about the graphic site here, who cares about your blogs? It is irrelevant.) Crescent-Wings.net is a joint project between Resha, also known as Dark Princess, and Xanvas. It took Resha a lot nagging at Xanvas before Xanvas agreed to purchase the domain from Bluehost.com.

The little snippet about Resha’s previous website belongs to the staff profile page, not the site’s history.

Hosting - From this point forward, I will only be commenting on the content and minor spelling mistakes. The entire site is ridiculed with poor elementary writing skills that would require too much time to edit, and that is not within my responsibilities. Rule #9 is a repeat and contradicts rule #5. Rules #16 is more or less a repeat of rule #3. If a hostee is accepted, s/he is not getting a friend, but two friends, Resha and Xanvas. Try to speak in the third persona in case visitors don’t know who is ‘me’. The link to the hosting application form should be at the bottom of the page after the information about accepted sites and what is offered in the hosting package. There are no problems with the form; it looks great.

Hostesses - You are the hostess, your website is the host and these people who applied for hosting are your hostees. This is common knowledge among web designers. “Apart of Crescent Wings” mean that Problem Corner is separate from CW.net but, on the other hand, “a part of Crescent Wings” mean that Problem Corner is a section of CW.net. Be careful with your wording as a simple word can create a different meaning from what is intended.

Site Reviews - Both internal and external links are working. I honestly don’t know why you applied for a review at Sweet Emotion. What I am reading is not considered a review. It is a brief summary of your layout and nothing else, which is useless and pointless. I hope you’ll be able to grasp more from this review.

Past Layouts - I would have been nice if additional information are provided for each archived layout and the layout could be viewed in full size. Additional information include: name of layout, type of layout, date/duration during its usage, and designer.

Contact Page - The form looks organized although the input and textarea fields are not aligned properly to the right. Specifying the same input size so that it aligns correctly makes the whole page look more organized. For example, check out this form.

Neither the forum or guestbook was reviewed.

Site

Admin - Do not include this link in the main navigation field. It is stupid for your visitors to click on this link and be brought to internal site login pages. Now hackers know where the login pages are and will have an easier time trying to hack in. These pages should be bookmarked in your browser.

FAQ - You are one person, a ‘webmistress’ and ‘web designer’. Web designers is plural and used when the referred subject/noun is more than one. Question 3 should be linked to the About Domain page if you plan to provide an explanation on how you came up with the website’s name. Question 4 should be linked to the Hosting page.

It appears that many people no longer understand what ‘frequently’ means. Frequently asked questions are questions that are asked more often than others such as question 1, 4, 5, 9, 11, 12, etc. It is provided on the site to provide answers before the question is asked by the next visitor. If the question is not there, then the visitor may email the webmistress. However, I highly doubt question 16 is a frequently asked question. Just because a question was asked once, it doesn’t warrant itself as a ‘frequently’ asked question and should not be posted on this page.

Staff - Text size and colour was not specified for the table holding the basic stats of each staff member, so the text is big and white. If Resha is going to be attending University, I assume she has to be at least 17 or 18 years old? If she is, that is a shock to me. I have deduced from the quality of the writing that this website was created by a girl between 11 and 14 years old. I sure hope you brush up on your writing skills soon because you won’t survive in University with such poor skills. Resha’s last three avatars will not load. Check the URL. Information is missing from x7, Hikari, Hoshiko, and Usagi’s profile pages. These two pages should be completed as soon as possible. I am also surprised at Kit’s poor writing skills as well, considering she is in her last year of University “Patience is thy key”.

Thanks Page - I certainly like your thanks graphics but again, you didn’t earn each one of those hits legitimately. They were earned through cheating. I don’t agree with that.

Hall of Fame - What is so special about this page that it warrants a custom-made banner graphic when the others page don’t? I don’t think the banner is required. A link to the previous Angelic Contest would be helpful for new visitors to know why those winners won and how did they win. If it was a graphic contest, as a visitor, I enjoy looking through archived contest entries. The same goes for the Guess the Character challenges. The links to Kathy, Michelle (Angelic Contest Winners) and Artistic Desire (Guess 02: Sohma Yuki) are broken.

Contests Joined - This section only makes sense if you link to the actual contest page versus the main homepage. Some of the ‘current contests’ are a little outdated and need to be moved to past contests. The links to Faded Designs’ SOTM contest, Eternal-Cloud’s SOTM contest, and the photobucket image URL for Animeahare’s SOTM contest are broken.

Awards/Gifts - For the most part, this page is very organized. However, I don’t understand why there are a few larger award graphics that were displayed on the page while all others were linked by text. The links to All Around Site Award and Neverending Anime’s Participation Awards did not open in a new window browser like the other award links. The links to Kakumei Designs, Hyuu Designs, Otaku Tenshi, and Artistic Desire are broken. The link to No Such Thing’s Participation Award is broken, and the info is missing the date. The Summer Gift received from Shadow Fire is missing a link and the date.

Credits - This page is so confusing. I can’t figure out if this page is a credits page or a links page. I suggest using this page solely for credit links and have them separated by categories. Links exchanges, loved, listed at, and links should appear on a separate ‘links’ page separated into the four categories. It’ll look more organized since right now line breaks are also distributed unevenly all over the page.

• CSS editor, graphic editor and browser credits fall under Programs.
• Not linked correctly/Broken links: Coffeecup FTP, Microsoft FrontPage 2003, Aethereality (Images), AnimePaper, Endless-Rain.org, Potaato.org, Plugboard, Beloved Melody, Cutenews Tutorials, Saraphin
• Linked twice under same category: Cutenews (Programs)
• Links without new browser tag: Animeshare (Tutorials), Necades.com, Phong.com, Photoshopcafe, Blinding-light, Inobscuro.com, Oxoniensis-art.net, Potaato.org, Hybrid Genesis, Reminiscent Designs, Animeshare (Fonts)

I also noticed that links are not in any particular order, and some are repetitive due (ie. Aethereality and Animeshare) because of its overlap in images, brushes, and tutorials. I suggest listed all links other than Scripts and Programs, under a general heading in alphabetical order.

For Link Exchanges, choose either graphic linkage or text linkage; do not do both. It looks messy, unprofessional, and is waste of space. Linkage was very inconsistent. A little more than half the links opened in a new window browser while the rest of the links opened in the same window. Make sure you check these links regularly as many sites have either moved or are closed (there are seven). Quintessence was linked incorrectly.

The Loved and Links pages either do not exist or are linked incorrectly, which happens to be a hobby of yours. The Listed At page looks great and the links work properly. This is what the Link Exchanges page should look like.

Link In - Very pretty linkware graphics. Three problems: 1) the page does not provide an URL for visitors to link back to, 2) the link to Michelle is broken, and 3) the 468×60 banners are obviously wider than the page. I suggest displaying a small thumbnail version on this page, linked to the original file.

Link Out - See suggestions and errors under ‘Credits’.

Interactive

Plugboard - I don’t see a use for this page since there are already five different types of links pages in the last section. The first link and button image is broken. The last link was moved.

Guess the Anime - This is a cute section although I don’t find it particularly challenging (since I am familiar with the anime series). The form needs a little bit of re-coding. Not all the cells specified a (correct) text colour and size.

Guess the Character - Comments are the same as Guess the Anime.

Tutorials

HTML - The thumbnail images should be removed since it serves no purpose. Instead, link the tutorials to the tutorial title. The HTML Basics is not even a tutorial. Had I been a beginner, the only thing I would have learned from this “tutorial” is the name of a few programs that are most often used for HTML coding. The beginnings of a proper HTML source is provided with no explanation so I wouldn’t have been able to deduce what it means. Not to mention, the basics only included the beginning three lines and nothing else. This “tutorial” should be renamed to “HTML opening tags”. Refer to this article at EchoEcho for a proper way to write a tutorial on HTML Basics.

The link to the tutorial on Drop-Down Menu is not working properly. The tutorial on Email Form is plagiarism. You’re not providing a proper HTML coding that uses the host’s server to send emails, but rather Freedback’s free coding. This needs to be removed immediately. You need to provide an example of how the toolbar will look like if visitors decide to try out your code for an embedded music file. There is also a table cell tag that was not properly closed following the tutorial, and there are two different font sizes used in this tutorial. As for the Pop-Up tutorial, an explanation for all the other options other than the window sizes needs to be provided. In addition, the pop-up example needs to be updated as the link is broken.

Adobe Photoshop - The same comment about the thumbnail image applies here. If you are really persistent about a thumbnail image, I suggest a thumbnail preview of the tutorial’s finished product. The alignment on each page needs to be corrected, specifically the left margin. I don’t understand the Blending Images tutorial. It is confusing and I can’t figure out whether the tutorial is trying to teach me how to blend images or to extract the image from its natural background. The only image helper provided only added to the confusion. I suggest providing image helpers to each step to prevent confusion. Present Manager is spelt incorrectly in the Install Brushes tutorial; should be Preset Manager. The links to How to Install Patterns and How to make Brushes and Patterns are swapped around.

PHP - The link to the PHP Introduction tutorial does not work. The How to Convert HTML to PHP tutorial is misleading. I figure it would include the whole works on how to divide a HTML source into pieces/sections, convert them each into PHP files, and how to piece them back together as webpage by PHP include. People generally don’t need a tutorial content to teach them what type of file extension to use to save a file. The PHP Include tutorial is not linked. If this page is not up and running, remove the link. The same comment about the thumbnail images also applies here.

Miscellaneous - The How to Install Fonts tutorial is such as useless here. Typically, websites like Free Fonts and DaFont have instructions on how to install the fonts. In addition, your method of saving fonts is tedious. Why not just extract the .ttf file in the Fonts folder to begin with to save the extra hassle of four additional steps?

Reviews

For a second, I wasn’t too sure if this section was about reviews Crescent Wings has received or anime reviews. To prevent confusion, please rename the section as Anime Reviews or rather Anime Synopsis since the description provided on each page is more or less a very brief summary of the series, and nothing review like. A review typically has more basic information (i.e. genre, producer, # of episode, release date, Japanese title (if applicable), rating) and a critical analysis of the series in general. Click here for an example. The image are also too big and does not depict the main characters and genre of the anime. The submission page also needs some work, since the entire page of five sentences is ridiculed with grammar errors and a spelling error.

Misc

Downloads - Since these Fonts are available at legitimate free font sites and elsewhere, what is the point of coming here to download them? It makes more sense to download them from the legitimate websites where there is less chance of me getting a computer virus. It is nice that credit is given where due but I find it useless to offer common fonts that are available everywhere else. You may want to add a line break following the download link and statistic to help visitors distinguish if which font the download link applies to (currently, it looks as though the download link is for the font previewed below it).

I am not too fond of MP3 Rotation either since these files can be found most anywhere, and there is no guarantee that you will update them once a week or monthly (which is it?) or that the listener will follow your instructions to delete after 24 hours and purchase the legitimate copy.

The Programs/Scripts page is also just as useless. These programs are easily downloadable from the original website. By zipping the files and offering them for free download at your site (whether the program is freeware or otherwise) is prohibited by copyright laws. You should definitely check into that or you may get yourself some civil lawsuits if they feel up to it. The link to EasyPHP is not working. The description for MidConverter does not tell me what type of files I can convert my MIDI’s to. The sentence in the introduction does not make sense. At all.

Make sure that the title on the PHP Scripts page reflects PHP Scripts and not just ‘Scripts’. I like this page much more because it follows the correct credit system. However, some descriptions are missing. For example, you use Family Tree for your family (collective?) site but what exactly is it? There is no description for Page Password Protector. There is a spelling mistake in the description for Simple Machine Forum.

Readings - This entire section needs to be removed, for three reasons. 1) You should not be writing articles and giving your opinions to others when you’re not doing what you’re preaching. You advise that people should have their website at 90% completion before opening it and should not have any broken links, yet this site has tons of broken links, both internal and external links. You advise that layouts should be easy to follow and user-friendly yet yours is not as user-friendly as you think and there is way too much scrolling. 2) The articles and tutorials are ridiculed with spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. Do you honestly think your readers will take you seriously if you can’t even put your thoughts in a coherent order and spell properly? I highly doubt it. For instance, “Is the pages consistent?” “Is there any contents?” The word ‘is’ is singular yet the subject is provided in its plural form. 3) Three of the five articles were taken from other websites. That is plagiarism and is subject to a civil lawsuit. And there is no need to come to your website to read them when again, they are available at the original location.

You need to include a brief sentence on the Color Dreams page about the validity of these statements as they may not be true at all times, and are meant solely for amusement/entertainment. In addition, your perception of color is a little off. The cloud color for ‘beige’ is actually light grey, the cloud color for ‘brown’ is khaki (a cross between beige and light brown), and the style and font size of the colour word in each bubble/cloud is inconsistent, which contradicts what is being conveyed in the previous article.

“Click the name color to get a read on that particular color.” There are so many problems with this sentence that I don’t know where to start. To make it simpler, replace it with “Click on the name of your favourite colour to learn your personality.” Blue-Green does not expand. The link provided at the bottom of the page needs to be coded without the heading background.

You forgot to mention in the How to Get More Hits article that you can play cheater by displaying your counter on every single page of the website as Crescent Wings has done. The link to Pisces on the Horoscope article is broken because both the horoscope name on the page and in the link are spelled wrong.

Poetry - I am not much of a poetic person either so I can’t comment on your poems. However, you may want to check the coding on each page as a portion of each poem is indented, the font colour for Life is white instead of black, and most important peotries is spelled wrong. The ‘e’ and ‘o’ are reversed, and the word ‘poetry’ is both singular and plural.

Designs

Terms of Use - The alignment for the bullet list needs to be corrected and the terms needs to be checked over for grammar mistakes, otherwise they are pretty straight-forward.

Pre-Layouts - See above for comments on title. I thought the whole point of a graphic/resource site was for the webmaster to provide graphics that he/she has designed. I don’t understand why this section is a collection of layouts made by anyone and everyone. It doesn’t have consistency. I may like a particular style that was created by a fan, but there is information on the artist other than a name such as an email address or site URL to help me get in contact. A graphic site should be known for its type and style of graphics, yet Crescent Wings is going to have a hard time trying to build a reputation this way. I am going to assume that newest layouts are displayed up top in descending order. You may want to make a note of this on the page for visitors.

I did not review each layout extensively but I have compiled a list of general comments:

• #29 - The link to the pop-up window (of actual layout) is broken.
• #25 - The header is not aligned with the margins of the main/content background.
• #21 - The entire layout is misaligned.
• #18 - The ‘enter?’ text is not linked (remove if you do not plan on linking this).
• #17 - The ‘enter?’ text is not linked (remove if you do not plan on linking this). The navigation links are misaligned.
• #11 - The left margin of the bullet listing needs to be corrected.
• #1 - You should specify some padding in the table cells so that text and images are not jumbled right next to the cell border.

On a general note, you (and have your fan submissions) may want to consider using high quality scans for layouts that encompass a larger workspace. Stretching small and low quality images will only make the layout look worse (quality-wise) because it becomes grainy and blurry.

PNGs - Crescent Wings would be my last choice for transparent PNGs for three reasons. 1) The images are small such as #26. How would I be able to use the images if I was to make a 1600×1200 wallpaper? 2) The images are not of high quality scans such as #23. Look at the girl’s knees. There are dots/splotches on her kneecaps and dots/splotches on the guy’s sweater near his waist. 3) The extractions are poorly done such as #27. Look at the edges; they’re choppy, undefined, and the overall quality is bad. Don’t use the excuse that the original image is suppose to represent a sketch, because it doesn’t explain why the pixel border over her visor is missing, the bottom piece of her foot is missing, the ribbon is abruptly cut off on the left, the border around her fist is really choppy (un-sketch-like), the border around the frills in her top on the left is also choppy, and there is a black dot against the white background in the area after the ribbon and her shoes meet. The link to #24 is broken, and the previews also do not capture the gist of the whole image.

Avatars - You need to distinguish that the anime series pages contain 50×50 avatars. To prevent duplicating avatars, I would, 1) separate the pages according to artists and then separate each artist page by headings to indicate either size or series; or 2) separate the pages according to sizes but display the avatars in a table format so that additional information about the avatar (series, character, artist) can be provided below. For general pages like celebrities, others, and 60×160, include a title="___" tag to provide information about the avatar such as series or celebrity name.

Forum Sets - When I read Forum Sets, I expected layouts for forums. Then I thought maybe a set like avatar and signature. Boy, am I wrong. Make sure you specify what forum sets really are, else stick all these in pages like signatures, banners, splash images, or miscellaneous signs.

Wallpapers - Why are these files zipped? Honestly, all you need to do is link the actual image file (whether it be .jpg, .gif or .png) to a new window browser, and instruct visitors to right click on the image and scroll down to ’set as wallpaper’. You zip the files to make the downloading process so complicated but there are no instructions on what to do after the file finished downloading. The quality of some of these wallpapers are not up to par to be wallpapers. They’re grainy, blurry and choppy around the edges. However, I like the backgrounds to the wallpapers. They provide nice solid bases. The three wallpapers have broken links for both resolutions:#35, #34, #23, and #4 (1024×768).

Abstracts - The only abstract provided is very nice. I like the style and texture. Is there a title for this like you have for the layouts and wallpapers?

Submit Graphics - “Designs aka Layouts”? Designs refer to everything, not just layouts. Check the Online Webster dictionary if you are unclear. The rest of the page is disorganized and incoherent. This page needs to be re-written so that, 1) the message being conveyed is done in an organized manner, 2) the message is clear of misspellings and grammar mistakes, and 3) rules pertaining to each type of graphic is separate from general instructions on how to submit graphics such as rules as to where to email and what to include in the email.

Request

Information - The page title is misleading. I was thinking that the page will contain a form where visitors can request for information. Perhaps you should rename the page to ‘Graphics Request’ and move that under the Designs section. The rules (or information) on this page needs to be re-written. Again, it is ridiculed with grammar mistakes and is incoherent. A link should be provided at the bottom of this page to the form. It is stupid and tedious to ask your visitors to scroll down the long site layout to find the proper link in the navigation menu for the form.

Form - What happens if the form doesn’t work? You should provide information on alternative ways to contact you in case the form fails. You may also want to explain which information is mandatory and what the asterisk represent. A form similar to this one should be provided for Submit Graphics.

Final Statement

To be frank, this graphic/resource site is one of the worst I have seen. There is a lack of coherency, consistency and style. The site has poor organization, poor grammar and poor spelling. The graphics are mediocre though tipping on the poor side, and the resources are nil. The only thing that I would be able to walk away from the site with is a few interactive activities that may keep me occupied for a few minutes, and avatars. You should take your own advise to heart (Checklist for Structure and Layout). Put the site on hiatus and do a revamp. Otherwise, at the rate you’re going, Crescent Wings won’t sustain very long.

Information

Site: Halftone
Type: Personal
Owner: Tina
Reviewed By: Misao
Date Received: 02/10/08
Date Completed: 06/16/08
Preview

Presentation

The purpose of a splash page is to introduce visitors to the website, and to warn visitors of required scripts to view the site properly or of inappropriate content. It is suppose to build a sense of anticipation in the visitor. The feel of this splash page is nowhere near anticipation. I feel discouraged for a lack of a better word. Let’s start top to bottom.

The website logo/splash image is very well designed. The sketch of the girl is very beautiful and the choice of font type is passable, but the font type of the subtitle looks too messy. The R’s look too much like B’s. Maybe merge the original layers together and use a small brush to erase the black smudges at the bottom center of the letter.

Normally, the splash image would be linked to the homepage. For obvious reasons. If it isn’t, an ‘enter’ link should be visible and displayed in a way to accentuate the splash page. However, in this page, it is all wrong. The size of the link is very small. The text decoration (underline) does not accentuate the style and decoration of the text in the splash image. Not to mention, there is no line break between the link and the site meter button. It is barely visible.

Then there’s the site meter button. Most people display not the site’s link ware button, but the counter which links back to the site. As a visitor and as the web owner, I would believe you are most interested in learning how many people have visited the site by having a counter provided on this page, and not a link to promote the site where you got the counter from. The Mozilla button is also unnecessary. Mozilla Firefox is a very popular Internet browser in and by itself. There is no need for you to advertise for them, unless there is a script or some sort of coding on the site that is not visible in any other browser (which is not the case as most, if not all, Java scripts and HTML coding are visible across Firefox and IE browsers; though it may differ on the coding diction).

The Rings and Cliques link is useless because it takes visitors away from your site to a page where there is nothing listed under Webrings and one broken link. The link to International Artists Day should have been linked to a new window since it is a promotion of an external event. The same rule applies to all remaining links, which shouldn’t be on the splash image anyways. They belong on a separate page titled ‘Resources’ or ‘Events’ or ‘Sponsors’ or ‘Links’. Because as it stands right now, I don’t know whether conclude the site as a personal website or a personal advertisement page.

The main layout looks better but it isn’t at 100%. The whole scrapbook/sketchbook idea and pencils is great but space was not utilized at full capacity. There is too much leftover space to the right of the navigation links. Consider moving the links to the right by about 20 pixels to make the left and right space margins somewhat symmetrical. Then consider adding another 10 pixels of space between the two columns of links so there is more space to separate ‘Autographs’ and ‘Hire . Request’. There is also a lot of extra space between the left portion of the layout and the top of the update layer. Consider moving the update layer up about 20 pixels to fill up the space gap.

There is a huge gap after the little snippet about the web owner (where ‘rocker’ appeared twice) and between the mailing list table and guestmap button. In contrast, there isn’t any spacing at all after the ‘latest art’ heading and ‘autograph’ heading. You may want to play around with that. There’s too many “things” in the right column and it is in no particular order at all. It looks so disorganized. The home page is a place to for updates and to give visitors a preview of the site’s content such as example works, latest additions, mailings lists, counters, tagboards, etc. Therefore, the For Sale!, Autograph, and Site Stuff is not necessary. They should be placed in the artwork, autograph and sitely sections respectively. The two or three latest art pieces should be sufficient and each should have its own line space for maximum visibility. The width of the border should be thinner if using a dark border colour or keeping its current width if using white as the border colour. Either way, make sure border styling is consistent throughout for all images.

Next in the column should be Upcoming. Again, each preview should be displayed on a line by itself for maximum visibility. Then followed by the Mailing List table. However, the background colour should be removed, the mailing list heading should be larger and follow the same heading format as the others, and text should be centered (again to coordinate with the rest). Next should be the Greeting Card table with its background removed, table width resized, change of text colour, and heading modified to coordinate with the other heading style. The guestmap button can appear directly below followed by the W3C button. Click here to see the more organized version of the homepage.

One thing I don’t get is the link to Firefox. I am assuming that Halftone can only be viewed properly in Firefox and that is why the browser’s link was provided on the splash page. But organization is completely all over the place in Firefox. Again, padding/margin is all over the place. The text does not align with the headings in the right column. The bottom border does not run the full length of the heading width. This is what I see. Red marks the spots.

The HTML is a mess though I have seen worst. Let’s start with the style sheet. There is such a thing called external style sheet where all coding within the <style type="text/css"> and </style> can be transferred to a separate file with a .css file extension. It makes editing much easier, simpler and more organized, as well as reducing the length of the page source. Replace the ALT="** PLEASE DESCRIBE THIS IMAGE **" tag with alt="" unless you want the message ** PLEASE DESCRIBE THIS IMAGE ** to appear in IE every time the mouse hovers over the image. It doesn’t look very attractive. Background image specification in the body tag can be removed since it is already provided in the style sheet.

Since a W3C link was provided, I tried to validate the website but it failed miserably. I am not going to go into every single detail error since Markup Validation Service does the same.

The style sheet was a bitch to read and separate. Have you not heard of line breaks? Separate the specifications by sections and by each attribute. For example:

body {
background-image: url(hg_patrnset02_21b.jpg);
color: #6C6A6A;
}
:link {
color: #5B5B5B;
}
div.c36 {
position: absolute;
left: 10px;
top: 495px;
width: 500px;
height:10px;
}

Notice the ease of the above coding style versus the one found on the site? There is no need to provide a z-index unless you are coding a layout where parts of the layout is transparent and you want text to be visible underneath the transparent areas. If you have no clue what this means, then you obviously don’t know how it is used and don’t need it. The rest of the coding looks great although again, like the page source, it failed validation. The most prevalent error is that the file within the brackets of the background-image specification cannot contain brackets.

I also don’t understand the use of internal frames to style this type of a layout. An internal frame is usually used where long content need to be fitted into a small box (i.e. Click here). In your case, the internal frame is not needed because the layout is structured as a header and unconstricted and unlimited space for text.

Content

Before I proceed to the site’s content, I’m going to comment on the updates organization. It is too lengthy. It is June. Do you think people really care or will read what you’ve added to the site in March? The answer is most likely no. Unless March was the last time you’ve made an update, which isn’t the case. Why would a person need to display the most recent 8 updates on the main page is something I don’t understand and think is unnecessary. The most recent 3 entries is sufficient. Keep within the time window small.

Artist

Where is the page title? Is it Artist or Favourites? Make sure to include the page title first at the top of the page, and then smaller headings for the page’s content. Line break is required after the Favourite Movies line and after My Fave CDs heading. The left and right alignment on this page’s content is completely skewered compared to the homepage. I see that consistency and coding is going to a problem. I learned a great deal about you from this page although your thoughts and ideas jump all over the place. First about selling your art to favourite movies then back to selling art. I am also developing a splitting headache from the sight of a grammar error in every single sentence, literally. I am surprised at your poor writing skills considering your age. Because I am so irritated at your poor writing skills, I have rewritten this entire page for you. Pay close attention to the changes.

I have been drawing for as long as I can remember, since grade school. Art runs in my family. My dad is an artist, my aunt is also an artist, and my grandpa is a photographer. The first piece I did was a portrait. I don’t know where it is but I am in the process of looking for it. Since that first portrait, I have been working hard perfecting my art skills. I have always been open to honest criticism so long as the criticizer refrains from being a jerk. Though I prefer graphite, I do occasionally practice in colour, and I work best with photo reference.

I took about four to five art classes when I was in school. All the classes were taught by the same teacher. I took three of those classes during my last year (of high school?) and received high marks. My art teacher admired my art more than that of my classmates because I was the only one who didn’t do anime, which for whatever reasons, he didn’t like.

I can draw almost anywhere with my sketchbook. I take it with me everywhere: on the bus, to family reunions, at restaurants–and it is always a conversation starter. I even take my sketchbook with me to the sets of my favorite series, Supernatural. I work on sketches while watching the cast film all day. My art generated a buzz with the crew, and I often have people approaching me for a glimpse in my work. This one time, after the filming was done for the day and the crew were on its way to an interview, both Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki stopped by the fan crowd to chat. I have both their signature on one of my art sketches of [insert].

Most of the pieces in my gallery at the moment are fandoms: artwork of random things and people that catches my mind. That is how I have always been. But, I am open to try other subjects. One of the many terms used to describe my gallery was “walking through a scrapbook, and each of it’s pages tell you something different.” I must say I really like that comment.

I love fantasy and sci-fi. I go nuts over well-made fantasy and sci-fi movies, and also over those with poor storylines. Because of my obsession with anything fantasy and sci-fic, I don’t have a static favourite movie; it changes all the time. My current favourite is the Potter series. I love how Rowling create simple answers out of highly complicated scenarios/problems. **Reviewer comment: the movies are adaptations of Rowling’s original work so the movie may not run true to the novel.** She has great love for her large fanbase, which encompasses people from different groups. I am also a current fan of Lemony Snicket because of his odd and unique style.

There are many artists that I admire, and I have a hard time naming a few. However, if there is one person whom I admire most is Katerina, who helped me start the notion of selling of my works and finishing this website.

Believe it or not, I have recently decided to sell my art because I got tired of wasting my time looking for a corporate job behind the cash machines. None of the places I have applied to for the past three years have gotten back to me. So now I am taking my future into my own hands by pursuing something I do best and enjoy most, drawing. I have been known to draw for family and friends as a replacement for Christmas or birthday gifts. I have always taken commissions works at every opportunity. I make all my layouts myself in Photoshop and write the codes in **Insert program**

Journal

This section was not reviewed as it is a separate blogging website. I suggest making a note either in a title tag or as a footnote that this link is not exactly part of the site.

Artwork

The text in this section is different from the other pages. The text is Times New Roman, the font size is a size smaller and the italics makes it harder to read (though not all the description are italicized). There is no alignment at all. Since a two-column table is used to organize this page, I suggest adding a valign="top" tag to the right column so that the title of the page (artwork type) is aligned with the top margin of the thumbnail image, and make sure the width of the table is set to 100%. The page looks rather stupid at the moment with so much extra space to the left and right. There is also no sense of organization in the display of links. Normally the ‘Misc’ link is displayed last in a list because it is the one that doesn’t fit anywhere else.

Commission - These art pieces are wonderfully drawn. It is absolutely beautiful although Melanie’s uncle looks like his left shoulder was abruptly cut off. Aside from a description of who the work was commissioned, consider adding a few more details such as the date it was commissioned, how long it took to complete the assignment, the date it was completed, actual size of the work, and maybe an appropriate cost as a reference for potential customers. There was no description for the sketches of the little girl and the women (and why there are seven sketches of her).

Page wise, there is no organization again. There is an extra line break after “Demetre” that wasn’t applied to the other titles. The seven previews of Ms. Mysterious Lady and Ms. Mysterious Baby is not aligned to the left with the rest of the content, and there is no space break separating these previews from the detailed previews of Demetre’s flower.

Misc - The description for this section needs to be reworded. The two part of the sentene is the same thing, just worded differently. “These drawings don’t belong to any category” is more accurate. Descriptions about each drawing, when they were drawn, why they were drawn, using what mediums, etc. would be helpful to visitors.

Gifts/Music/Movies/Misc TV/Actors & Actresses - These are very nice pieces. Excellent work. I did notice that the sketch of The Phoenix from X-Men looks a little old. I’ve seen the movie so I know that when Jean came back as The Phoenix, she wasn’t doing so well appearance-wise. She looked drained and exhausted and frustrated and all else (evident by the visible veins and wrinkles on her face and neck). However, your sketch of Jean makes her look more like a 60-year-old granny.

Otherwise, the same comment about including a description and other information also applies to this section.

Heroes - The description next to the link is awkward. It isn’t fluid. Try rewording it to: “This addictive drama delves into the lives of ordinary people, from all over the world, whose lives become interlinked when they gain superpowers. The series is on its second season, and airs on NBC & Global (USA/Canada) on Mondays at 8/9C.” So is it 8 o’clock central or 9 o’clock central?

The description on the actual art page is also awkward. Try: “This addictive drama delves into the lives of ordinary people, from all over the world, who gain superpowers. These heroes include a young dreamer who believes he can fly, a high school cheerleader who is indestructible, a heroin-addicted artist who can paint the future, a psycho killer that eat human brains and absorb the powers of those he attacks, telekinetic’s, telekinesis’, a Japanese time traveler, a telekinetic cop, a politician (that can fly) whose brother can absorb the powers of those around him, and the list goes on. Each of these lives become interlinked as a result of their superpowers.” This newly written paragraph has no spelling errors. The original paragraph has six spelling mistakes; one of them a capitalization error.

Smallville - “Depicting the young life of Clark Kent before he becomes everybody’s favorite Kryptonian hero. Smallville is currently on its seventh season on CW (USA) on Thursdays at 7/8C.” The words in italics are corrections. The bold styling in the main description should be removed. It doesn’t follow the same format as the other pages and isn’t necessary.

Smallville follows the story of farm boy Clark Kent before he makes his transformation to Superman (**Reviewer’s comment**: the Man of Steel is actually Iron Man, not Superman). The series tells the life story of Clark from the time he is a little boy to when he is all grown up, through the struggle of him getting his powers to him meeting various people like Lex, Oliver Queen, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and many other important characters. While the series is unique in its own, it retains the old Superman story we all know and love.

The information about when the show is aired differs from this page to the section’s parent directory.

Supernatural - “Follows the lives of the Winchester family, who become emotionally tormented by a demon, after it killed their mother. The brothers Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) are on a mission to track down this demon. Along the way, they fight off every evil supernatural urban legend and discovers how they are interlinked with the demon. Supernatural airs on CW (US) on Thursdays at 8/9C.”

“Starring Jensen Ackles (Dean) and Jared Padalecki (Sam) as the Winchester Brothers. The brothers travel the country in their ‘67 Chevy Impala on a mission to hunt down the yellow-eyed demon that mysteriously killed their mother when Sam was six months old and recently took their father.”

Autographs

This section is interesting. I am actually really surprised that these people actually sign your art and mail it back. I also like the way you’ve organized the pages so that there is a story to each autographed art. However, the story for the art piece with Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki is extremely confusing. Your thoughts were so scattered, I had a hard time following. You may want to rewrite this section though to make it more fluid.

“Occasionally I like to mail a copy of my art to the celebrity to get autographed. I always send a good copy of the art, never the original. I normally send two copies. One for them to sign and send back, and one for them to keep as a thanks. Just click to enlarge the art. I always mail to the addresses from the fanmail.biz database. I check the feedback forum to make sure they are valid before sending the mail.”

The sentence “It usually depends on if they actually sign pics, and not send preprints, or how much I like the person and how much I like the drawing.” makes no sense whatsoever. I can’t decipher what you’re trying to tell me.

Album

I like the structure of this section. You may want to consider applying the same layout throughout the rest of the website, for your artwork and autograph pages. Some corrections required: take out the word ‘then’ at the end of the sentence in the description to ‘works in progress’, and the correct spelling for ‘refferences’ is ‘references’. Otherwise, this section is very well organized.

Links

Rather than having separate pages for each category/type of links, make a list on the same page (except for the image links as it is pretty lengthy). For example:

Pixels
On My Cuteness

Scripts
Paper Wings
Hot Scripts
Free Scripts
Dynamic Drive

Image Galleries
Click here for entire list  - **Warning** Extremely long

The title of the only ‘pixel’ link is spelt wrong. The last three ’script’ links were all linked together to Hot Scripts. The following links are either broken or have moved:

Images - frank iero.net, Visual Addiction Scans, HQ-HEAVEN.ORG, TrashyLife, Movie Capture Gallery, Oxoniensis Art, Extravaganza, KCASSIDY.NET, Simply Erica, BRANDONROUTH DOT US, JARED-PADALECKI.NET, Adrianne Palicki FANS, Something Extraordinary, ovie Capture Gallery, and P I R A T E ‘ S L I F E

Muse - HB Portrait, Aurelia, Katerina, Chris Grey, Nelson Aves, and Heather Page (linked to Chris Gray)

You will need to reorganize the format of the Image links so that it doesn’t look so jumbled. Try adding the top vertical alignment to the tables cell properties. There is no need to capitalize all the letters in the site title (or URL) because the website does it. The list would look more organized if the English capitalization rules were followed. (i.e. HQ-HEAVEN.ORG versus HQ-Heaven.org). Half the links on the ‘Communities’ page are not community links. Half of them are reference links, so unless you’re honestly have a part in the Firefox committee and Rights for Arts, I would move these links to a separate page under a separate heading.

Otherwise, I like the variety of small buttons and small banners available for linking purposes. You should consider converting a few of the black and white ones into colour.

Contact

I like how two email addresses are provided on the page along with a contact form. It always is a bonus to include two types of contact in case one doesn’t work. There are spacings next to each word and symbol in the first email address provided and none to the second email address. Separating the addresses by spaces is not going to protect you from spam. The only way to protect against spam is by not using providing your email address to anything but to real people that you know who won’t share your email.

The heading to the feedback form needs to be adjusted so it says only ‘Contact/Feedback Form’. Unless you share this contact form with anything else, there is no need to add the site title to the heading. The font type was only applied to ‘name’ in the form table. ‘How did you hear about us’ should be ‘How did you hear about me’. This is a one-man/woman website so you’ll need to use the singular form. You can help make the form look more interesting and appealing by specifying attributes to input and textarea.

A line break is required between the contact form and the Quick FAQ heading. The ‘q’ in ‘quick’ needs to be capitalized. The FAQ is informative but is ridiculed with spelling errors and grammar mistakes. It would take my too long to point them all out. However, if you copy and paste this in a Word document, and hit spell check, Word can help fix up most of the mistakes.

Hire

The correction abbreviation for Canadian currency is CAD. The link to current commission works is linked to a new window. A target tag should be added (so the link opens in the frame). How do you measure “one size bigger”? As in standard sketchbook paper size or by inches? You need to be more specific. A table breakdown would be helpful like the following:

Then maybe include a note along the lines of: The cost applied to single person and two person drawings. For drawings with more than three people, add $5 for each additional person. The shipping information further down the page says shipping depends on size and location (use the term ‘location’ over ‘overseas’) but the price above says “including shipping”. Which is it? You’ll need to make this clear. The ‘Ordering’ information should be provided above the order form. There is also no need to bold the text in this entire section. There is no information about the type of payment you prefer. Cash, money cheque, personal cheque, credit card, PayPal? Again, there are ways to spice up the order form so it doesn’t look too bland. The word “commission” is spelt wrong throughout the entire page (the spelling in quotations and italics is the correct spelling).

Request

I am to assume that requests are pieces you’ll complete and scan for the site’s portfolio and nothing else? If so, make sure you explain this. “Requests are drawings (that you recommend/suggest) I will consider on my spare time for free. Once I complete the request, I will scan it and post it to my portfolio (on the site) for viewing. You are then free to save the image file from my site to your desktop or you may request a copy of the original (for a price). The original piece will not be for sale. Requests typically take anywhere between XX to XX weeks.” You can word however you like, but stress the difference between a request and a commissioned work in case potential clients get confused.

The same comment applies to the request form on this page. Consider aligning the table to the far left, specify the table width at 100%, and the column width wide enough for the headings: email address, colour or pencil, first and last name, etc. to be visible across only one line.

Final Statement

I really enjoy visiting your website. Your artworks are wonderful and I like how you offer your visitors the option of being commissioned. However, the website itself is a disaster. There is no organization, no clear format, and the entire site is filled with spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. That is a surprise and a shock to me considering your age. I would have expected the author as a 12 year old child, and some have surprisingly good grammar structure. I suggest reading up on a few HTML tutorials to help you with the website designing part (try Good Tutorials), buy or download a free layout template (try Free Layouts), or hire a web designer to make a custom website for you. I hate to say it (because it sounds discriminating and it is nothing I would do) but there are people who will not bother with browsing the rest of the site even if your artwork is exceptionally well because the site is poorly designed and organized. The quality of the website speaks a lot to the owner and content’s reputation.

Information

Site: Zwinkyness
Type: Personal
Owner: Morgan
Reviewed By: Vicky
Date Received: 2/6/08
Date Completed: 7/14/08
Preview

Presentation

First thing’s first, the theme that you’ve used - while it is quite attractive - is a bit on the large side. The header itself is huge, considering you only really have your site name and a small description on it, but it takes up a third of my screen already. Width-wise, as I’ve already mentioned, the layout is quite large as well.

Your sidebar looks fairly neat and organized. I’d suggest adding a small blurb at the very top that welcomes the visitor and explains what exactly your site is about. You could actually add that at the top of your existing blurb about yourself in some way (example: “Bonjour and welcome to the personal site/blog/etc. of Morgan, a 17 year old…) Looking further in your navigation, I don’t really understand the difference between “Categories” and “Tags”. As far as I can see, they’re essentially the same thing, they’re just organized in different ways and one is more detailed than the other. It feels a little redundant, and I’m not really sure which one I should be clicking to find my way around. (By the way, “sparetime” is two words!)

Your “font size” drop-down menu is a tad big and pushes the “increase font size” and “default” links to the bottom and it ends up looking a little disorganized. You could either move the “decrease font size” button to the bottom with the other two, or make the drop-down menu smaller. Below, the first is your current setup and the two following it are two different suggestions. (And, as a sidenote, it’d also look a little nicer if “default” had an icon instead of just text as well. Perhaps just the letter, without the minus or addition signs.)

You have a header - “The Queen” - in your sidebar navigation that doesn’t have anything under it…

It seems that your google ads get in the way of your content. In the latest versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari, the google ads block out the title of the next entry. While they all look slightly different in each browser, the following is pretty much what it looks like to me: (This was a screenshot taken in Internet Explorer 7). It actually seems that I.E. 6 is the only one that doesn’t have a problem with your ad:

One last thing: I’ve noticed that the links in your content and the text are the same exact color. That bugs me, because how else am I supposed to tell where to click and where not to?

Content

The Queen

• Your “some reminders of the heroic history of said country are coming later on.” link doesn’t lead to anywhere.
• “birthdaypresent” is two words.
• Under “Hobbies and stuff”, you use the abbreviations “HP” and “POTC” and while I know that HP stands for Harry Potter (or it might not…) not everyone does.

My Internet History

• You say it’s been seven years, but it’s actually been eight years now.
• “cartoondolls” is two words
• When you’re talking about thanking Geocities for hosting you, and your new domain being born, it’d be nice to have links to those two as well.
• You claim that Zwinkyness is a showcase of your knowledge of “coding, designing and accessibility”, but the ironic thing is, your main layout is a premade Wordpress theme. I fail to see the coding, design, or accessibility that you’ve done for your site.

My Personal Favourite…

• There’s way too much spacing between each interest. Your page isn’t that big to begin with, but it seems a lot longer than it really is because of all the spacing. To change the padding, to into your style sheet and find:
  

  html>body .entry li {
margin: 7px 0 8px 10px;
}

  And reduce the 7px and 10px to something a little smaller.

My Personal Profile

• Page not found!

An In-Depth Investigation of Yours Truly

• “The information displayed on this website” = I believe you mean “The information displayed on this page“, not this website.

Opinionated Individual Alert

• Page not found!

Writings

• “fivehundred” is two words
• “in my mothertongue, namely Dutch.” = “in my mother tongue, Dutch.”
• “Those articles, you will find in the visitor section of this website.” = I don’t see a visitor section on your website.
• “Most of these (and more) stories can also be found on Quizilla, Fanfiction.net or ToujoursPur.” = You can use this sentence to link to your QUizilla, Fanfiction.net, and ToujoursPur accounts.

Zwinkyness

• “It is made with as solemnly purpose to entertain me during the countless hours I spend browsing the world wide web and of course, to house as an online journal where I can write and express my feelings, thoughts and emotions.” = “It is made with the purpose of entertaining me during the countless hours I spend browsing the world wide web and to function as an online journal where I can write and express my feelings, thoughts and emotions.” (In other words, “as solemnly purpose” makes no sense whatsoever, neither does “to house as an online journal”)
• “I suggest you leave since this page is actually stiffed with them.” = Um… I’m not sure ’stiffed’ is a word; I’m assuming you meant ’stuffed’. Also, saying that this ’site’ is stuffed with them is probably more accurate than this ‘page’.
• “and the eight circle of Hell” = ‘eight’ should be changed to ‘eighth’~
• You don’t really need all that information under ‘Designs’, considering you’re not the one who coded, tested, and designed the layout. (Not to mention, by this point, if the design doesn’t work in a resolution or browser, I’m pretty sure people would’ve noticed by now.) The first paragraph of ‘Designs’ can be cut; the second paragraph looks good.
• The dictionary is very interesting, but what exactly does ‘Zwinky’ mean? And where did it come from?
• Links 4 and 6 under ‘Listed at’ lead to dead sites.

Sitemap

• Your site map (and it is two words, not “sitemap”) is kind of a mess. I suggest taking everything and putting them in levels. Skyefairy’s site map is a perfect example of what I mean. See how she has the main page, and the sub-pages? One way you can do this in Wordpress (if that’s what you’re using to set up this sitemap) is to put specific pages inside one another. When you’re creating a page, you can usually set a “page parent”. So for example, “The Queen” would be the parent page to “My Internet History”. And when you’re listing them in Wordpress,
  

  <?php wp_list_pages('child_of=2&title_li=' ); ?>

  where child_of=# is where you put the page number of the parent.

• “Archives” leads to an empty page.
• A lot of these pages aren’t even listed anywhere else on the site other than the site map. Site maps are made for people to easier navigation, not another list of new links that nobody’s ever visited before. Pages like “Accessibility Statement”, “Advertisements and Sponsors”, and basically all the pages listed underneath can go under the “Zwinkyness” page parent somewhere. But you do have to link them somewhere other than the site map.
• Your messages textarea for your “Contact Me” page is way too small, and instead of centering the drop down menu for your Subject, align it to the left like you have with every other field.
• “Credits and Resources” leads to a blank page.
• Under Disclaimer: “emailadress” = “email address”
• Guestlog is pretty much an empty page as well.
• Your Terms of Service is outdated; I don’t see any Visitors section at all.

Final Statement

Overall, Zwinkyness is pretty much an average personal site to me. I think that you’ve done a pretty good job writing the content (I didn’t find that many spelling/grammar mistakes, even though English isn’t your first language!) However, I think you really need to go through your site and work a bit more on organization. I feel like your site had a lot more sections in the past and you decided to scrap them, but didn’t do a very good job throwing those sections away (like the nonexistant Vistors Section that’s always mentioned, but that nobody can see.) You need to go through your site and delete whatever is old, rewrite some of the sections (that mention the old pages that no longer exist) and just reorganize a little. Otherwise, there’s nothing particularly spectacular about the site itself, but it is well made.