vbimageworks.com

[Shelley_c]

I thought I would post my own site for review and hopefully gain a constructive critique and maybe some suggestions on improvements. Because I'm lazy, I still need to tidy up the code, a lot.

Here's the link to the Forums and I'm planning on having a homepage.

Don't spare my feelings.

[Wayne Luke]

Even if we haven't always gotten along personally, I have always admired your work professionally. Over all the site looks good and there is a good combination of colors that work well together. This is looking at the Default Serenity Blue Style.

I like that you have replaced all the images (smilies, post icons, and folders). So few people actually do and it makes the style look disjointed if you don't. What I don't like is there is too much white in places. Between the bottom of the header and the top of the forums on index.php is one place. From the top of the browser to the forums is about 4 inches on my screen and half of that is empty white space. I think it could be reduced a little and still convey the look that you want. It happens again in the footer of the page. Another three inches of pretty much empty white space. Not as big a deal because by the time you get there you're done with the content anyway. The biggest issue I have though is forumdisplay. All that white makes it hard over time to see the threads. There should be some sort of delineation among the rows. The white in your new thread button also blends into the background which is distracting as well. Combine this with the light blue and grey text and I get a headache trying to adjust visual contrast in reading the site. I am sure others won't have the same problems.

Overall, nice presentation but all the white makes it something that I couldn't visit for very long. At least with a site like this the side borders provides visual relief from the sea of white. And here they use black text.

[74corvette]

I'm kind on the same page as what Wayne Luke said. When I went to the site all I seen was a washout out of light blue, just needs a little more contrast. The icons look great. The site is simple and easy not complicated at all.

[Shelley_c]

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

Even if we haven't always gotten along personally, I have always admired your work professionally. Over all the site looks good and there is a good combination of colors that work well together. This is looking at the Default Serenity Blue Style.

I like that you have replaced all the images (smilies, post icons, and folders). So few people actually do and it makes the style look disjointed if you don't. What I don't like is there is too much white in places. Between the bottom of the header and the top of the forums on index.php is one place. From the top of the browser to the forums is about 4 inches on my screen and half of that is empty white space. I think it could be reduced a little and still convey the look that you want. It happens again in the footer of the page. Another three inches of pretty much empty white space. Not as big a deal because by the time you get there you're done with the content anyway. The biggest issue I have though is forumdisplay. All that white makes it hard over time to see the threads. There should be some sort of delineation among the rows. The white in your new thread button also blends into the background which is distracting as well. Combine this with the light blue and grey text and I get a headache trying to adjust visual contrast in reading the site. I am sure others won't have the same problems.

Overall, nice presentation but all the white makes it something that I couldn't visit for very long. At least with a site like this the side borders provides visual relief from the sea of white. And here they use black text.

I've pondered on your comment about the white space for a few days and would have to agree that the white does seem a little dominant. I'm not prepared to add borders to separate the areas because I wanted to keep the layout looking seamless (and that would defeat the whole seamless look I'm trying to achieve) this as educed a total redesign (mockup style) and I have designed a whole new style with the same layout (with some extras) to eliminate that white with the introduction of another less prominent colour.

Again, Forum Display does look terrible and dominated by the white alt colours and this was down to me updating to 3.68 and not adding the appropriate headers/footers to break the white apart.

Originally Posted by 74corvette

I'm kind on the same page as what Wayne Luke said. When I went to the site all I seen was a washout out of light blue, just needs a little more contrast. The icons look great. The site is simple and easy not complicated at all.

I'll put your critique down to personal preference with regards to the "washed out colours" as the effect I achived was the pastel look I wanted and with the style before having high contrast colours and images it was too much for any eyes to take so the pastel look was something I wanted to achieve.