Gem of Gem dot Inamorata’s review:

Presentation:

I’m constantly stressing the importance of a straight-forward navigation, however I don’t exactly want to be attacked by one, either. Every time I glance at your layout, my eyes are automatically drawn to the navigation. I suppose if it made use of some “fancy” design (such as Appasionato), it would have some saving grace. That beige background looks rather out of place there too. I’m assuming that the picture frame uses it, however combined with the darker patterns, the overall effect in the picture is much more pleasant. If I were a first time visitor, I wouldn’t spend more than a couple of seconds here.

I rather like the concept of the picture on the left, as well as the way you chose to “complete” it on the bottom. Great job on integrating it with the light gray background, as well as the focus/blur effects… and that’s about all I like about the layout. It’s a pity really, because it has great potential, if used differently.

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All websites that we go to review that have not been updated in three months or more will be deleted from the queue without notice. This should help us get to the eager reviewees faster

Olivia of LTY Designs‘ review.

Presentation:
You can’t really go wrong with a pink/brown color scheme, the two pair off quite well together and contrast beautifully. I like the minimalist approach, but I think you could have maybe added more depth with the use of gradients or patterns. It’s kind of flat as is. Additionally, the pink you’re using for the header isn’t particularly flattering. Don’t get me wrong, the light pink is really pretty and goes well with the brown, but the main strip is simply too hot pink. There is a fine line between using really bright colors tastefully and killing my retinas. I think you crossed it. Other notables: you have a million and a half ads everywhere. I’m all for a starving webdesigner trying to make a few bucks, but these ads are simply suffocating. I think the Google ads on the left sidebar are pretty discrete, but the large ad with a youtube video at the bottom is just… too much.

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Review for Mallory of malloryray.com

Layout

It’s simple, pleasant to look at, but not necessarily boring. As a matter of fact I quite like the various shapes in the header image. Overall, it gives me a pretty short lasting impression. I think it’s the color choice mainly, which makes everything look faded, as if you had washed the layout too many times. Your previous layout, with the pink flowers was a better choice, as the white and pink made enough contrast to make some sort of lasting impression on me. My memory is primarily a visual one, so when I think of a site, I have a layout in mind, which left some impression on me.

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Review for Michelle of intothelouvre.org

Layout

A Christmas layout, nice: I can never manage to make one to in time. If I do, it ends up staying till July. Some of the colors you used are too light. Like the light gray writing at the bottom. It’s fine as background, it creates a really subtle transition, but as text color it’s almost impossible to read. The graphic itself, looks really cute and fetching at a superfluous glance. Nevertheless, once I looked more attentively, I noticed that it’s of rather poor quality.

The snowman and the birds are very nice as far as art goes. Did you make them yourself? Most unfortunately the birds have terribly jagged edges. I’m not sure if you were just rushing, or just over optimized the pictures. Be as it may, the layout looks cute from a superficial view, but rather sloppy when I actually stop to look at individual details.

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Li of Frozen Rain

Presentation:
I am first greeted by a very organized and centered layout. That said, I have to point out the color scheme’s appalling quality. In what universe does blue-gray and brown and reddish-pink and green go together? In attempts to come up with a really shocking and dramatic color scheme, you made a mess! Further, the background is way too loud for my taste, and it distracts me from noticing and fully appreciating the header image. These two major problems can be fixed easily. First, stray away from trying to address every color in the header image into the rest of your layout. The blue and green in the eye, for example, would shine a lot better if the colors you used stayed the brown and reddish-pink. Stick to these earthy tones: they both complement and contrast each other.

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Happy belated New Years everyone, I hope 2008 is a good one. Await reviews, they should be rolling in.

Louise of Un-Ordinary.net’s review:

Presentation

As you know, I’ve already seen this layout of yours a few times, and it has always given me the impression of being rather dull. It seemed as if you deliberately tried to simplify something that in all actuality is quite complex. Simplicity is good, but shouldn’t be exaggerated: dull is not something visitors find entertaining.

I believe you did do some changes since the first time you’ve put this layout up, right? The text, in the content area seems to have a smaller width. That’s very good, especially for larger resolutions. Nevertheless, on the whole the layout is still not appealing enough, though it should be.

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Review being written, and there are a bunch of review requests sitting in my inbox. They’ll be added to the queue shortly: sorry for the inconvenience!

Kelly of Desiredsuperstar’s review.

Presentation:
The first glaring problem with your site is your site’s title in my browser. I don’t need to know what version I’m looking at, I’m sure I can figure it out from your Site section (hopefully with a bit more background information than just “V11//Pastel Dreams”). Having weird site titles messes with the way search engines find your site, try to keep it concise: desiredsuperstar.com. I didn’t know sites like this existed anymore: the miniscule “trendy” font meant to blind your visitor, the different colored and sized bold and italic links (because using the proper <strong> and <em> tags isn’t “cool”), and the matching bright pink … EVERYWHERE. The cross-hair-on-hover links are not only unattractive, but distracting. It makes your links a bit harder to see. Further, your italicized text is in a hot pink that makes it entirely illegible. You shouldn’t italicize almost every word to make your page look colorful. Rather, you should italicize words you want to emphasize. Your sidebar seems like a section where you pimp out all of your friends, why are you trying to get rid of me before I even browse your site? It’s okay to have a few sites linked in your blogroll, five or six to the maximum. But twenty plus sites is a bit absurd.

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