Paul of Reserved Secrets review.

Presentation:
Since you took the time to make 3 different skins, I’ll take the time to review all of them. But you should have screen-caps on your web-page of each of the skins to let your visitors know which one they’re choosing. One major flaw all of your themes have: an extremely similar side-bar (alter the headers in your CSS to make more of a variance) and extremely small font size for the links. I’m talking minuscule. You need to make it a lot more legible and user-friendly!

Hides a Knife: This is your default theme. I think it’s rather gloomy looking, and for my big browser (1280×1024) there’s a lot of blank space. I really suggest centering this theme (and all your other ones, for that matter). Also, this is the only theme where the php error shows up, I think it has something to do with a file setting you put in your cookiecheck.php. The font you used for your site title is almost illegible. I also don’t like how you limited your color scheme so much. You only used one shade of pink and black. Try going for more variation, a dark magenta here or there, or a contrasting green thrown in. Experimentation works really well. I also don’t like your brush choice. You have such a “punk” image to work with, why limit the brush use to some spray paint brushes and what looks like newspaper text? The most distracting/unattractive use of brushes was in the text background–it was just so overwhelming. Sometimes less is more. I’m unsure of who the woman is, could you maybe specify in the skins page a bit of background info on them?

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Matt of About a Boy’s review.

Reviewed by: Sarah

Presentation:

Yellow is such a cheerful color. It reminds me of little duckies and terribly fake bottle tans. Needless to say, I find your yellow very… mustardly. And not the kind of mustard where I’m craving a bratwurst, necessarily. This layout could definitely use some more varation of color. I know it can be scary territory — especially if one were to be colorblind (Are you? I hope, for everyone and your career as a layout builder, you are not). Also, this can be scary if one does not know how to expirement. That’s what the internet is for, Matt! For you to spread your wings, and I am there to be the wind beneath those wings.
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Mari of Starrycity.com’s review.

Presentation:
I am happy that your layout is centered, I happen to have a penchant for centered layouts. Everything is well organized, I like how the navigation and sidebar aren’t cluttered. However, your header image is ugly. First, it’s a poorly saved .jpeg file, meaning a lot of the edges are pixellated due to compression. You could try slicing up the image to reduce loading, or save the file in a higher file-size to increase quality. Second, your color scheme is unattractive and repetitive. You have a LARGE cloud of pink and a LARGE cloud of gray, and they don’t seem to contrast each other or produce a particularly pretty effect. The shade of pink you chose was your first mistake: pepto-bismol pink (as I like to call it) is good in small doses, maybe mixed in with a few splashes of equally bright colors (green, blue, etc.). The lack of color variance was your second: you merely alternated the use of two different colors throughout the theme… try implementing some maroons and dark grays into your CSS to liven things up a bit. Third, your header image is a mish-mash of ugly brushes ALL in the same exact shade of pink — it’s just all so overwhelming. I also think the subject matter of the theme is a bit cliche and amateur, the roses and sheet-music routine is tired. If this header were 100px tall (to make all the pink less overwhelming) and you fixed your style sheet, this theme could be salvageable. I was unimpressed with the way you presented your layout.

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