Topic: New Weblog. Comments Please!

Hello, I have just redesigned my weblog/site and would like some critique. Thanks.

URL: http://www.smithpaul.com/index.php

Life in the Bus Lane : Weblog

PaulSmith: Nice to see you back Some thoughts:

1. I like the simple design - nice use of boxes and greys, etc. but that pink is just too jarring. Look at ZOX's Color Wizard for some ideas.

2. You might want to draw the eye to the most important panel on your page with a slightly lighter grey or even use a light grey background and dark text to invert the feel from the other panels.

3. Style your forum - phpBB has features which will let you do that.

Other than that I like it - good work

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Definitely got to agree about that pink (although some people do seem to like it). At the very least, you might think about cutting down on the saturation. And here's the Colour Wizard that Emps mentioned (the rest of the site is also well worth looking at).

Also, I noticed that you are indicating links with a little link graphic after the link text. I'm imagining that this is to distinguish links from section titles (both of which are bold--except for that one link to the Register in the Sat. Aug 24 box). The graphics are a nice touch, but they are both a bit much and not enough. Let me explain. If the link graphic were to appear once or twice, it would be cute and novel. With the amount of times it appears, though, the effect wears thin. And when I say it's not enough, I mean it doesn't do enough to distinguish links from regular text. The graphic is the same basic color as the rest of the site, so it doesn't stand out. Personally, I would ditch the graphic and change the link text color (keeping the bold). Just my opinion, though. If you like the graphic, go with that, but I would recommend a color change in the graphic if you're going to go that route. Just to make it more prominent.

Overall, though, very nice! I really like the feel of the site.


Cell 270

[This message has been edited by Suho1004 (edited 08-27-2002).]

PaulSmith: I agree with Suho1004 - that graphic disrupts the flow when people are reading the text. Disrupting the flow slightly can be done intentionally to make a point but this does get a little much. I presume they are to indicate external/offsite links and what I would do is make a link class n CSS which you can assign to external links - people will pick up the system pretty quickly.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Thanks for the great feedback. I will definatly be tweaking a few things, along the lines of what you chaps have said. I keep forgetting about the pink and bright colours. I am using a supa-cool TFT screen and the pink on TFT looks way better than it does on my CRT monitor (as I have just checked to find out). I will take a look at that site you have suggested and take things from there.

Thanks again for the good feedback (which is quite rare these days). I will post back here when I have made some adjustments.

Cheers,
Paul Michael Smith

Life in the Bus Lane : Weblog

Personally I like the Purple on the grey it makes a good contrast as long as it isnt used with a small font. Value wise the white matches it so its not distracting in that way. Its original which is hard to come by. The layout is really good too.

Well I can't really add to anything that was already said. Have you thought about maybe having the pic on the front change on reload or anything?

Something to consider I guess.

But yes, for those of us that don't have cool monitors, change the shade of the purple

Later,
C:\


~Binary is best~