Topic: a linkdatabase

oh well, i just finished my new site, http://www.lonesomeend.com
its a small linkdatabase, which i want to expand in the upcoming year

the site is NEARLY fully CSS designed, and validates so far
the different browser-problems were a problem at first, but i hope i could fix the most of them

any comments / opinions ?

It's a bit busy on the background images in the body and main areas. I'm alsi not a big fan of the boxed and bordered headlines, the graphical headlines are a bit washed out looking and hard to read for tired eyes. In fact, a lot of it's a bit washed out, the 3d cubey header text.

More contrast and stripping the flower bg in the areas where I need to read will go a ways toward making it stickier.

It is fine Except: the light floral background is overpowering the dark, rectangular written parts...It looks as if the darker text areas are holes in the floral fabric..The text should always be on an equal or lighter color background than the basic page background unless the text background is a very dark contrast with light text and then it only works on solids..the page "strobes" as the focus shifts from the dark rectangles of text to the light slits of background. The wavy pattern of the flowers intensifies the effect.. a shift in light value rather than different graphics or colors might be best..I like the graphics and the layout otherwise

What I mean is..the text rectangles are too dark, the floral background is too light..change the values ..darken the floral background, lighten the text boxes, darken the text to the same color and value as the outlined flowers on the background..it should work very well if all the colors are the same color as they are now but different light/dark value..you have the colors inverted..the colors strobe..

[This message has been edited by skyetyger (edited 01-15-2004).]

AH! Flip the flower background with the dark blue background. Swap em out mate. Should be about 76.4 times better if you do just that.

All I have to say is that it is *WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY* to busy visually.

I think I may be having an epileptic fit now....

I agree with what has been said so far. The whole visual aspect of the page is way to bussy. First of all I would change background to something simpler. The headers used are also way to bussy imo. You don't need the 'lonesomeend' part on the headings. It is in the header, so people allready know that they are at your page. I would also stick to 'simple' text in the News area, instead of the image headers you've got there now. The headers you've used in the 'about us' and 'contribute' sections are great (except that the <h3> headings should have a little more padding-right)!

The stats area doesn't need a separate 'section'. Post as simple text left floated beside the menu instead, would probably make the design easier on the eye and mind

You logo is good, except that the last part of it is almost unreadable. Only reason I can read it is that I know what it is supposed to say. Make it less 'twisted' and it will be good.

To make the menu easeier to read I would add some more padding bellow it. It stick to close to the bottom of the white area as it is now.

In Opera you get a HSoD in the News are, you should fix that.

Except for those things; Great work! Looking forward to seeing how it turns out

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

mhm thx for all of your input, mates
well, about the problem that it is too busy
i think the font size was a part of the problem. i changed it now...i think this looks better now

I didn't see it before, but it still looks too busy to me.

I see a lot of lines in there that don't really serve any purpose. When you start adding lots of lines and boxes to a design ask yourself what it adds and what it could cost the reader. Does it make your design better or clearer? Make sure you have a reason for putting those lines in aside from adding barriers between your content, which is what I see now, lots of barriers that require me to concentrate more than I?d like to in order to traverse the site.

The simplest barrier between content is white space. Something I've noticed you seem determined to kill in many of your web designs by filling any and all possible white space with some kind of visual element or running text border to border with very little padding.

The "stats" section is actually the first thing I read on your website, because it doesn't look like it's been squashed into a sardine can -- I skimmed over everything else as it looked too difficult to read.

Bump up the line spacing, throw in lots of padding (if your text if 12px high, and your line spacing 18-20px high then I'd probably set the padding to around 20px as well). You should also try and unify the distances between each content section, at the moment there is no symmetry in the horizontal gaps between the content boxes and the heading, and again between that and the vertical gap.

Another problem I see is the background. Don't get me wrong, I like it but with all of different weights of horizontal lines running through the site, having them run through the tiled circle shapes is creating some visual havoc. Try a background with some visuals that compliment the foreground lines instead of contrasting against them.

Although, on a whole I think it's great, as with all of the designs you produce. I just think a little more attention to detail (and whitespace!) and a little more thought put into the design would really help to take things up a notch or two.

Text size change really doesn't change much.

As Cameron said, there are just way too many elements heaped on top of each other, and way too little white-space (note that 'white-space' doesn't actually mean "white" ).

Especially for this type of project, where the textual content is the soul purpose of the site, there is just way too much visual information crammed into such small spaces.