Shizucor

I submitted my new design to the Perfection Gallery last Monday and got my results today. Unfortunately, I was not accepted and for good reason. I read the reviews and I must say, I feel quite inadequate at the moment. There’s one particular review that struck me the most:

This has the potential to be a decent design, but she lost it starting with the pixelly flower in the header, then that drab background, the weird navigation and hovers and the layout of the content. It’s like she tried to go Web 2.0 with the Shizucor title with the shiny dropshadow and whatnot, but she completely lost if after that.

I don’t like the rounded edge bit she has going on all over the place.

I don’t like the serif fonts for entry titles and such. She’s got sans-serif everywhere else so the serifs look out of place. The content in the boxes in the main area needs some more padding on the top and bottom. I don’t like the purple she’s using for links. I don’t like the calendar date things (because of that purple and because you can barely read the light green on blue).

I don’t understand why the sidebar doesn’t extend over to the right edge of the header and footer. It’s about 20 pixels off. That light green over there seems way out of place. It causes your eye to go straight to the sidebar rather than the real content. The overall layout of content in the sidebar is cluttered, and as usual, I have to complain about the default bullets. Ew.

That’s one really sad footer.

This is a definite no from me. It’s way too cluttered, and after having a look at some of the other sites she’s created, I’m not confident in her “design skills” at all.”

I quite agree with her review as I never felt strong about this new design. I didn’t think the layout was so cluttered but I was wrong. Different font types were used just to give contrast. I thought as long as the serif fonts were used only for headings, it would be okay to use sans serif for other elements. As far as the rounded corners goes, I wanted to be consistent but I guess it turned out to be quite boring for some people. I was never really thrilled about the header myself but I quite liked the background. I wanted to go for a cool (that’s why I used blue, green, and purple) and dark website but that didn’t read well with the reviewers.

My skills are lacking a little so I can understand why this person would not have confidence in what I’ve done. I only decided to get serious with web design this year so there’s more for me to learn. I’m quite glad I read these reviews because with opinions of others, I can improve. Before, I was never serious so I didn’t care what people thought. I just created designs I liked. So, all the websites I’ve created including this one shall be improved and I welcome as many suggestions and critiques from people who visit my site. I need as much help as possible it seems.

In conclusion, I’ll be doing another re-design. It’s not going to be a priority for me but I want to do it. It’s boring the way it is and I don’t feel like modifying the design so a completely new design shall be created. I made this new design so I could submit to galleries but that shouldn’t have been my goal. Web 2.0 can kiss my ass as well. Have a great evening everyone!