Tranquil Heart

Site Name: Tranquil Heart
Date Ordered: July 23, 2008
Date Completed: August 7, 2008

Screenshots

First Impressions/ Layout

I'm not sure if I'm really feeling it. It's very pink but the background feels like it's too dark for the header. I think maybe a light pink would work better. I don't really like the effect on the image it makes her hair look weird. I don't really know how to explain it other than that I just don't really like it. What are those little squares in corner of the header. They look out of place since there is no header telling me what they are or an alt tag for me to roll over and tell me what they are. However it's very clean and very organized which is always good.

13/20

Content

Art

Your first link is a gallery, which I'm not sure if that's smart since it's taking your visitor away from your main site, but you clearly state in your sidebar that your site is about your art and writing so it makes sense that art is first.

Goodies- Layouts

You've used the original image and just resized it to make thumbnails. Why not just make thumbnails. That would be easier. Instead I as a visitor, I have to wait for a little 50x50 thumbnail that doesn't even give me an idea of what the layout looks like. Then I have to click on the thumbnail and wait for the layout to load. If I were a visitor I would forget about it and just go to a different section of your site. Bottom line: get thumbnails, real thumbnails. Either way the graphics you've used for the layouts are not as high quality as I would like so I probably would not use them.

Goodies- PSDS

Again, get some real thumbnails. As for the PSDs themselves, I don't think you cut them out all the way. There are still spots on them that shouldn't be there, like bits of the background. You might want to finish them and erase all of the background because I know that I would not use them if there was still bits of the background on them.

Signs

I'm going to quit commenting on this because you obviously do this on every page but get real thumbnails. As for the signs I like the Taylor Swift one but that's about it I think. That ones the only one I really like out of the lot.

Goodies- Textures

Your textures I'm not too fond of. It's the same thing but in different colors. Same with the other texture.

Goodies- Tutorials

These are good. Your brushes tutorial could be a bit more descriptive. I didn't really find it that helpful. I also prefer tutorials to have pictures/small screenshots to go with each step so that I know that I'm doing it right. I like that you have descriptions of different programs. It could be more organized though by doing something like the following:
Program Name and Link
Pros Title
Pros Description
Cons Title
Cons Description

That way if a visitor wanted to see what the cons were of a specific program they wouldn't have to read the entire description to find what the were looking for. I find the 'lol' in your fanupdate description unprofessional. As a user I don't know what is so funny about not being able to change the title of comments. Take that 'lol' out.

Fiction

I'm not going to review any of these since I don't know what "Roswell" is and although I like Gilmore Girls I'm not caught up on seasons and didn't even know that Logan left so I would be extremely lost.

Site/WWW- About Me

'House' should be capitalised as well as "Dancing" where you talked about Dirty Dancing. Oh, you like musicals? What are some of your favorites? I'm really into Leagally Blonde right now personally.

Site/WWW- About Tranquil Heart

The last word in the 'History' section is misspelled. It should be 'writing' not 'writhing'. No big deal.

Site/WWW- Credits

Very nice and organized.

Site/WWW- Link Me The buttons look great. I really like the yellow one although I don't put animated buttons on my site so if I an affiliate and were to link you I would use the first one under 100x35. But overall they look pretty good.

4/7

Graphics

Your PSDs could use some work and I'm not a big fan of the effect you used on the layout image. With a little practice your PSDs could be great. Actually there is a great tutorial at Divergente about cutting PSDs out which you can view Here. It also works in Paint Shop Pro (just click on the free selection tool and in the drop down menu select point to point).

5/10

Organization

Everything is easy to find which is a plus.

12/15

Niceness

You seem to have a great atitude. I also like that you respond to people in your tagboard.

10/10

Creativeness

Nothing that creative but I'm guessing that your fiction is pretty creative even though as I said I wasn't going to read it.

6/10

Updates

You update quite frequently which is always good.

4/5

Colors

I'm not really feeling all the pink. I would say a lighter pink for the background or even just a pink that is has more pink undertones. The one you have has a more purple undertone.

5/10

Extra

Most personal/portfolio sites have the same sections. In order to stand out you need to have either:
a) intellegent and thoughtful blogs about real issues and what goes on in your life
b) stand out tutorials and graphics. It also helps to have many different kinds of tutorials for many different programs.
c) Fiction and artwork that holds its own.

It also helps to have more than one of these things. Your not quite there yet.

4/10

Bonus

Our button is on the links page and quite frankly I totally skipped over it and didn't even notice it from the other links.

3/5

Overall/ Final Thoughts

A bit too much pink. It's one of those layouts that when you are on the site it just turns sour. I went from being lukewarm to it at the beginning of this review to not liking it very much at all. Definetely not what you want your guests feeling at the end of their visit. Get thumbnails! If you take anything from this review please take that! If I were a visitor and had to wait for your thumbnails to load I wouldn't want to wait and would probably just close your site all together. I would also add pictures to your tutorials and try my suggestion for organizing your progams page. Overall your site has potential but it's not quite there yet.

66/102

Prizes