PSGR is a solo effort by me, Rhiannon, a 23 year old from New Zealand. There's a lot to explore here, so take a look around and have fun!
Name: Ashley
Site: Lucid Star.Net
Review completed on: 23/10/05
SPLASH PAGE
No splash n/a
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I'm very taken by the elegant look your site has, it looks like you've put a lot of work into making your site look as great as possible. No problems with loading time on my 56k modem, either. Surprisingly, it almost instantaneously loaded. The only thing that doesn't look quite right here is the location of your layout - another left-aligned one, I see. 9/10
LAYOUT
You've captured the look of style and elegance perfectly with your layout image, it's simply beautiful. I love the vivid rose detail, positioned as an archway around the girl, with the stone wall in the background. This really is a wonderful work of art! So yes, the image itself is lovely, but there is quite a significant problem with the alignment - your layout really should be centralised. The fact it's majorly aligned to the left with a massive grey void on the right takes the charm of the image away, slightly. I've always found it hard to understand the logic behind what is so popular about having a layout bunched up to the left with significant spaces of nothing to the right. It'd look a whole lot better if you just aligned the layout to the centre of the page. 16/20
CONTENT
It's great to see so many pages of content in your "Narcissism" section, many pages that look really appealing as well. It was nice getting learning more about you in your "Basics" page, and I was looking forward to a more in-depth account of your life in your "Autobiography"...but alas, it's password protected!? What a shame. I liked reading your "Pet Peeves", and totally agree with you on all of them,, especially the issue of parental discipline. If the brats don't get a smack when they're bad, they're never going to learn. The pictures of your room are totally awesome, the colour scheme is so vibrant! "Funny Conversations" - okay, seriously... no one apart from those involved actually wants to read a page of pasted instant messenger conversations, especially when no one else gets the joke. You state that most of us will find it amusing, but I'd personally disagree with that. You have a good amount of content in the "Narcissism" section anyway, so you could really do without such useless fillers. The "What Ashley Means" and "Three words my friends use to describe me" pages were pointless, snore-inducing fillers, so I'm not going to mention them. Finding out what personality tendancies are associated with your name isn't exactly going to enrich my life, and I doubt anyone elses, either. One of my favourite pages in the "Narcissism" section was the page about your father. The death of a loved one is something you'll never get over, no matter what other people might say. My dad was an asshole who did a lot of bad things to me and my mum, and he's dead. I don't give a shit because he wasn't a father to me, but my Gramps (my mums dad) was like a father to me. He died of bone cancer at age 64, and even thinking about it brings tears to my eyes. So in a way, I know how you feel and can sympathise to what you've been going through. He looked like a really friendly, fun loving man, and I know you must have been proud to have him as a father. You should definitely try and get those pictures back off your Grandmother, if you can! Moving on to "Portfolio" - a great indication of your competence in graphic design and digital manipulation. Apart from the Final Fantasy X and the fairy crap, I enjoyed the rest of your wallpapers and artwork. Well done! And lastly, your "Domain" section - there's nothing really "reviewable" about your awards and gifts, so I'll move onto your "Credits" page. You've made quite a concise list of those who have aided you in the creation of your site, and that's really commendable. It'd be great to see more webmasters following this example of giving credit when credit is due! I found your "History" page to be an interesting read, I had no idea that Lucid Star had been around for so long! The remainder of your content in this section ("Links in/out", "Hostees", "Cliques" etc) is self-explanatory so that's that as far as your content goes. Overall, you have some pretty decent content here, but more of it could be added. Where's the visitors page? Nowhere. It's all said and done having a wealth of content about yourself and about your site, but having some visitor content would be the icing on the cake! Awards, reads, contents, opinions...you get the gist of it. 13/20
SUMMARY
My visit to Lucid Star was a very pleasant one, and definitely worth re-visiting in the future. Your layout is enchanting and beautiful, and has clearly been made with some skill - this statement is also supported by the wallpapers you have on your "Portfolio" page. You've definitely got a knack for graphic design. As far as your content is concerned, you have a fair amount, and most of it being appealing and clickworthy. The tiresome fillers such as your name analysis and the adjectives that describe you were pretty generic though, and not at all interesting except for people who know you on an offline basis. It was fairly disappointing not being able to access your autobiography, it would've been a great read. As far as the appearance and design of Lucid Star is concerned, you excel. However, certain parts of the content needs to be improved on.
OVERALL SCORE: 38/50