Name: Brittney
Site: Superl4tive
Review completed on: 27/12/06
SPLASH PAGE
No splash
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Miniscule white text on a black background hmm...bit risky is it not? Creative looking header image though, I'll give you that.
LAYOUT
...despite the fact it seems to be based on one of my worst songs of all time. "Bye bye Miss American Pie" is right up there with "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen (in fact, their whole discography), the whole discography of Evanesececesesesnce, and "Wim O Wey", but that doesn't matter babe, I swear it doesn't! Sooo many emooooooooootions.....the evil laughter in my head won't cease, what is wrong with me!
According to your layout, February 3rd 1959 is the day the music died...I take it that was the day Buddy Holly died? Do you like ragtime/bop music of the 50's? With respect, I'm expecting to find out that you do, otherwise doing this layout would be a bit random wouldn't it? It'd be like me making a dark layout with church spires and gargoyles, despite the fact that goths hate me since I'm a barbie doll super fantastic princess. Hey wait - I already did a layout like that!! (Ref - Info and Rules >> Extras >> Past Layouts). All up, this layout isn't too bad at all. I've not seen anything like this before. It's always good to see some creativity being applied to a design, instead of the usual celebrity layout hoo-hah. You wouldn't want to make your header image any larger though, as it is now it's jusssst verging on being a little too large. The Redensek font you've used on various parts of the layout looks a bit out of place, it might have been better using something that doesn't look so pixelled because it clashes with how the layout looks.
Ohhh I see what this layout is about now...the three musicians depicted are those who died in the plane crash along with Buddy Holly! Aren't I clever!! And see, there's a plane there too! My observation skills amaze me. Can I just say something...because it's happened twice now...I'm obviously hallucinating but I swear that the third guy (at the bottom of the layout) has opened his mouth twice since I've been completing this section of your review. Of course, there's a remote possibility it could be put down to an overdose of loserity on my part. Loserity is lethal. I cough it up every day...it's cost me my life, I'm telling you. The tragic thing is that I'm not far from the truth, but some secrets of PSGR will remain secret, and all that jazz. Sorry for getting carried away...
Soooo, what's up with quite possibly ruining your creative image with less than desirable colour clashings and font sizes? What with the white text on a black background, and the relatively small font size, it makes viewing your text a little harsh on the old eyes. Grey would have worked better than the black for the background...AEAEAE perhaps, or if you're wanting something lighter DDDDDD. If you decided to change the background to grey, then black as the text colour would work nicely, as well as an increased font size.
Your menu also needs to be properly defined. As it is now, it's in the same small font as your regular text - no background colour or anything. The idea is to differentiate your navigation links from your ordinary text as much as you can. Also, the random fact script you've got doesn't need to be directly under your navigation, does it? It makes it look like it's part of the navigation...you need to put this further down the page.
CONTENT
Autobio
Lotta text here...and oh so small! Well, I think I made my point about that earlier so I will shut up now. I see it is your birthday coming up in a few weeks, happy birthday in advance and hope you have a special day. Your autobiography
was an interesting read, and written very well indeed. Just one typo here - intersts = interests.
I think that you ought to set out your additional links seperately at the bottom of the page, instead of incorperating them randomly into your autobiography - just makes things look more clearly set out. The Jones Soda (what is that?) link
ought to open in a new window since you're using HTML, or if you don't want it opening in a new window at least indicate somewhere on the link that it's external.
Writings
Kicking off with a review for The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton I see...and a negative review, too! Although I'm a fan of the book, I can understand where you're coming from. I do like it though, I think Hinton did an excellent job of portraying the characters and emphasising the themes of comradery, friendship, and loyalty. In case you're wondering where all the crap is coming from, I studied the book in 4th form English! In the third paragraph, change sporatic to sporadic.
Not So Disordered, After All is clearly a college essay - the bibliography gave it away. With all due respect, I'll admit I only skimmed this - whilst the topic of understanding autism and how this condition should be perceived is no doubt interesting, I don't really feel like squinting at large bodies of small text at this point in time. No offense!
Your article on Writing Fiction would no doubt be of interest to budding authors and NaNoWriMo slaves worldwide, but personally I couldn't find any interest in this, I'm not that crash hot in the fiction department. I don't even like reading fiction!
I'm not one for poetry, although I thought it was cool how you incorperated Matthew 6:30 into Dandelions. Innovative!
Weeping Willow was a fantastic story. I did spot a few capitalisation errors particularly on the second paragraph, but I try and butt out when it comes to reviewing creative fiction so I won't touch on them at all. I did enjoy reading it though, you should write a part two for it!
Crafts
Certainly a unique addition to your content! Good to see.
Barbie Shoe Earrings - how creative is this? Cool man...complete with a difficulty level star rating and images! Although I must say your stars look a bit crap to be honest, they look quite grainy and low-qual. The photo of the girl modeling the earrings looks quite blurry, was it taken on a web cam? Very original idea though, did you think of this yourself?
Record Bowl - another totally original idea. But what's Mod Podge? Also, for the benefit of non-Americans who are interested in making this, you should put a temperature in celcius as well, whatever 225 F equates to in celcius. Umm, 107 degrees celcius I think.
Tie skirt - again, a good idea, but all the talk of inches could really throw visitors who use the metric system. I'm probably wrong as usual but I believe the USA are the only country who have not adopted the new metric system. Perhaps add this at the top somewhere: If you use the metric system, please note that 1 inches = 2.54 centimetres.
T shirt scans - scan not scans, 'cos you've only got one here. Add more, because that Illinois one was funny! When I memorised all the 50 states and their capitols when I was eleven, I remember pronouncing it "illi-nuar", you know, as in the "wuaar" in Francois. Oh, and Idaho was "I-day-oh", as in daaayo, daaayoo, daylight come and me wanna go home. Sorry can't blame that outburst on a sugar high because I haven't eaten anything today. Smoko break I think, back soon. Bubadubadum, Bubadubadum, Bubadubadum, all my wasted time, and that's the truth...but it happens that way...
Domain
Credits, a little site history and some past layouts - nothing much to say here, but that's typical of a site section. Your past layouts took a while to load though, consider optimising the images so that they don't take too long to load. If you're on Photoshop, "Save for web" would do the trick. You need to sort out History/LayoutsWay back in 2000... by adding a space between the S and W, as well as the name derivation at the bottom: NameSuperl4tive is just...
Of The Web
Not sure if I understand that title mate, seems a bit funny. All this is is a list of your favourite links anyway, consider using list tags next to your sites so that they look 'proper'. <li>
Hostess
A direct link to your hosts' site. This ought to open in a new window.
SUMMARY
Superl4tive is a refreshingly original site and was a pleasure to review. Your layout reflects your creativity and imagination, as does your Crafts section. However, I do encourage you to apply some extra consideration to the finer points of the presentation - your small text size was a recurring issue throughout my perusal of your content, and I found large text bodies increasingly uncomfortable to read as I went along. Aside from aesthetics, there isn't really a lot I can give you by way of tips. I supppose just to correct the spelling/grammatical errors, and to be aware of the heavy Americanisation of some of your crafty pages...I know you're from the USA and that's fabulous, but I think that some Americans need to realise that not everyone is. Well done and congratulations on the overall good effort.
