I’m having trouble deciding which site to give the first Commando award. There have been a lot of suggestions over at Snark, but it seems like whichever site I visit is already well known to my little group online, or the site bugs me in some area: the graphics are boring, the colors are too bright, the layout is weird, etc. Here are some of the sites I’m thinking of; got any suggestions as to which one, or another?
- Artlessly by Hui
- I like the layout on this one, but the content doesn’t seem to be that exciting. It’s mostly a blog and it doesn’t help that the most recent entry was from a month ago, at the time I’m posting this.
- Mermaid Park by Leslie
- I love vintage art, but I really doubt the owner drew the image of the firemen herself, and I would prefer to award a site whose graphics are homemade. I do really like the layout, however, even though it’s very simple and doesn’t showcase much graphical talent. She does seem to have an eye for laying out a page, though, because the padding and colors all work together. Her photos are nice, too, and the layout there is also good.
- Valenti by Cindy
- The layout is cute but the header image’s background doesn’t blend in perfectly with the page background (the greens are just slightly off), and that bugs the heck out of me. I’m looking for attention to detail. Maybe it just isn’t visible on her monitor.
- Appassionato by Rilla
- This would be a great candidate except it’s in Perfection so I figure most everyone in our little online circle already knows it anyway.
- Noche Illusies by Autumn
- It’s a gorgeous layout and I love the colors, but not all the text is easily readable because it blends in with the background in spots.
6 Comments
The last site is beautiful but I think the text is just too small, and there needs to be a little more padding.
I can’t see the slightly off green in my monitor either, so that might be the case.
First one has the prettiest layout though and as I’ve been viewing (and have reviewed!) her site for some time I can say it’s always been that good.
I’m sure you’ll make the right choice or give it to somebody deserving anyway. :)
I’ve nothing to say other than I can’t see the difference between the greens at Valenti either, actually.
Noche Illusies has a beautiful layout, but the text size and colors bother me.
I’m guessing that I see the difference between the greens because I’m using OS X. I’ve had the problem before, designing my own sites, where I thought a color would look great, viewing it on my PowerBook, then when I would view it on a PC, it looked almost neon. I think colors are just handled differently.
I’m not in Perfection. :( I got rejected. :P But my favourite would be Artlessly.
Really?? Why did you get rejected? That’s just goofy.
I don’t really like any of those sites.
There isn’t enough contrast between blues on Artlessly, the color scheme on Mermaid Park makes me want to vomit, the layout on Valenti isn’t all that exciting to look at (too much whitespace (or should I say greenspace in this case?)), I don’t care for all the texture on Appassionato and the font size on Noche Illusies is tiny.
With that said, I unfortunately have no other site suggestions for you. It’s hard to find nice-looking, original designs on sites outside of the usual circle.