Review by Tiffany at Aesthetic Intoxication

First Impression

You changed your site name from Woolisauce to BrokenFall and you didn’t tell me! That really threw me off guard because I had your other site’s URL in the queue the entire time. You should e-mail people about that instead of hoping they’ll get the message on your site. I think that the name change was good though. I prefer “Broken Fall” over “Woolisauce”. I think of lambs and goats when I hear “wool” and “woolisauce” didn’t make any sense to me.

I didn’t think much of the layout on Woolisauce.net but this layout looks so much like Georgina’s at HeartDrops.org. That seems a little fishy to me even if you are affiliates with her.

Layout

Your layout resembles Georgina’s a lot that it’s not original. I can understand if she inspires you but you should try to be creative yourself instead of copying her banner. The resemblance is uncanny! You both used flowers that are centered in the middle, you both have sidebars that end, you both used the same cursive font in the background, and you both used a curly font for your site name. The only real noticeable difference is that you turned up the contrast and added some color. Your navigation links are at the bottom of the banner instead of tabs like Georgina’s so that’s good that you didn’t copy her exactly. The butterfly at the top of your banner doesn’t fit in quite right.

I’m not a huge fan of the color scheme you chose for the layout. I think the green and orange is a little blinding. You could lower down the tones of the colors to fix that. You kind of ruined the picture of the flower as well. It seems like the quality of the picture was normal until you added all of the random adjustments. It makes the flower look way too bright and highlights the flaws in the picture. I would try to just use the stock image of the flower and change the lighting slightly. I wouldn’t use the entire image but part of it instead so that you can get a little creative with it and add other things to the banner that show off your creativity. This layout is not very impressive and I hope that as I browse through your visitor content, I will find some work that shows off your real talent.

It’s good that you have a blogging system installed. It’s a great way for your affiliates and your visitors to communicate with you. Your sidebar is neatly organized so there isn’t a mess there which is good.

Your favicon, although it is cute, doesn’t really go with your layout. The color doesn’t match.

CSS

Your HTML and CSS is validated which is really good. The colors you chose for this layout may go with the banner but they are really off key. They don’t work well together. The color scheme has a really bright tone so you might want to tone it down a little so that the words aren’t blinding. The green sidebar is a little too bright and you should tone down the shade of it. Orange over green is always hard on the eyes and blinding so you might want to use a different color or change the sidebar color to a melon color. The green doesn’t flow very well with this layout, you could just try sticking to orange, yellow, and pink. I think the hover colors for your navigation area is fine but the green navigation isn’t very appealing.

Tone down the yellow in your hover so that the orange link stands out more. Tone down the green background for your navigation area and find a more solid green color for your link.

Pages

Pages include Visitor, Hosting, Owner, and Domain.

Visitor

I think the swirls in the background of your content area is a nice touch. Don’t think I overlooked it!

Graphics and Resources

You only have 3 avatars and they’re pixels. They’re cute. You should definitely add more.

Your emoticons are so adorable! I love them. I wish I had time to actually make a set myself. They’re really great! I’d love to see you make more.

Your pixels are really cute. You have a lot of talent with pixeling. I don’t know why you put “~” right after “Enjoy”. That’s not really necessary but the first sushi pixel looks kind of like watermelon! You might want to make the seaweed a little darker.

Some of your stock photos display poor lighting and quality but that is to be expected from a point and shoot camera. The orange pictures have a lot of noise and they’re kind of dark. They’re not properly focused either. The best one is probably this one. The rest are okay. It’s important to establish a subject in your pictures and in most of your pictures, it’s hard to tell. The original picture that you took of the flower you used for your banner is so much better looking than your current banner! All you had to do to be a little unique was to lighten the picture a little, add a little yellow lighting, and turn down the area that reflects the flash that went off on your camera. However, I do like that you made all of these pictures into thumbnails and how they open in separate windows. I recommend installing a script like Lightbox so it’s “professional” looking. I think you have the potential to take better pictures. It’s not always about the camera that you have but the person behind the camera. Although your camera may limit you, such as really bad close-up pictures, but get creative and establish a true subjects. Point and shoot cameras are not good at taking macros so the subject is blurry. Try to take pictures that are sharper and less blurry. A sharp picture is always better than a blurry close-up of a random fruit!

Your website materials are cute. They’re all pixels. It’s also very nicely organized.

Articles

These are both decent. They’re short and to the point.

Hosting

It’s so nice of you to offer hosting! Your rules are reasonable and you have a form for them to fill out which is convenient.

Owner

The “About Me” page is neatly put together.

The “Affiliates Gifts” page is also nice. You should display the gifts you’ve given to your affiliates.

Your “Contact Me” page displays all the contact information people need but I think you could add a form for people to fill out. People are lazy.

The rest of the pages are also neatly put together.

Domain

All of these pages are nicely organized and I have nothing to critique. You could add some more link back buttons though!

Ah, here it is! Your past layouts display your skills with Photoshop. I personally think the first layout is the best. Out of all of the layouts, the first one stands out the most. Stick with that style because it suits your site more. Your site focuses on pixels more than anything else so stick with a layout style like that of your first layout. It’s simple and cute.

How nice of you to display your received reviews. It’s good that you’re not ashamed of your reviews, bad or good.

Grammar/Spelling

Your grammar and spelling seem to be flawless. Well, not flawless but I didn’t find any mistakes. If there were any, they might’ve been in your blogs. I didn’t notice them though so good for you–paying attention in your English class!

Conclusion

The content of your site is mostly pixel related. I’d like to see you branch out a little bit. I’m not saying you should use celebrity images but you could branch out a little and use some stock pictures. Your pixels are really great. Pixels were never a trend that I caught onto but nevertheless, your pixels are great. Your current layout is not your best and I know you can do better. So scrap it, start over, and try to be original! Overall, keep doing what you’re doing. Your site has a lot of potential! You just need to add more content.