This is the third time I’ve tried my hand at designing a website. I’d really appreciate any comments/criticisms/suggestions…

Here it is: http://www.rollaword.com

Is this a personal site? I like the header with the cow and the grass. It’s cute!

I’m not crazy about the red area with the white text. It feels out of place. Also a link in that area shows up as default bright blue, so you might want to fix that with CSS so it fits in with the red background better.

And I’m also a fan of whitespace, but the front page seems to scroll down too far. I wasn’t expecting that when I first saw the site. Maybe some of the info that’s further down the page would be better suited on a page of its own.

Hi, thanks a lot for your comments, really apprciate it.

Yes, it is a personal site. The area with the red background has black text, not white…is this actually showing up as white for you? Please let me know, because that would be out of place.

Also one of the things I wasn’t sure about when I did this was the choice of red as the background. What do you think, is it too harsh, should I choose a different shade of red or a different colour altogether?

About the blue link - I kind of forgot about that (woops!), it’s already been fixed.

The content on the home page is nothing but small descriptions of all the other links on the site and what the site has to offer. Maybe it is too long, I’ll see what I can do about that.

And again, thanks a million - I was just beginning to think that no one was going to comment. If you have any more comments,I’d love to hear them.

Oh doh, the text is showing up as black on the red. (I end up typing words I don’t mean at work due to the noise levels around me sometimes.)

I think personal sites should be as fun or dark or crazy as you’d like them to be. When you have commercial clients, you become so limited with what you can design or what colors or layout you can use, that one of the last places on the web where you can still go nuts is on your own personal site.

My taste is that the red is a bit harsh (and don’t get me wrong, red is my absolute favorite color), but if you like it, roll with it! From my initial impressions, it just doesn’t seem to fit with the quirkiness and rustic look of your cow and grass header.

If you decide to make a design portfolio of your site, or try to pick up some side projects to work on while you’re in school, I’d recommend making the whole look-and-feel match your header more. You could break up the page maybe with some grass bars that match your header, or other elements that fit the style/theme.

Want to see my very first personal site?
http://web.archive.org/web/19981205112629/www.users.csbsju.edu/~cmegan/

It was crazy, but that’s the fun of having a homepage. It’s a place to experiment and learn what works and what doesn’t.

I like what you said about personal websites - really, why shouldn’t it be a bit crazy? But anyway, the only reason I chose the red was because the earlier design had a pale blue, and I wanted to go with the opposite of that - which to me was the bright red. I actually do like the red, and I think I’ll stick with it until my own eyes start to hurt.

Well, it was really nice and helpful reading what you had to say. Thanks again.

Hi, did you draw the cow/bull yourself? It looks like you have an artist’s background. It has unconventional design, which I like. However I like only the top image/ logo; not the red part.

Thanks for your comments. I didn’t draw the buffalo myself, I had a little help from someone else.

You’re not the first one who didn’t like the red part, I too think it looks a bit too harsh and am working on something to replace it, but am having some trouble thinking of something more consistent with the header while still maintaining the liquid design.

Hello again, to whoever is interested…

I finally got tired of the red bit on the site that a couple of others have brought up, any thoughts on this would be very welcome.

http://www.rollaword.com

Hi, It is much better now. Maybe if you can keep the same color as a background under the paragraphs - The Latest , Commentary….
it will give it a nice finished look.

Woah, that was quick!

Thanks for the pointer about the background, I was actually going to replace the colour with something that fit in better very soon.

Edit: Sorry, I think I might have misunderstood what you said. You mean that little orange behind the headings (The Latest, etc.), right? Or something else?

rollsrice - 26 April 2007 05:07 PM

Woah, that was quick!

Thanks for the pointer about the background, I was actually going to replace the colour with something that fit in better very soon.

Edit: Sorry, I think I might have misunderstood what you said. You mean that little orange behind the headings (The Latest, etc.), right? Or something else?

Yes, that’s what I meant.

Being a big fan of Cows, I also really like your Cow.  I had to steal my Cow from google images for my site, Dr. MadCows Web Portal.  The background groundsideleft.jpg seems to be a little over compressed however.

I really like the drawings of the animals, cows, sheeps, very good illustrations. On this page: http://www.rollaword.com/category/guitar-tabs/ the images are smudged and you may want to make them clearer. Your site will only benefit from that.

Hi.
rollsrice
Good drawing work really i appreciate that ...
Regards

Hello everyone, and thanks for your comments. Sorry for replying so late, for some reason I haven?t been receiving notifications my e-mail whenever there was a new post.

gonzo13, a few of the images are overcompressed, I’ll rectify that soon. But do you mean that only the images on that one page appear smudged? And if so, could you mention which images? I ask this because all the pages are supposed to utilize the same images (except for the big sheep image at the intro), so they should appeared smudged on all the pages.

But anyway, thanks again to all the others for taking the time to look at the site. The buffalo and the sheep were not drawn by me, but by my sister-in-law, and I shall pass on the many compliments to her.

hey man.. nice articles!! i like the drawings too. its like a comic strip website.
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