Personal Travelog

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Aug 2009

Hello everyone,
I've made a personal travelog... no business purposes, just for family and friends to follow. It's my first web design from scratch. I think I can code it to look however I want, but I don't have much of an artist's eye. So, suggestions for functionality and appearance are both welcome.
Before the Cubicle

They have: 17 posts

Joined: Aug 2009

The first thing i noticed is that it took me three reloads for the site to open up.
Its quite simple and the background is calm. Looks like a WWII based RPG Game Laughing out loud
'Home' and 'Blog' don't have 'alt' text like the others in its line.
The 'alt' text can be made more impressive as i see you have used the default one.
Overall the site is good considering its uses limited for family and friends. Smiling

They have: 15 posts

Joined: Aug 2009

You might want to change the text in the body of your site. It doesn't seem to stand out from the background and therefore is hard to read.

Other than that it looks good. I like your brown theme. =D

They have: 13 posts

Joined: Aug 2009

I had a peekaboo at your pages and I think if its only for family and friends then you shouldnt worry much about how it looks ... if the page looked awfull they would still love it.

From my point of view, it has zero typographic quality, its packed to the edge and just makes my eyes go round and round. You need white space ... just some blank area around the edges would help, go into your maincontent and set your p tag up with padding.

In fact if you look at the first line of text its trying to escape of the page for fear of being crushed.

Hope this has helped a wee bit, and as I said your site looks fine for family and friends so I think you should leave it as it is ??

John (Dundee web designer)

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Aug 2009

Thanks for your comments everyone.
@Chatterbox, any idea why it took you 3 loads?
@Pixeland, where are your eyes going round and round besides on the first line of text on the homepage? I tried to make all the content within small divs, but didn't really know where to put that information. I can add more padding to the main content as well, that's not a hard problem to fix. Thanks again for your comments.

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

Each page does take quite a long time to load. Sometimes 15+ seconds.
This makes me not really want to have a look around, as I got frustrated from the first page load.

The "about" page could do with some paragraphs in the text. You have HUGE blocks of text which is hard to read.

I like the design, quite eye catching. Although due to it having a smart and funky design, I think you let it down with some things. Like having no favicon, and the in-post images would benefit from a dark brown border I think.
(3px padding between the border and the image)

They have: 13 posts

Joined: Aug 2009

Hi, I see your top line is moved in, but you still need the other areas sorted out.

Think of all the text as being in one large frame, as if set on grid lines, gridlines are a great starting point for typographics.

In your web page theres not much going on so it is quite easy just to line your text up. You moved your top line in, and you have left all the other text areas out ??? Can you not see that ?.

Typographics is like changing curtains in your home, change a main feature and all others look like they needing a change.

Line up your text areas with space around, do the same for the menu at page top ... if you leave the page background as it is then ... oh deary me.

Last point, the movie box ... it glares ... its not an attractive part of your design really, change the image in keeping with your colour scheme for a final touch.

On a good note, I think your site is ok though.

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Aug 2009

Thanks for the comments. Those are good recommendations and easy things to change, Greg. And Pixeland, you're obviously an accomplished web designer. "Can you not see that?" I can now that you mention it, but it's not something I noticed before. As I stated in my first post, this is my first website and I don't have an artist's eye. That's why I'm here. Those are all great suggestions though, and they're much appreciated. I also agree with the movie box, I'll change that too.

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