Art Critique on a Website

[Solo Tremaine]

[COLOR=#503f86]Hi everyone ^___^

It's been a while since I ventured outside the confines of the Manga Alley, so apologies to the new crowd who I haven't properly introduced myself to and gotten involved with.

Anywho, I'd like a critique of a website I've built from the more net-technically inclined of y'all to see what you think. I know the denizens of OtakuBoards know a good site when they see one, so I value your opinion on this, heh.

I created it to spread interest about my Nazreal series of stories (which I hope will turn into books by getting published, eventually), so there's nothing particularly exciting about how it's put together. I built it on Moonfruit (I'm sure that'll send up some alarm bells along the line, heh), so it's hardly extravagant. The biggest niggle I have is that you can't appear to have more than one background; what you initially choose has to stay for the whole site unless you place another image over the top, which I've done, and it looks a bit scrappy at times. Still, I like the overall effect so far, and I'd really appreciate everyone else's views. Plus, you know, some hits :P

Linky here: [URL="http://www.nazreal.com"]www.nazreal.com[/URL]

Thanks in advance ^__^[/COLOR]

[Lady Asphyxia]

[FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]Solo! Long time no see. Hope all has been well for you? (I'm living in your neck of the woods now, kind of. Scotland, anyway)

Checked out the website; it really is quite good indeed. One thing I will say is that there is a [I]lot[/I] of blue, which at first I wasn't sure if it was a good thing. But I think that's perhaps simply because of the first background -- the complexity of it means that the blue is emphasised.

While I understand what you mean about the change in backgrounds being choppy, I don't think that that detracts from the overall effect. And the alternative backgrounds (the prologue background, for example) are wonderful. The simplicity of the background makes it easy to read the story, which is what you ultimately want.

The only thing is that it can take some time to load the pages (particularly the lower ones -- contact, etc) and because there's already a background it seems as if there's nothing there. I'm not sure what you'd do about that, though.

My other recommendation is that you include an option somewhere to read the story as, perhaps, one big text document for people who have bad eyes. The white text on dark background could make it harder for people to read -- having the option of downloading a prologue word document, or moving to another black-text-white page may just make it more user friendly (as a just-in-case.)

Otherwise, everything is marvelous. It really is a great website.

EDIT: I just went to check the site on IE, and because I don't use IE all that often I don't have the requirements for it. The text-only version of the website is fantastic, too, and the automatic swap is a great idea. (Perhaps you can include a link to the text only for the poor-eyesight people, rather than a document.)

Excellent work, and I hope you're published soon!
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[Solo Tremaine]

[FONT=Arial][quote name='Lady Asphyxia'][/FONT][FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]Solo! Long time no see. Hope all has been well for you? (I'm living in your neck of the woods now, kind of. Scotland, anyway)[/SIZE][/quote][/FONT][FONT=Arial][SIZE=2][COLOR=#503f86]Rae! *hugs much* Wow, you're in Scotland now? That means I'm paying for your prescriptions and health care, damn joos!

Hehe, it's lovely to see you again ^___^ I've been focusing on my book for the last year/two years, and before that I ran a production company that made films and plays. In the meantime I've driven Rolls-Royces, been stabbed in the hand, been to see L'Arc-en-Ciel live, visited America... the usual ^_~ How about you?

[quote]Checked out the website; it really is quite good indeed. One thing I will say is that there is a [I]lot[/I] of blue, which at first I wasn't sure if it was a good thing. But I think that's perhaps simply because of the first background -- the complexity of it means that the blue is emphasised.

[/quote][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial][COLOR=#503f86][quote][SIZE=2]While I understand what you mean about the change in backgrounds being choppy, I don't think that that detracts from the overall effect. And the alternative backgrounds (the prologue background, for example) are wonderful. The simplicity of the background makes it easy to read the story, which is what you ultimately want.[/SIZE][/quote][SIZE=2]Yeah, the blue was the idea I had from the start- it's supposed to be the colour of the crystals featured primarily in the story, and I really wanted it to stand out for that reason. I wanted a few different pictures to act as backdrops, as if parts of the story were somehow written on the walls of the cave infused with these blue crystals, so I traipsed around the garden when we had a heavy frost taking pictures of EVERYTHING on a macro lense, and then photoshopping the heck out of them.

I'm glad they look okay, though, even with the choppiness ^_^;

[quote]The only thing is that it can take some time to load the pages (particularly the lower ones -- contact, etc) and because there's already a background it seems as if there's nothing there. I'm not sure what you'd do about that, though.[/quote]I might be able to make the pictures smaller files, but for the most part that's Moonfruit's servers stagnating. They get incredibly bad sometimes -___-; I have a few more backgrounds I could use for them though, so I'll take a look at meh folders.

[quote]My other recommendation is that you include an option somewhere to read the story as, perhaps, one big text document for people who have bad eyes. The white text on dark background could make it harder for people to read -- having the option of downloading a prologue word document, or moving to another black-text-white page may just make it more user friendly (as a just-in-case.) [/quote]That was my other major worry, so I think I'll create a duplicate page for the stories with a black-on-white (or at least dark on light) text boxes for ease of reading. I know some people have problems reading white on dark.

[quote]EDIT: I just went to check the site on IE, and because I don't use IE all that often I don't have the requirements for it. The text-only version of the website is fantastic, too, and the automatic swap is a great idea. (Perhaps you can include a link to the text only for the poor-eyesight people, rather than a document.)

Excellent work, and I hope you're published soon!
[/quote][/SIZE]Whoops, I forgot to check it on IE ^_^; I switched to Firefox not so long ago and haven't touched it since, so I should really keep up on that. I didn't know you could view a text-only version though, eheh. I don't think I could create a button for that on my website, as much as I'd like: that's where Moonfruit's restrictions come into play, I think. I'll read up on it though. Thanks so much for looking through it all ^______^ I really appreciate it.

EDIT: Additionally, I rather like this Arial font...
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