Review #40: In the Louvre
Reviewing Michelle’s site, In The Louvre, in Firefox on Mac OS X Panther
First Impressions
Hi there, Michelle. I remember reviewing your site quite a few months ago and giving you a very high score. To be quite honest, I’ve been wondering how to approach this review; it’s been quite intimidating figuring out how to structure and phrase my critique. When I first started writing this review, you had your other layout up. It’s a bit of an inconvenience to me, but I guess it’s partly my fault for taking so long. You can’t expect people to keep their layouts up forever, after all!
Anyway, I’ll start with my first impressions, as the section title would indicate. When I first saw your other layout, I was taken aback. I just didn’t like it, although I could seem to find anything fundamentally wrong wtih it. I’m glad you’ve changed it. There are some definite issues here, but it’s a much nicer layout than your last.
Look at the screenshot of your layout for a second, before we move on here. For such a simple layout, it’s a bit cluttered, especially around the sidebar area.
Layout
Really the thing that’s keeping me from getting all “ZOMG I LOVE IT” with your layout is the fact that colour scheme is really quite bland. This is a huge contrast from your last layout, which I found to be using too many clashing colours, so maybe it’s time to find a balance. Currently your layout is mainly grey, brown, white, and beige. These are all neutral colours, and neutral in this case means bland. Even the green you’re using is fairy neutral. I’m sure there’s a way for you to work in some brighter colours; not necessarily something overwhelming, but perhaps you can brighten the ornaments hanging off the tree and work those colours into your links, headings, etc. The particular grey you’ve chosen is quite depressing; such pale greys, to me, seem like they’re not sure if they want to be truly grey or just white; they look watery; and they make any layout automatically blander. I’m fine with grey, sure, but generally only if it’s a nice dark grey, à la Jemjabella.
Now, your header itself is very cute—and I mean cute as in “cute but not overly so”. It’s almost poetic; it may sound like a strange analogy, but it looks like a painting of a poem to me. There are, however, some definite aspects of the header that I dislike. The first and most apparent thing to me is, of course, the dreary grey. I’ve already outlined this, though, so I think it’s okay if I move on without saying too much more on the subject. Next, this “Once upon a time” seems a tad out of place. Yes, I understand that it fits in with the overall theme of your website, but it looks funny in this theme. The main image looks so dreamy, for lack of a better adjective, while this “Once upon a time” seems to be the Michelle equivalent of random lyric brushes splattered on layouts: pointless and out of place. You might be able to work it into the footer, but on the header it just jumps out at me as an afterthought. Next, there’s the fact that the header image doesn’t extend all the way across the screen. It looks quite strange for part of the sidebar to be on the same level as the girl and the tree; I’m not sure if this was an effect you were trying to achieve, but if so, it hasn’t been executed properly, especially considering the fact that you have a dotted line dividing the content from the sidebar. It looks very awkward. I would also suggest a little more space between the header and the content, because as it stands the date on your most recent entry almost looks like it’s a part of the header image itself.
I’m also noticing a lot of niggly details. Firstly, the Arial. Oh, no, not Arial. This font is the bane of my existence. I’ve seen it work on only a handful of sites, and yours is sadly not one of them. Arial is boring and ugly and the spacing is wonky. It looks so default text-y. Verdana is so much prettier.
Another thing I’ve noticed, which is really quite small, is the fact that you’ve got your sidebar headings in (ugly grey) boxes with rounded corners—and the fact that your text seems to have trouble deciding where to go. You’ve got a definite margin on the left side, but the text isn’t quite centered. I would suggest centering the text, because it will look nicer like that if you’re going to keep them in those boxes. (Also, as a quick side note, could you increase the text size of your sidebar’s unordered lists?)
Moving on, I see you have a separator between posts. This is a good thing to do, but only if it’s done right. Post dividers should be subtle, and they should most definitely tie in with the layout. Yours is neither subtle nor remotely related to anything in the layout but the “Once upon a time”, which, as I’ve already stated, is out of place.
Your text is justified! This is hard to read, leaves large gaps between words, and is just generally a bad idea.
Your footer is fine; the colour is awful, but it’s well-organised. I don’t really like the idea of using a footer as something other than a copyright notice and a few links to important things (sitemap, feeds, host), but yours isn’t bad as these creative footers go.
Okay, now. I really want to address the issue of your comments. They look terrible on the sidebar! Firstly, it’s hard to locate them in this unconvential place. Then, when you do, they’re all squished to one side, which makes reading them awkward. As if that’s not bad enough, they are, of course, weborexic comments, since the sidebar is only about 300px wide. Lastly, it looks funny to have a sidebar extending to the bottom of the page but with so much empty space in the content area. I can see that you were trying to be creative, and I don’t have a problem with this in principle. It’s just that it doesn’t quite work.
Content
About
I’ve never particularly liked those fast-fact sections above the main content. They don’t really serve much purpose; they certainly don’t invite me to read more.
Your first sentence caught me off-guard, as I know you’re a very good writer—this surprised me.
I live in the Commonwealth of Virginia but I someday dream of residing in Maryland; however, my favorite part of life is the independent bookstore job I currently use as an excuse to collect more books.
Why the “however”? As I’m sure you are well-aware, “however” indicates a contradictory statement. The two statements have nothing to do with each other and certainly aren’t contradictory!
Your next paragraph, about books, made me smile. It’s subtly humourous, and quite endearing. (This could just be my rather large inner book lover speaking, though.)
I find this sentence a little awkward:
I spend my rare creative spurts designing, painting, drawing, pixelling, etc.
I assume that by the “etc.”, you mean you like to engage in different types of visual arts; however, the “etc.” just seems lazy, and a bit out of place on your about page, particularly considered the fact that it’s you we’re talking about: a very good writer withimpeccable grammar. Why not replace it with “and engaging in other sorts of creative activities” or something to that effect?
This also sounds a bit awkward:
I’ll not write the next great American novel, but I may self-publish a few along the way
This seems to be implying that you won’t write the next great American novel, but you may self-publish a few great American novels along the way. (And what way would that be? It might sound better to say “during the course of my life”.)
Past these few nit-picky things, this page was enjoyable. It lacked the humour that I generally like to see in About pages, but somehow you made it work. Holding my attention without using humour is a feat to be proud of!
Best Of—Took a while to load, unfortunately. I got a bit lost here, because I found most of these very interesting to read. I suppose that’s the danger of reviewing an interesting site; it’s easy to get distracted from the review itself.
Movies Challenge—Nothing particularly interesting here, as there are no reviews, but okay nonetheless. I’m a bit worried about the coding, though! You should be using (un)ordered lists for this page, and instead of using Movie Name, you should use the more semantically-correct Movie Name.
Domain—Oh, see this section is a jumble of personal information and domain information? I’m not keen on this set-up, mainly because people might be a bit confused about how to get to the domain page if there’s no link on the navigation. Anyway, I have no real problems with this page. It’s to-the-point and has no grammatical (or other) errors that I can see.
Links—Very nicely-organised; I’ll admit to being a bit of a sucker for two-column link lists.
Credits—I’m noticing a distinct lack of semantics here! This is your current page structure:
Section Heading
·Credit, quick description
Yes, it displays nicely, but you could easily do the same thing with semantically-correct coding! Try changing that to something more like this:
Section Heading
- Credit, quick description
Besides that issue, you’ve done a fine job with this page. I like how you added short descriptions without going overboard.
Contact—I don’t think I’ve ever been able to comment on a contact page; yours is no exception. Nothing creative, but then again, that would be nearly impossible.
Plugins—This could probably be combined with the Credits page; after all, I don’t think most people want to go through two pages when one is essentially just an extension of the other. I see you’re making use of unordered lists here, which is good to see. Nitpicking time:
However, there are a few which I’ve found necessary - no, VITAL - to running this blog.
Why not make those masquerading hyphens into actual em dashes? Just use the character code —. It will look so much prettier, I promise you. (Also, the phrasing is a bit odd; it would make more sense to say that the plugins are vital in running your blog.)
Library
Mmm, all these book covers are making me hungry. (Or maybe it’s just that I haven’t eaten breakfast or lunch yet. I’m so busy working away on this review and reading your old posts!) I like what you’ve written here a lot:
No one should ever be ashamed of what they’ve read (or what they haven’t read). Likewise, no one should feel guilt over their thoughts of a certain book or genre, even if several people disagree with them.
I won’t say much about this, because I would just be repeating what you already said, but I do agree with this and I think it says a lot about you. (In a good way, of course.)
Why I Read—This sums it up nicely:
You’ve clicked this link to find out why I read, not about my reading history or how much I would like to lick every book that comes across my path, if not just to claim it as mine.
The title of the page is a big misleading; I personally would change it to “Reading History” and move the fairly short section that’s actually “Why I Read” to the main Library page. That said, I enjoyed reading this page a lot. There’s nothing better than reading about a book lover.
Book Lust—You’ve taken a lot of time to create this page, I can tell. It takes a lot of patience to be able to do something like this, and I applaud you for it. It’s very well-organised, and you seem to have written it all rather thoughtfully (which is a good word to describe the majority of your writing).
Read in 200X—I’m going to review these pages collectively, as my comments apply to all of them. These pages are fine, really; I only have two suggestions. The first is that, since I’ve noticed that you write book reviews in your blog, it would be helpful to link the titles of the books in these lists to the reviews you’ve written. The second has to do with coding. Like , the tag is deprecated and should be replaced with .
Book Links—One could argue that these could easily be placed in your regular links section, and I’m torn. It would really make more sense that way; however, it does seem to fit nicely in this section. Maybe you could make a note on the main Links page that you have a whole other page of book links. That would solve the problem and keep both parties happy. Again, remember to make use of unordered lists; past that, excellent compilation of links.
Fiction
There is a lot to go through here. Your short stories flow very strangely; I had to read Eloise twice before I fully understood. The other pieces went more smoothly for me; I’m not sure if this is because the flow was just better, or if it was because reading Eloise got me accustomed to your style. You are a wonderful storyteller, just bursting with good ideas, it seems. Out of all these pieces, Eloise was definitely the least enjoyable, but it was still a good piece of fiction.
The fragments are the same way: they take some getting used to, but they’re high-quality and enjoyable. I can honestly say that if you were ever to make these fragments into novels, I would read them. Same thing with the Sunday Scribblings, really; as you said yourself, they’re the same thing as fragments, except they have a specific purpose.
Under “A Thought”, change
it had a small snipped
to
it had a small snippet
Speaking of your thoughts, I like this idea. They’re halfway between a regular blog post and a sideblog post; an enjoyable read, for sure.
The bits you’ve posted from your NaNoWriMo novel are great! I would love to see these expanded into a novel; I would absolutely read it. See, reading the snippets from your own novel (however horrible you think it is) makes me feel so down on my own. I almost want to delete all 20,000 words and start over from the beginning!
I remember seeing Poesia Breve last time I reviewed your site and really loving it. Haiku is really the only form of poetry I can get into. I love the poems you’ve written, especially the second. It made me laugh. It’s a shame that the link to the book design doesn’t work, though, because I remember thinking the design was beautiful too.
I think it goes without saying that I enjoyed the pieces under Older Writing as well, though I didn’t read all of Fifteen (not enough time!).
Articles
Firstly, please use unordered lists to display these links. I am quite possibly biased since I love unordered lists, but as a general rule, they are your friend.
I love the PB&J tutorial; the pictures are so cute! I especially like the one for “Enjoy!” And oh does that strawberry shortcake look delicious! Luckily I’ve finally managed to eat (fried my own dumplings; I feel so virtuous), so it’s not making my stomach rumble in agony. I never did get around to trying to make my own little star; I mean, I’ve tried making them countless times before, but they never turned out. I should really use your tutorial. Pictures make everything so much easier to follow! (The pictures are admittedly a little blurry; if you ever need something to do why not retake them?) The banana mush recipe isn’t something I’ll be trying out, being someone who doesn’t like bananas, but I’m sure it will prove to be helpful for others.
The Web Tutorials are external links and should be defined as such. Normally I don’t comment on any external links, and I won’t say too much here, but I think you should know that both of these tutorials are very good. They’re well-thought out and extremely in-depth.
Your Reviews and Thoughts, of course, made for very interesting reading. I particularly liked your review of Ruined By Reading; I thought it was very interesting. Your reviews and blog posts often make me think, which, unless my head is hurting intensely, is a very good thing. I like being challenged; I like finding new ways to think; I like considering new opinions and ideas.
Summary
Well, Michelle, this concludes your review. Going through your site was a very enjoyable experience; as I said before, you always make me think, and it’s not often that a website can get my brain moving as much as yours does. Your writing is all exceptional, and it’s obvious that you put a lot of thought and effort into maintaining your website. However, and there’s almost always a however, some of your coding was lacking. This is not the hugest thing in the world, but I don’t like seeing coding abused, and there’s not much else you can improve upon.
I also missed the art I saw last time I reviewed your website, and I would love it if you could bring it back. Having a book-oriented site is all well and good, but I loved your art and I really want to see it again.
I don’t feel that I can increase your score since the last time you were reviewed, because your art made up a considerable part of your website and did bump your score up accordingly. I don’t feel that your score should go down, however, because the quality of your site is still high. So your original score still stands.
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