CSSCandy.com

[CriTiCeRz]

Hey guys... so after volleyball season... IM BACK! for new projects.. :P so me and my school mate are making this kick *** website (hope)... he did a pretty good design I would say... he posted it on mickm.com ... but I think you guys are better at critique... so tell us what you think about it and what we should change to make it look sexy.

http://csscandy.com/currentwork/

:party:

[ronnie]

Gets my attention so far.

[McGuffin]

Not sure why you've used the green line to separate header from body, you've already got a pink accent color. I'd make it grey like the news background or pink like your text, having it be the only thing green on the site detracts from the design IMO. Apart from that, I think it's a fantastic start.

[CriTiCeRz]

Thanks for the critique.
Small update:
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/1913/masterlayout2tk6.jpg

[=guinness=]

not bad but it looks like almost all the other CSS / Blog sites around.

[B L U E]

not bad but it looks like almost all the other CSS / Blog sites around.
i agree. nothing really makes it unique or gives it an identity. just the popular gradients and pink text floating all over the web.

[Bird-E]

not bad but it looks like almost all the other CSS / Blog sites around.


i agree. nothing really makes it unique or gives it an identity. just the popular gradients and pink text floating all over the web.

Let's expand on these.

The design is nice, the colours are lovely. It could certainly work as a CSS gallery, but thats because its so reminiscent of other gallery site designs that have proven to be 'safe'. It offers nothing impressively different. I dont want to sound like I'm being hard on you, but if you have a weak statement, how are you going to keep people at your site?

I'm not sure if you're familiar with DesignShack, but it used to have a very safe, plain design with all the trendy subtle-gradient background and whatnot. If you visit the site now (www.designshack.co.uk), the vectory artwork gives it something unique, complimenting the design and it doesnt take attention away from the content- its still blaringly there, in clear grey boxes.

I dont know exactly where Im going with this, but you may want to look into giving the design something 'else' (im talking like i know anything about this :x ). The name is nice, and you could play with the idea. Do something wild.

Now that that's out of the way, I like the little changes in the second design, but the white content boxes ("New tutorials added") seem a bit 'busy' with the stylized top right hand corner. I think it would work better with the original plain white boxes.

Keep at it! (-:

[j_polo9]

yea too late in the game to pull something similar..

[simplistik]

I think it's odd to have a gallery of other peoples' work and try to mix it with your own portfolio. It seems like a good idea, but IMO the work I've seen you do, will get severely overshadowed by all the gallery sites that you post. What's to stop any of your "clients" from goin else where... especially when you're providing them with the competition.

With that said I think Bird-E gave a great review and I'd have to agree. Though I don't like designshack myself, your layout provides nothing inginuitive, and nothing memorable. I myself swore I'd seen the layout nearly 1000x times before. And the lack of a good branding strategy just shows how much of a follower this site is turning out to be, instead of a leader. In general, it's like people can't come a good logo for anything CSS related so they just a) toss sans-serif type together and call it a day or b) make a mint leaf. I think you should push the envelope a little more if you want to provide more than the others, I do think that the tutorials section is a nice step in that direction, it'd be nice to be able to goto one reliable CSS / Markup "tutorial" site, although it's inevitable that you end up "stealing" someone else tutorials.

[CriTiCeRz]

Hey guys... thanks for all the recommendations!

We are still planning what we are going to do on this website... we haven't really gone over it so much, but we will certainly try to make it awesome! We are working to see some vector arts of candy all over the page so it looks sexier. Another thing is the logo, we know it's boring... but with school and other stuff to do, we don't have that much time. We are planning on something for the logo too, don't worry... it will look good. :)

We will take all these recommendations and apply them... Thanks for all the comments! Get ready for the next update. :thumb2:

[hybrid101]

doesn't look that bad, nice use of pink though:D
but i've really got a dislike for that search bar.

[mustangdude]

doesn't look that bad, nice use of pink though:D
but i've really got a dislike for that search bar.

How come? What would you do to change it and make it nicer?

[DDD]

I have to strongly agree with simp there. Why show competition? Unless your skills are just mad and your not worried. Or you hope this site will be a cash cow in itself so any residual projects you get are just gravy for the taters... As far as the critique they sum'd up my feelings as well.

[CriTiCeRz]

I have to strongly agree with simp there. Why show competition? Unless your skills are just mad and your not worried. Or you hope this site will be a cash cow in itself so any residual projects you get are just gravy for the taters... As far as the critique they sum'd up my feelings as well.
Dx3 I'm not sure what you are trying to say? ... lol. Are you saying I should leave it like that? I'm just trying to make it look really nice. It's not done, uniqueness is to come now when we have the structure. :pa:

[DDD]

I guess I wasnt sure the motive of the site. Just took the long winded route. :lol:

[twdesignz06]

I don't mind the pink on white in the boxes on the left side, but for me the pink against the dark gray is a little hard for me to read (especially when going from reading the white boxes to looking at those pink headers). I would either add a background color to the pink headers to add more contrast or use a different color all together

[mustangdude]

Alright I get what you guys are saying. I really just realized that and it does make sense. I guess we're gonna have to re-think the whole concept/idea of csscandy. Thanks for all your input, feels great.

[CreationsCentre]

OK, let me give some design critique then. I like the second redesign much better. It works very well. There are however a few quarms that I have. Firstly there is the top right corner of the content boxes.

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5528/cornerhg9.png (http://imageshack.us)

It doesn't fit together very well... and looks odd. This is because of the blur effect on the edges of the pink... well there is no blur on the grey box. (It is a blur effect, right? :P)

Secondly I too have a problem with the search bar, but also the side bar. The search bar looks ok, but it needs to be aligned properly along with your sidebar images:

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/4387/sidebarxj8.th.png (http://img127.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sidebarxj8.png)

Apart from that, it's a nice design! Well done so far! :)

[haam]

just gravy for the tatersHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!

i miss the green header bar! now the site is TOOOOOO pink, the green broke it up.

and i assume that your first nav button and your last nav button will both be rounded on the outer corners but the nav buttons in the middle with be square... you should make them all the same, it makes more sense.