I've been working on this lovechild for a week straight now, and am beginning to lose all direction on how to tidy it up and finally bring it together. I'm satisfied with the basic design - yet there is something still off, and at this point, I've lost my spider sense as to what that is.

 

The site.

(links not up yet; some minor kinks in Safari still, I think.)

 

Does the sub-menu white line make it too cluttered? Is the background too fruity? I'm not getting that sense of wholeness and simplicity I tried to pull off originally. Is the shadow on the main content onto the sidebar too harsh?

 

Any critique much appreciated. I really want this one to be good. Help me nail it!

I love it! I wouldnt change a thing!

But isn't it too... yellow? O__o

But isn't it too... yellow? O__o

 

Agreed.

I've tried shifting the palette around, but even beyond the color issue, I feel there's something not just there. It's not meshing. I want to be able to look at it from afar and experience the website as a seamless whole - and this just isn't doing that yet.

Bumpetty.

Aww come on. I need some piece-tearing here.

Try a background texture to take away from the yellowness a little

firstly lets not go ott on the bump factor, people will see the post and if they have a comment will reply, so maybe if no one has replied in a few days do a bump but in an hour, please don't do that again.

 

The site looks fine, I would follow eggman's advice and look to add a little texture to break up the yellow

Looks wise I think it looks fine.

 

I would suggest you pay attention to your text links, they're not obvious. The sub menu (newa haven, colleges etc) looks find but it's not obvious that the headings are links - either underline your links or make them a contrasting colour to ordinary text.

Thanks guys. I changed the link styling and went for a semi-patterned background.

 

Better? Worse?

That cute, although I think fading from black is a bad idea, as it is making the site look a little dull, maybe try orange or something like that that give it a more spring look

 

 

I do like the idea of the flowers in the background though

Visually I think it's great. Nice, tidy layout, clean lines, easy on the eyes.

The code really needs some attention though. W3C finds 116 errors on your home page, and although some of them are as simple as omitting the alt tag on your images, there are some more serious issues there, like incorrect nesting of elements.

For example you have a <div> nested inside <h3> nested inside <li> . This is back to front. Your <div> should contain your <h3> and your <ul> but not the other way round.

I know, I know... I'm one of those people that are too quick to get a visual sample done, tidying up the code afterwards, rather than building from solid foundations on up. I usually end up re-writing the css altogether as soon as I feel the "actual page" is done. It's backwards, and I feel that nagging shame about it I also get when having too much dessert :/

 

Dizi, thanks! That's one of the things I think was bugging me - the background should be spunky, but not take up too much attention and weigh everything down (which also happened right now, with the brown top fade).

I think it helps draw the eye, maybe even if it was just all yellow, and had the flowers at the top and they just fade out. I feel with the brown at the top it is slightly too distracting from the page, it just needs a little something to tone it down a bit

 

 

Also there is nothing wrong with the way you work, if it works for you. It may take more time but as long as you fix the problems in the end then there is no harm in it

I think it looks great.

Hey, Great looking a website, got a few minor pointers that might help you .

 

- I'd really inderstand the round corner. It seems a out of place since you don't use it anywhere else.

- The red/yellow gradient is a bit extreme, might tone it down a bit to make it look less old.

- Gap at top of website is a bit large (wasted space)

- The dropshadows are a bit extreme in general, try making them a bit more subtle.

- Your where border runs next to your footer on the right side but doesn't on the left side.

 

Well thats it good looking website, couple more tweaks and your there.

 

Greetz R-J