Want some free graphics?

[kaleidoscopekorral]

Hi all,

Just wanted to get some opinions about some of the free graphics that I posted on my site. Thus far, these free graphics consist of seamless backgrounds, tiled borders, and animated gifs. To access my free graphics, please visit the following link at http://kaleidoscopekorral.elementfx.com/Freeware.html Also, if you have the time, I would love to hear some opinions about my site in general. Please click here to visit my index page.

Regards,
kaleidoscopekorral...;)

[farscapeone]

First of all I don't like that kind of GIF animations so I'll rather not discus them.

On the other hand I like pattern backgrounds and I found few of them in your "Seamless Tiled Backgrounds" section.

For a site that offer graphics it sure looks pretty simple.

[cybrax]

Animated gifs were once all the rage and a commmon site on many a web page back in the late 1990's. It is easy though to over do them, large ones really do not work well. Emoticons by contrast have thrived and it would be hard now to imagine the web without them.

On a more 'nuts & bolts' level if you are making these yourself then go download 'The Gimp' graphics editor, it is completely free (no time limit or other restriction) and will help you create better images once mastered.

[kaleidoscopekorral]

Thank you for your opinions guys, it is much appreciated! I will definitely have a look at gimp editor, Cybrax, and hope to create some more free graphics in the future. I never even thought about emoticons but maybe I should have a go sometime. Also, is simple a good or bad thing? Do you have any suggestions on how to make my site better Leviathon? I must admit I do admire your work, Johnny Bravo.

[farscapeone]

Do you have any suggestions on how to make my site better Leviathon? I must admit I do admire your work, Johnny Bravo.

After that compliment I just have to answer you :laugh:
No seriously, when people are interested in making things better and learning new I just have to help in any way I can.

INDEX PAGE
First of all, I visited your index page and I think it's pointless. You used it as an intro page without any reason. Intro pages are usually made if you have multilingual website and you want visitors to choose their language. As a matter of fact intro page is generally made when visitors have to choose between two or more options. To understand it better here's an example. When you visit www.asus.com and you'll notice an intro page where you have to choose you region to continue. That's a perfect example of useful intro page. When you don't offer any choice to your visitors intro page is pointless.

INTRODUCTION PAGE
After the intro page I discussed above, having the "Enter" button is simply confusing. Enter button is used in intro pages and having it on a page that's just after intro is not a good idea. In your case that button represents a link to your blog witch (I suppose) is most important part of your website. I made that conclusion because the "Enter" button leading to your blog is attracting attention more then any other link on that page. I this case I suggest you lose the "To access my weblog, please click the “enter” button located below." and make a new button that says "Visit my blog" or "Enter the blog" or whatever. That way it will be clear what the button is for and visitors won't need to read the whole sentence just to know that.

Designers don't put navigation menu (main menu) to the right for a reason. Try moving it to the left or top of your page. Trust me on this ;)

OVERALL DESIGN
Consistency (or lack of it) is the main problem of your design. Almost every page has it's own layout and style witch a big no-no in web design. When you are planing a website it's always god to make a general idea or template and stick to it.

I see you used a tiled background. I don't know if you made it yourself (I suppose so) or not but in any case I don't like it. If you really like tiled backgrounds try this www.bgpatterns.com. It's an excellent tool for making fantastic tiled backgrounds.

Using music in the background is good sometimes but you still have to let visitors choose if they want it or not. Mute button is probably the best solution.

Overall design is far from being good. You just have to work, and more importantly, learn more. I'm going to give you some resources so you can learn from the best and hopefully much faster then you would on your own. In the end I have to say that the look and feel of 90's is bothering me the most. If you want to be good in web and graphic design you constantly have to improve and flow new trends because if you don't you'll fall behind.

RESOURCES
http://tutsplus.com/ - one of the biggest design networks on the web. Great tutorials for anything related to design and web. Personally my favorite
http://creattica.com/ - one of the best inspiration resource where you can learn by studying other peoples work. Like a previous one this is also an envato project.
http://www.tutorial9.net/ - Photoshop, photography and web tutorials
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/ - an excelet blog for web designers
http://cssglobe.com/ - an excelet blog for web designers

Hope this was helpful and good luck with your future work.

[kaleidoscopekorral]

Hi Johnny,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner but I would just like to say thank you for the time you have spent on the critique of my site and all the great links you have posted for me. You do bring up some very valid points and I will definitely implement these recommendations you have given me in the next few days. This is the constructive criticism I have been looking for in this forum and hope to hear from you again in the future!

Regards,
kaleidoscopekorral

[farscapeone]

Thank you kaleidoscopekorral and enjoy your stay here at x10

[shadowkitty]

Those would be nice for a myspace page. I liked the butterfly one the most ;)

[farscapeone]

I see you made some changes based on my suggestions and that's cool, but you did something really bad. You put an animated GIF for a background on your index page. There are too many reasons people don't do that and I'll give you a few. First of all it's annoying. My eyes started to heart after spending only a few seconds looking at it. I use 1680x1050 resolution witch means that your page content is only covering small area of the screen. The rest is all background constantly changing. That brings us to second reason. Animated backgrounds destruct visitors attention so they can't concentrate on content.

I hope you'll see my point and do something about it cos this way you are sure to get increased bounce rate.

[playminigames]

i was just lookin around you site and i found something, its agains the tos, so you might want to remove it ASAP, some of you photography is against the tos, because of the nudity, if you wish to stay here you have to remove it.