PushStandards Free Design Review
PushStandards is a design blog, which also kind of functions as the portfolio of Tom Ross. For a like minded review of your own website, drop me an email with the site and your name, as well as some key points on both.
Graphically Speaking
I went into more depth with accent colours in the first review.
The first impression this design makes is a pretty good one. There are many designs that have this effect but disappoint when you actually focus on one part, but that is yet to be seen. Overall, the colours look good in practice and in theory, but it goes back the use of the accent colour. The navigation has the bright green, which would be the accent. Is that really where you want the reader’s eye to go?
Personally, I would make the navigation area a blue (darker than the background, and dark enough to support white text) and have the “Standards” in the name some sort of green. More splashes of the accent throughout, maybe in headings or in the sidebar and it’s a whole new design.
Graphically, this site is simple, yet not literally simple. It’s definitely a good balance. The symbol in the logo looks like a Photoshop custom shape, and doesn’t seem to reflect the name or the cause in any way. Besides that I like the logo. I do have a bias of loving Rockwell though, so keep that in mind 
There’s only one real flaw I see in the design, and it’s a little bit of a continuity error. The bit of tape on the top right corner is most definitely out of place. I can understand if you were going for the taped down paper effect, but it’s just tape for the sake of showing you can do it. I can see the font you used for the RSS box text in combination with the tape effect sort of give the illusion of that aforementioned feel, but when everything else is orderly and professional it doesn’t fly (for me).
Sidebarally Speaking
I like the sidebar a lot. Not many people really put too much consideration into their sidebars and sometimes it can take away. The subtle shadow on the left side is an effect I like to use myself, as well as the bottom links standing out (”Learn More”, etc…).
Using the pale blue next to the white on the blue background really keeps the focus on the content, which is always a good thing. I’d like to see that background gradient stretched out more, so it’s not so sudden, and I think that would give the overall feel some more flow.
The small headings work, and seem to be the right colour. Although, with that background it makes it hard to work in any of your accent colour without horribly clashing. The ads look good and everything helps to maintain order, but there are a little bit of consistency problems. The categories and blogroll lists are all unstyled (ie no bullet points/images) but the recent posts list has bullets, and is on a darker background.
To maintain the highest consistency, either alternate backgrounds, or if you want separation you can always make some sort of line.
That is of course only someone who was looking for it would see, but I think for your portfolio site it’s something you’d want the utmost attention payed to detail.
Displaying Content
There’s no doubt it’s a pretty bright design. The colours are nice, the green at the top is quite vivid, yet when it comes to the content, everything is subtle, understated and grey. Don’t be afraid to put your post meta in a nice contrasting box and get a little fancy with the way you display your content.
The way the date box is setup is alright, but seems out of place when everything else hasn’t had the same treatment.
As a sidenote, I’d put more posts on a page. You seem to have a pretty steady rate of posting at about 2 posts per day, and it would be easier for a reader to see at least 3 days of content on the front page.
All in All…
It’s a good design. As with any design, if you look hard enough there will be some imperfections. Also, if you gave the PSD to any other designer, they would do some things different. Also, I know this is a design review, but for better blogging success, here’s a few things I’ve found to work:
- Show full posts on the front pages, and also make sure to offer a full RSS feed.
- When doing a list post (like this), try to write a really good introduction instead of just jumping into things.
- If you keep up at this rate you should have no problem with success in the future.
Oh, and throw some padding on those lists!
Leave a comment
Tom Ross
March 1st, 2008 at 5:49 PM
Thanks very much for the review Connor! It’s great to get a review that has some real insight and depth to it. I wasn’t expecting such detail. Anyway, you made some really good points and I’ll definitely try to implement what I can.
Thanks again,
Tom.
Tom Ross
March 1st, 2008 at 5:50 PM
Oh by the way, I guess it’s not as obvious as I thought but for the logo the tick represents ’standards’ and the arrow represents ‘pushing’. The idea is just to do well, but keep improving.
Connor Wilson
March 1st, 2008 at 11:12 PM
Ah, thanks for that trackback. Showed me a little flaw in my CSS for the comments!
I get the logo a little better now, but I still think it’s reaching. Can’t say I’d be able to produce anything more meaningful, though. Good to know you’ll try to implement these things.
Thanks again for the plug!
Tom Ross
March 2nd, 2008 at 8:20 AM
No problem Connor
I’m not exactly sure about duplicate content displaying full posts. Do you know if this might be a problem? Thanks.
Connor Wilson
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:30 AM
I don’t believe it’s a problem. At least, I’ve never had a problem with it, and I’ve never heard of anyone else having a problem.
I’m sure if it did hinder you in any way it would be discouraged efficiently throughout the community.
SEO
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:38 PM
You need to copy pretty much 90% of the page to get done for DC. So don’t worry
Tom Ross
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:38 PM
Thanks for the info guys
D Web Design
March 4th, 2008 at 2:39 AM
Thanks for the info.
I’ll drop you the informations later for the review of a web site.
Thanks in advance
paulette
March 9th, 2008 at 4:13 AM
I visit pushstandard just a while back. I can say that its neat although better if more pictures will be placed on the articles written to give more idea about the subject.It would be better also to not put to much text about the article on the main page. A “read more” button should place to shorten it up while making the main page more attractive so one will be convinced to read more.
fir4t
July 4th, 2008 at 8:17 AM
Thanks for review. Menu is very darling xD
pire ilaçlama
April 25th, 2009 at 4:10 PM
Thanks for the info guys
kakalak ilaçlama
April 29th, 2009 at 2:15 PM
Thanks for the info guys
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