I am designing a layout for my blog. Can you please give me your comments? I don't want to do up my entire website before realizing that there are improvements to be made. So I would appreciate it if you can give me some feedback. When you first look at the website, you may find it weird because I try to be different from all the blogs you see out there. The JPEG mockup is attached. Hope to hear some constructive criticism or praise

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A can't give you a lot of constructive feedback. Unfortunately, the fact is I don't have the code for your layout, so I can't judge how truly well your layout is. I can only see into the outside of the design. The things I would say about the mere appearance of the page is that you should define the right column a little better, you should put your about page on a seperate page, and the blue bottom does not agree with the top. Perhaps you should change the top to agree with the bottom or vice versa.

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It is okay, you can't give me feedback because there isn't any code yet. I need to ensure that my design is the final version before I delve into coding.

Do not be mistaken into that is a right column, it is actually a column to describe my post. Post meta if you will.

The about is merely a short snippet about the author, I don't have any plans to add an about page just yet.

Which blue bottom are you referring to? The one which contains the about or the one which contains the rustling writings?

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Your web design is green on top, and then blue on the bottom. It doesn't seem to match up...

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The lime green was meant to serve as a highlight.

This is my new version:
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/397/layoutmj5.jpg

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1. The limetouch logo at the top right doesn't seem to match the "style" of the page the word lime that is currently in green would better match your (search box?) if it was blue instead of green!
2. is that bursting stars thing a search box? if so maybe put a button to the right of it saying "search" or you can use this code to show an initial piece of text that disappears when someone clicks on it: for example: a code that says the word search in the text box, telling what it does:

That code will show the text "search this site..." when someone visits the page. When they click in the searchbox, it will disappear (hard-coded javascript, if disabled, the text will still show and can be selected and replaced. Simple!) if the box is left empty and they click away, it will say search this site again!

3. Tetra is right. The green really doesn't go with the blue at the bottom maybe make the blue a lighter shade at the bottom, or change it's colour slightly to match
4. white text at the bottom is slightly hard to read over the blue writing...

 

 

 

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As the others said, I don't really like the color mixing too much. The newer layout looks better but I would try to stick to more of one scheme. A little bit of blue in green or green in blue isn't bad but having random sections of each color just doesn't really seem to fit. I know you are trying to be different but I think there are other ways to do it. The search box idea Jimmy gave you to have the word search in the text box until it is clicked upon I think is a good idea. Sure most people will know it's a search box but there are a lot of people out there who aren't familiar with sites and may not know that. The categories on the right, I guess is OK because it's pretty obvious that it is navigation stuff. I personally probably wouldn't do it but it doesn't look all that bad.

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The color scheme is a little better than previously, though I still say that you shouldn't change color so drastically. You can have blue in that design, but remember the artistic priciple of balance - don't overpower an element of art over the other.

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