Grungy

June 20, 2009

Design

Graphics, Colors & Fonts: 5/20 points

Century Gothic is my hands down favorite font, but I have a feeling you really pulled a lot of inspiration from the very similar "cold" template by whistleonwild, and the font wasn't a deliberate choice for this template, so much as a left over piece of the cold template.

The background patterns are exactly that – repeating patterns, detracting from the intended "gruge" feel. For a proper grunge template, there should be unpredictable elements, more interesting backgrounds (not patterns), that are more photorealistic or unexpected. I recommend seamlesstextures.net for some inspiration.

The top banner looks pixellated, not grunge, and that just seems like lazy graphic design more than anything. The gray looks flat, because it lacks texture or variation – it's all one color for the text. Even the white texture looks like a pattern. Overall, it's too calculated and well aligned to be considered grungy, much less a strong design.

Why so much inconsistency in comment style? I understand one's an author comment and the others are user comments, but the author comment at least looks legitimately grungy, if very seamed on the patterned background. The user comments are too smooth and clean looking – again, this throws the whole template theme into a weird middle-ground. It really looks like you took the whistleonwild template and added some of Pyroman's style in (the intensely rounded corners) and tried to call it grunge, which neither designer's style is.

The first, previous, next and latest buttons (all arrows) are obviously the same image repeated over for each. They are identical, and they actually break, falling onto the next line as a result of the jump box. This just looks sloppy and lazy, I'm afraid. The archive page is just red links on a light gray background, which I shouldn't have to tell you is hard on the eyes.

The devil is really in the details. What makes the cold template great is the subtle elements that support the overall effect. It seems very clean and simple, but there's actually a lot going on. The patterns fade into a solid white or gray, the avatars have a shadow effect, you could even accuse whistleonwild of overusing transparency, but it's so subtle, you can't hold it against her.

First Impression: 5/10

This looks like a very generic template, and it doesn't seem like a lot of time or care was put into creating it. It's called Grungy, but it's too clean to really be grungy. The graphics are used to create an effect, but the whole thing is too neat and tidy to support it. The rounded borders at the left top and bottom corners are weird… it feels too modern/80's style and it completely contradicts the intended grunge effect. They're also really extreme. I personally find tighter, smaller rounded corners to look best. They're subtle, but organic.

Composition: 5/10 points

The design is well centered, but it feels huge, like there's too much dead space being incorporated into it, and the text is a bit too large. The alignment of the text in the news posts is really peculiar, too. It looks like everything's centered, which I'm really not a fan of, it'll make everything look like horrendous poetry.

Resolution: 5/5 points

I know you were concerned about a 920 pixel wide template, but honestly, 800 pixel wide screen resolutions are so under used, it makes little sense to worry about it too much. I make all of my designs around 970 pixels wide to fit neatly on a 1026 or wider screen. If you're concerned about the discrepancy between a 1024 pixel wide screen and much larger, consider building fluid width templates.

Originality: 0/5 points

Eep, unfortunately, even though the graphics and colors have changed, this is a straight rip of whistleonwild's "cold" template.

Function

W3C Valid HTML and CSS: 10/20 points

Unfortunately, your template doesn't validate for HTML or CSS, but the HTML isn't all your fault (fix the illegal character in your css, and you'll be fine for HTML), Smack Jeeves throws in junk that will screw up your validation every time. On the CSS front, though, you can't blame the server.

User Interface: 5/10 points

Oh dear, oh dear, when perusing the archive, it looks like no design really took place there. It's just content in a bordered table on a light gray background. Very difficult to read and navigate. I keep questioning the red on gray decision. It's just awful.

Cross-Browser Compatibility: 5/10 points

No – as you stated before, it works dreadfully in IE6.

Load Time: 5/5 points

The design itself loads fine, but the server its hosted on does not.

User Experience: 3/5 points

There's little to get in the way of the visitor actually using this site, with the exception of the hard to see links. I'm taking two points off for the sideways navigation combined with the font used for those buttons. Tough to read, and you abbreviated archives to "arch." Try not to forget that folks who visit your site may not be in on the overall site lingo, e.g. "Favs +" etc.