Review 225

This is a slightly unusual site. The blog hasn’t been going for long, so it’s hard to judge how good it is, but there is a good amount of other content scattered around the place (including some funny tales, and some serious essays) to make up for the current shortfall.



So why is the site unusual? Well, it appears to discard the common blogger design aesthetic. For a start, the page is split in two by a frameset, with the navigation at the top and content below it. A lot of the documents further in open in their own window, with a different (not entirely complementary) colour scheme.



The design itself is difficult to describe properly. It isn’t advanced, neither is it minimalist. It consists mostly of pictures (the navigation frame is pictures-only, with no pop-up text to help decipher their meaning; fortunately they are mostly self-explanatory), that look like they were inspired by explodingdog.



I’ve rated this site as 2.5 out of 5 mainly because I want to reserve judgement on it. It really is too young a site to review the blog, so I have rated it in terms of the other content, which is worth a quick visit to look at.Stephanie Says

Review 230

This site’s design will throw most people that visit it. For a start, nearly three quarters of the screen have been abandoned in favour of squeezing all the content into the bottom left hand corner. Whilst this is certainly original, I’m not sure if it works particularly well, as one consequence is a very small text size.



The background image itself is very well realised, although one problem with it is that it clashes badly with much of the text, making an already difficult site that much harder to read.



The blog itself is fairly interesting, although there are too many posts that go on without much point. The author’s constant use of sentence fragments joined together by “…” is immediately annoying.



Some of the content here is good though. The writer is clearly enthusiastic about anime and that side of art, and if this was the only topic of discussion, the site would be much richer. Also, trying to squeeze pictures into the bottom frame is a bad idea.



This has the makings of an attractive and interesting site, but at the moment it falls between two stools.Reflections

Review 219

If you go to Comedic to read entertaining and funny posts, you’re better off going to one of the subsections of the site, as the blog is pretty uninspiring.



The jokes and other funnies themselves are pretty hit and miss. It would certainly help your chances if you have a “flexible” sense of humour, although whilst browsing around the site I did see one or two things that brought a smile to my face. Unfortunately, these appear to be simply reposted images from an altogether different site.



Design wise, the site is fairly simplistic. The authors have chosen to take scrolling control away from the browser, and as a result it isn’t easy to gauge how far into a document you are (especially on the blog).



If you are really into South Park humour (but none of the subtle references that Stone and Parker sneak in) you might like this site, but otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend it.Comedic

Review 212

And the Afterglow is written by a seventeen year old called Jenipher, and it’s about her life, interestingly enough. There’s a lot about her here at this site, including an expansive biography and head-nods to all her friends.



The blog doesn’t wallow in details about friends too much, which makes a change, and contains some very interesting observations and anecdotes.



Jenipher has been promising a redesign in recent posts, which should be interesting to see since the current design itself is good, and the layout strong. The colour scheme is mostly black and white, with the only real colour being provided by a reasonably warm red tone that helps lift the site.



All in all this is a good, strong blog, that is well designed (and hopefully still will be post-redesign), and well written.[ and the afterglow ]

Review 217

This is one of the best written blogs I have seen in quite some time. For a start the updates are made often and contain fact, opinion and wit (key ingredients in making an entertaining site). The author comes across as very intelligent, well-read and lively.



Aside from the blog, there are some other parts of the site that are very worthwhile visits. The “about” section is one of the most exhaustive I have ever seen, and there are also photo series, poems and the usual guestbook and wish list.



The design is fantastic. It works very well across the whole site, and establishes itself consistently on every page. The stitched together photos make for a very appealing masthead, and the use of images elsewhere on the site is both subtle and clever.



Julie really lets you into her life in this site, which is more than you can say for a lot of blogs these days where you feel yourself being distanced from the material by the author.



Certainly worth visiting.accidental