4. Lawn Art Critique

http://msybert.willyworld.org/lawnart/index.htm

The Good

• The lawn art images link very well with the text adjacent to them. The homepage clearly indicates that the site is about lawn art and whets the viewers interest with an interesting opening quote.
• The black background is a crisp contrast to the images and holds its negative space very well.

The Bad

• The site navigation changes depending upon which page is being viewed making it slightly challenging to browse the site.
• The body text for each image is somewhat difficult to read due to its calligraphic nature.

Overall this is a very pleasing site. The layout is simple and straightforward. Score: 4/5

http://www.taz.usi-artspace.com/

The Good

• The site navigation is very clever and distinguishes itself from the rest of the page with a clean rollover effect. The flamingo is an icon in lawn art so it is very fitting that the flamingos beak should point to the navigation as a rollover effect.
• The pages are intellectually stimulating in that that show multiple visuals and toss small puns here and there.

The Bad

• The image background gradient competes with the the text and images for the first read. This may not have been a problem if the site background color had been changed to something darker such as purple or black but as it is, the green competes with the visual elements for the foreground.
• Though the site navigation is very clever it is a tad awkward to navigate with. It should strongly distinguish itself from the rest of the graphic elements or it runs the risk of being mistaken for a logo. If the ellipse binding the navigation had been more rounded like a circle and if the text within it had been evenly spaced and padded then it would be clearer that it served as the site navigation. The idea for a non-traditional site navigation is a brilliant one but in this case it needs a bit more tweaking.

Overall, this site is very clever and holds its graphic elements very well but it just needs some improvement on the crispness of its shapes and more diverse color choices. Other than the mentioned problems, this is a very well made site. Score: 4.8 / 5

http://ethan.usi-artspace.com/Lawn%20Holidays%20Revision.htm

The Good

• This site uses dynamic images as both high opaque and low opacity that work very harmoniously.
• The site navigation gives small, low opacity examples of what they link to. This not only adds to the informative power of the page, but it adds to the ascetic value.
• The use of moderate-high opacity rounded boxes for the body text of each page by preserving the images readability with the mentioned low opacity and supports the black body text with the maximum level of contrast without interfering with the high image load of the pages.
• The contact details at the bottom of the page are clever in that they support the thesis of lawn art by marketing on the sites viewers with the "purchase ornaments" pseudo-link.
• The sans-serif font chosen for the body text is readable even at a small size.

The Bad

• The site navigation is inconsistent between the pages because it does not include the link to the page currently being shown. The reason that this is a problem is that it prevents the site viewer from predicting where the next navigation image will take them.
• The site background color changes in accordance to the dominant color of the main image on the site. This is clever but it draws unnecessary attention to the background of the page currently being shown.

Overall this is a well done site. Even though it is image-heavy it does a very good job of keeping the images organized and,with the exception of the navigation, maintains the placement of the images on each page. Score: 4.5 / 5