Built By Robots

Built By Robots
http://builtbyrobots.org
Reviewed on 21 November 2008

First Impressions & Layout

Wow, I'm very impressed by your layout. At first glance, the website looks very well put together and the layout rocks. I love the collage of the models. The way you laid out the images is amazing, and the effects/textures are gorgeous. I also like how it's a little transparent looking. The background is nice, but I'm not sure it really goes with the collage. I do like how it fades into black, though. The white background of your content looks nice on top of everything, but there's something I'm unsure of: I do like the way the site name is displayed, with the reflection and all, but the text should be bigger. It seems like there's a lot of wasted space around it that could be filled by the text being bigger. I also think there could've been a bigger fade of the white background into the image. It sort of looks unfinished here in this section:
Your CSS is lovely. I love the color scheme. The navigation is very easy to find. I like that your text is justified, it always looks neater and more organized. The header for your blog titles are pretty huge, and sort of clutter the page, I'd tone them down a bit. Also, give some more space between your sidebar and content, they are almost smushed together right now. Speaking of your sidebar, it's organized well. Everything seems easy to find. The sections are sort of in an odd order, but that's just my personal preference I guess. According to browsershots.org, your layout looks the same in most browsers.

Content

Content: Make sure you capitalize I and Brooke. Your small disclaimer is at the top of the main page, which is good. I hope I don't see the same rules on every other page of the content section. You have one set of brushes, which are nice, but some of the lines are bit jagged. The set is not very original, since a lot of websites have brushes made of dashed lines these days. I like your preview, though. Bullets are next - and there are those rules again. You really don't need them on every single page, but I guess if you want to keep repeating yourself then that's fine. These are nice, though. You have a lot of different colors shapes to choose from. You have them well-organized also. On your page of color pallets, you say that these are copyright to you. I find that a little odd, all you did was match some colors. If I matched the same colors coincidentally, would you say I "stole" your color pallet? There should be a period after the word image on this page. You have these organized into different groups, which is nice for people that know just what they are looking for. Well done. Most of the color schemes are nice, I guess you know how to match colors. I like your previews, too. On your pastel themes page, you mispelled pastel (you spelled pastle). Next are your free layouts. You forgot to capitalize I and Brooke again. First, you have one-column layouts. Your disclaimer here is a run on sentence, rewrite like so:
The following layouts are for your personal use ONLY. They may be edited if you like, but must still be credited to builtbyrobots.org. If you edit the coding, you may write 'template by builtbyrobots.org, template by me' or something along those lines.
These layouts can't be previewed? You really should make previews for these, it's really hard to tell what it's going to look like when it's on a small thumbnail. The CSS can hardly be seen at all. It's hard to review them, as well. The first one looks nice, although the girl on the bottom's head is a bit erased looking. I like the blue colors. The second one is nice, but I'd like to see what that background looks like actual size. I like the images of Raquel Reed that were used. A white background would probably look better than the black, but it's hard to tell. The third one is a bit too purple, even the coloring on the image has a purple tint. It looks amateurish. The last one is like super hot pink, probably would kill my eyes if I saw it on someone's site. I'm a little dissapointed by these layouts because I know you have talent. These just aren't up to the same standard that the layout you're using on your site is. Next are the two-column layouts. This disclaimer needs to be rewritten as above. There is just one layout here, which can't be previewed either, but it looks awesome. Much better than the layouts on the one-column page. They don't even look made by the same person. This one looks like effort was put into it, and the CSS is amazing. Fonts... these weren't made by you, so you really shouldn't be redistributing them, should you? And you don't even credit the actual makers. These need to be taken down. Your disclaimer on this page is another run on sentence, and why are you speaking in third person? On the other pages you used I, now it's Brooke. Speaking in third person always seems a little strange to me, but whatever floats your boat I guess. The icon bases are basically just images cropped to 100x100. Nothing really to review here, except your eye for cropping, which is good. I don't really know why people can't create their own icons without using a pre-cropped picture, though. You've got three PSDs, which are well cut. Your banners are very good, but are they supposed to be used in layouts? If so, they are pretty small. The second one of The Veronicas is a broken image. This page didn't have a set of rules on it like the other pages have so far, is there a reason for that? I love your icons, the effects used are amazing. Your wallpapers are great, too! Although the first one is really pink. The Veronicas one is a broken image.
Tutorials: First, you have 19 PSP tutorials. I hope these are good, I usually use PSP for my graphics and I'd love to learn some new things. Wow, all of these PSP tutorials were very well-written and easy to understand. Next are the HTML tutorials. Your basic HTML tutorial is pretty pointless to have. The font type, size, color, etc should be put into CSS, not the actual coding of the website. And if people don't know how to bold, underline, etc - well, they need more than this tutorial. You have some headers here for people to use. Is this a tutorial, or actual visitor content? To be honest, I wouldn't use any of those headers except maybe the first one. The navigation "tutorial" is the same way, maybe this should be put into the content section. These at least look better than the headers did. Your special characters tutorial is nice, but these are basically just for encoding, I could type a ( or } on my keyboard. You should add some of the more "different" ones like ♥ and ©. Your fav icon tutorial is good.
WWW: The affiliate application page is pretty standard. You have a nice set of rules. A few spelling/grammar mistakes:
- substantual should be substantial
- ammount should be amount
- explict should be explicit
- doesnt should be doesn't
- stanard should be standard
- affilaite should be affiliate
The "girl" page is nice, you've included a lot of information about yourself and I enjoyed reading. Again, you need to capitalize your Is, and there were a few more grammar/spelling errors found:
- im should be I'm (this is repeated throughout)
- texturinzing should be texturizing
Your second paragraph is a run on sentence and has some grammar mistakes. It should be written as so:
For now I am the happiest I can ever remember being :) I pretty much owe everything to Josh, without him in my life I would be back where I was before I met him. I wasn't having a bad life, but I was a bit troubled and lost in love. The moment I was introduced to him, I fell for him. Now, over a year later, we are still going strong. He pushes me and helps me, and makes me smile every day.
You need more spacing between your sections, adding just one more line between each section will make sure that things don't just run together. Your past layouts look amazing, it's obvious that you have talent in making layouts. "Reviews by" is standard. Your site history was very interesting to read. Remember to capitalize Freewebs, Neopets, Mary Kate and Ashley. Proper nouns must be capitalized - this includes names and places. Wait, where's your credits page? I don't see one on your site at all. I know you have your layout credits at the bottom of the sidebar, but that's just not cutting it. You need to credit the makers of all images used on your site. I am assuming you didn't take those celebrity photos yourself, correct? Well, you need to credit where you got them from. You need to credit the makers of the fonts on your page of fonts, you need to credit your host, anyone whose resources you've used on your site. Get a credits page up is my biggest suggestion for you, especially since you've been barking at people to credit you for things all over your site.

Overall

The main thing is you need a credits page. You also need to work on your grammar and capitalization. I really enjoyed your site and you definitely have a lot of talent. With these few suggestion I've made, you can improve and make your site even better than it already is. Keep up the great work and good luck in the future!