Ouch

I was going to do some more blogging but it’s almost 5 a.m. and I have to be up at 9. When I get some time, probably tomorrow night, I’ll do my preliminary list of my favorite CSS Reboot designs. Yes, I’m obsessed with CSS Reboot lately.

As for the title of my post, launch day has its ups and downs. I knew that some of my decisions in this design were going to fall short with most people, but I think my mistake was thinking that those people would overlook those aspects.

I mean, I figured if my website is similar to something like, say, If Else, and just has a different style in terms of graphics, then it would be received just as well.

I’m obviously not a graphic design student. Otherwise I would have been told that graphics drive almost everyone’s opinion. I mean, if I had a fancy splash image along the top, this text could look like crap and no one would care… it would be a “hot design.”

For example: I entered this website into Dreamhost Site of the Month contest yesterday. So far I’ve received 4 comments:

• w: “I like it. It’s got a good beat and I can dance to it.”
• x: “a neat little site, design seems to fit”
• y: “very pro dreamhost! yea, but needs a new logo. looks someting like my 5 year old would draw.”
• z: “Good stuff”

w, x, and z all seem like web people. They all have good websites. y, on the other hand, is a graphic designer. She makes and sells apparel, and her website is hideous. Very, very hideous. My first Geocities website was better.

For someone like y, this website is summed up all in one thing: the graphics. And I really only have one. Nevermind that it’s a stylistic thing, not an attempt to show any skillz.

For the record, I followed up this comment by commenting on her website, which was right next to mine in the entries. My comment was: “would you like a redesign?”

I don’t think she could pay me enough, though. Regardless, it goes to show that the majority of surfers still judge websites by graphics alone. It’s a shame, if you ask me.

As an aside, the ouch went double ouch when this website plummetted through the rankings on CSS Reboot. It went from being on the front page to almost the last page in a couple hours. Guess a few good votes from friends wasn’t enough to compete with the blitz… not sure why it was voted so low though, but I’m sure miss y could tell me.

I’m almost tempted to start a “Photoshop Gallery.” People can submit websites that excel at designing with large, bandwidth swallowing images while throwing conventions and usability out the window. Or maybe I’ll start a blog about web pages that suck… when you turn images off. Well, I don’t have the time for either idea, especially with Liquid Designs being a handful.

In the end, maybe I should just aim to please the people who will actually be reading this website. My friends have all liked it, and considering the rest of my traffic will mostly be bloggers and standardistas, I’m sure they won’t mind my lack of Photoshopping.

It’s late. I digress. Goodnight.