Wii Freedom!

I think this has to be my best Site developed ever.. Most of my sites sorry to say i really go Half ass on them all.. but This one Ive done and is now my Baby!

Check it out: www.wiifreedom.com

I designed the website and and got it coded for a CMS and I skinned the forums to match the Main page.. took me a few hours to get the hang of it.. But i think it looks great..

wha, a competitor for my site good luck mate. agreed with sms post below, theres too many, but we have unique ways of getting round this!
Alex.

a competitor? more like 100's of competitors :\

anyways, design wise, main site -

background is nice, kind of cool effect you got going, but i despise the actual layout, i dislike the nav and how it sits on the site. and the bottom bar looks squished.

the forum -

mybb is okay but personally i dislike the software for whatever reason and i despise their skins cause they all always look the same and remind me of a defualt skin no matter how much you try to change it.

anyway, about the site. Your main interface appears to be more like a 'blog' than any form of site, which posses information. Background effects are nice but could do with more work generally on working it all together.
I use MyBB on my forums, I <3 the software BUT, it needs to be personalised i dont like the nav, with the swirly circles, which look like something copied straight out of google images, bah. Maybe a bit more work overall?

*please* take my comments as constructive criticsm.

Alex.

Well, 64.81 KB for a background is a little too big. Think about the lower end connection speeds, don't forget they're still being used.

Like it has already been mentioned above, it does look a little like a blog site with a forum stuck in there. To have a site based around a subject of a newly published source (the Wii), you need to provide much more information than just 1 paragraph for each post on the main page.

I also noticed that you said 'We have found'.. may i just ask who is 'we'? Are you sure its not 'I'. Because stating in your forum you only have 2 registered users, yourself and some romeo guy, which still is only a basic registrar of the forum therefore i shall think he's just a visitor. Getting wording right is always a good thing in sites like these.

Secondly, I'd just like to say that the site coding itself could be done much cleaner.
As for the layout itself, here's my view/opinion on it. Its yesterdays style. By what i say i mean that the effects and structure it uses which has been done in Photoshop, arent always the best thing to go about this type of site. This might not make any sence, but.. the Wii itself is glossy, sleek, and obviously small. But, you want to attract a large amount. Therefore in my opinion which wouldnt be risky to do at all, would be to go for that glossy, sleek feeling.

If i may just add, if it wasnt for your header on this site, i wouldnt really tell that this was a Wii community website. The only thing that gives it away is 'Wii' in the text, and the console in the header. I saw the background, I thought.. whats this.. an RPG ?

Don't take it the wrong way or anything but, i'm quite sure many other people with common design sense should understand what I have said, who may also back me up on that.

Otherwise, Goodluck on the development.

PS: if you move the date in the news, to the far right of the 'title', it might look a little better. Maybe a different color? Also, add a bit more spacing between each post aswell. And make the footer have actual text for the copyright, the image is only 3.98 KB but still.. could be much much much smaller.

Hey there,

It looks good, however there are a few areas that could use some improvement in my head.

Header:
I like how you added a Wii stock in there, but everything else is making it look rather bad. The gradient is great colorwise and stuff, but I feel like it doesn't blend well into the content, maybe have a border or something? That brings me to my next point with an idea.

Navigation:
My only concern is that the text is somewhat hard to read due to it's color contrasts. I have a great idea though. "Flip" the navigation up, then change the gradient to a grey/white which will make it blend into the content nicely. Also you could extend it to each side at the bottom to form a nice border between the header/content.

Main Content:
Only problem I see is that there is a lack of structure. Maybe just a background to the comments and maybe just make the titles stand out a bit more. Not much else I can say.

Background:
Looks ace. Did you get it from somewhere or make it yourself?

Anyway, good luck!

Thanks for the tips guys.. ill keep it ALL in mind

@Andrew.. I made it myself

I'm on highspeed and the background and header still took about 11 seconds to load. I know this doesn't sound to long, but I didn't even know there was a header. And then the background came. It's an awesome site! Compress files!

The only thing about this site that really bugs me is the starry background think of another nice background. Thing about this:

What is the need to have those stars for the background?

*this is just to help and i not trying to destroy your design in any way, i just thing something other that stars may be more apt.

Well i choose starts mainly because it was something that would look good as a Background rather then circles or nothing.

And ya.. Im trying to work on the Headers for now.. I just made my banner which you can see on the forums..So within the next day or so.. Imma change the header to the main site and forums..and try to fix the background..its just that the design is coded into wordpress and idk if itll screw up when im trying to edit the header of the main page.


Thanks for all your Opinions!

- Zalaki