Owner: Cristina
Website: Life2Cris

Life2Cris has a variety of resources—from useless Photoshop actions or Paint Shop Pro scripts to
redistributed fonts that made Dafont’s Top 100 List (ooh, is that the Evanescence font?). How useful! In general, Cristina’s level of graphic design isn’t eye burning nor is it groundbreaking or unique. A lot of the graphic resources look like they took less time to be made than it takes for someone close the window to the site. Although the resources page visually looks impressive, in terms of the number links and pages, it’s no better than a site that solely provdies high-quality textures. Tip #1: Quantity doesn’t equate to quality… perhaps bad quality, but that’s just about it. Take time to explore better image manipulation techniques in order to live up to the number of resources that is currently provided. May I also remind you that coded layouts are composed of HTML and CSS? Therefore it obviously works with Freewebs? In addition, when you say PHP you clearly mean it uses PHP includes. And lastly, how can you credit yourself when you clearly stole celebrity images and put it in your “own” gallery?

Since we are on the topic of visuals, L2C’s layout is “piczo-ish” although Cristina usefully reminds us that piczo sites cannot have any affiliation to her prestige domain site. I apologize for going off topic: Having a nifty domain does not entitle you to talent or any other ability perks. It’s just a domain! It’s something your mommy or daddy or your job at Romanian Wal-mart paid for. That’s it. Back to the layout discussion: Let’s just say that L2C’s current layout is indeed organized, however it doesn’t best reflect Cristina’s abilities. Although the properties of the CSS are colour co- ordinated, the choice of colour scheme seems so dull and dare I say, drowsy. The image header is to large (in terms of height) and there isn’t match going on other than a cloudy texture.I would rather prefer she use one the image headers she made in her graphic tutorials. And the choice of font isn’t so hot either. Perhaps Cristina should use one of her many stolen, redistributed fonts conveniently found on the resources page.

Can Cristina teach? The Paint Shop Pro tutorials have average instructions that lead results that range from useless to hideous. The “advanced” tutorials require good old copy and paste. And surprisingly the only tutorials of actual use are the Freewebs, Piczo, CuteNews (useless and destructive, but I’ll give an ounce of credit), and Wordpress, which are sites and scripts that she doesn’t use currently. And one more thing, why does Cristina have Piczo tutorials when she clearly stated that she wanted no affiliation with them? Ironically, she was once a Piczo user… Hmm… What if a there was Piczo site out there that was better Life2Cris.info? Stupid stereotypes… Tip #2: Take your time to explore and experiment with your graphic ability before you teach others techniques that can be found all over the good old webernet. Also, you should add some more WordPress tutorials like integrating layouts. Maybe some more basic HTML and CSS tutorials we be off use for those dedicated piczo and freewebs users.

For a girl who spends an average of 4 to 5 hours each day updating her site, Cristina lacks the ability to credit her sources. Not only does she waste her time redistributing resources, she wastes her time claiming copyright over them. I won’t list the many things Cristina needs to credit, I’m sure she knows. Also I recommend that she closes down that celeb gallery site before legal action is taken.

Life to Cris! Wake up! Your site is infamous for borderline useless resources, average tutorials, stolen content, broken links, and spelling and grammar mistakes! Maybe you should go back to sleep, you spend too much time on your site that you forget to do almost everything. Nighty night!

Owner: Laura
Website: StarMonkey Designs

For a website that receives 350-850 hits daily during weekdays and much more during the weekend, StarMonkey Designs does not live up to the high amount of traffic it receives. And yes, I believe that Laura receives those amounts of hits with or without the screenshots. StarMonkey Designs is like any other stereotypical “graphic/resource” site out there—redistributed celebrity images plastered over uncreative works and resources that please legions of teenage crowds. Whoop-di-doo!

Visually, SMD’s layout is something a hussy ten year old produced in a dark and dingy room after getting wasted on orange juice from concentrate. The colours used in the CSS are so diabolical compared to the pallid header image that completely relies on “blend mode” to achieve something graphically appealing. Tip #1: Either stick to those faded tones in your CSS or make the header image more dark and vibrant like that vomit purple that’s the backdrop to the graphic mess. Also, the main navigation menu or bar contributes to the mess of the layout.

As for the “downloads”, SMD’s downloads range from deficient to borderline average. Even if you claim no copyright to copyrighted content, like fonts for instance, it is morally wrong to redistribute other people’s hard work. How would you feel if I took your brushes and offered them as resources on my site even though I claimed no copyright to them? Would a stupid “I did not make them” blurb pay respects to your hard work? I don’t think so at all. Also, why would you suggest for people to download CuteNews? You are misinforming your 350+ visitors! Come on Laura, you a great advantage by having many visitors—take it as an advantage to inform them correctly and to provide for them usefully! Tip #2: It is quite obvious that you want to fill up your content page as much as possible. Please take the time to create resources or give advice that is of actual use. Redistributing photography, fonts, magazine stocks, etc., shows your lack of skill (well, at least to me). If you have to steal from other people to maintain content and resources, then you obviously have not much to offer. On a lighter note, you have a lot of potential in terms of graphic design. Some of your layout headers are commendable. In general, don’t make useless resources like PSP scripts or colour schemes. It doesn’t take a monkey to experiment with colour settings or match colours. Before I forget, it’s not convenient to make your visitors download premades to their own server.

After being declined of site quality from the previous points of interest, I am literally appalled by the somewhat functional tutorials SMD provides. They are not obviously the greatest teachings I have read, but they are useful for beginners who are starting out with their websites. The tutorials are actually explained in sentences! I am relieved that Laura did not waste her time stealing JavaScript tutorials and claiming to be an expert. However, that one “add to favourites” tutorial is questionable… At least she sticks to what she actually knows.

The most original bit of originality that is present in the website is the “Spotlight” section. It’s great to showcase talent. But, to ask such frivolous and stupid questions—it completely let me down. Tip #3: Ask better questions that can benefit to your visitors.

Again I am back to being baffled by the lack of sources that are being credited. Although Laura claims to have created the majority of work, that is obviously and most definitely incorrect. In the words of some ludicrous nerds I know, EPIC FAIL! And of course, the teen friendly surfeit of site (swimchick.net) is credited. I guess she taught you well to steal fonts,make trendy layout tutorials, create a predictable “layout info” blurb, and much more. Disagree with me all you want, but you know it’s true. SMD’s credits are so vague that a person would have a field day if they wanted to sue SMD for copyright infringement. So what would one assume of Laura from the lack of credits? Twenty year old Laura who’s a libra by the way is solely responsible for the internet’s markup languages, the scripts that were used on her website, her host, and many other programs that used to create a mess of a site.

StarMonkey Designs is the interweb’s (and yes, I said interweb!) contribution to gullible teenagers cashing out money to be advertised on a site that isn’t even groundbreaking or even aesthetically pleasing. What we do to get an ounce of exposure. Currently, it’s trendy to visit and acknowledge sites like SMD. How about in five years or so? We’ll see.. Strangely, I think this site could survive and overcome the cripples of poor choices that I ignore google search results if Laura actually brushes up on the elements and principles of design or simply colour co-ordination and creativity.

And here’s a “spotlight” question for Laura: Am I telling the truth or am I just bitching about?