Tips (no, not money)
So, I was debating whether or not I should put one of these up, but I figured "what the heck" and went for it. Just so you know, I'm not trying to be preachy or say that this is exactly how a site should look like. This is really more of a combintation rant and personal rule book. Anyways, hope no one's too offended and maybe someone might find this useful. (:
The Basics
- Use proper grammar. You can throw in as many ^^ and XD as you want, but when you start talking lyk dis, that's when you've crossed a border. Now, I'll acknowledge that "chat speak" has actually gone down (at least from what I've seen), but what still gets me is when some people starting a new site can't use comlete sentences including correct capitalization and periods or commas when necessary. Sure, it's your site, so you can do whatever makes you happy. But, at least for me, I usually prefer to see that people are practicing what they learn in English (or the equivilant in whatever language it is they speak).
- Credit where credit is due. This usually isn't a huge problem. Nearly everyone just by habit would give credit for resources they've used, whether it's because they want to or because they'd feel guilty otherwise. One thing I can't stand, however, is when people credit sites like Google or DeviantART for images or resources. If you used Google to search for the image, that's great, but link to the site where you took the image from. Or if you've taken brushes from a DeviantART user, credit their account ("http://exampleuser.deviantart.com"), not just DeviantART.
- Only make what you want to make. Some trends are really good, some suck, and almost all of them are over-done. It's up to you if you want to follow that trend or try to come up with your own. Of course, anyone would encourage creativity and originality, but it's not always a bad thing to be all caught up with the latest design fad, especially if you can pull it off better than anyone else or if you use it in a new way.
- Be clear. Nearly every design site out there has a terms of use or terms of service page. When making one for your site, make sure that you come up with rules and guidelines that are right for you and be very clear on what you mean. If someone can redistribute brushes, but not wallpapers, or can edit icons but not layouts, make sure you say so. If a situation comes up, then at least you have a set of rules to refer to.
The Design
- Make sure people are able to read what you have to say. One of the most important things to get right when designing and coding a layout is the font color. Sure, you might just want to use some pretty pink, but how will it look against the background? Will it be clear enough? Or will it be too blinding (and yes, pure white font on a pure black background is blinding)? You might have to pick a font color you wouldn't have thought of before, but it's for the sake of your visitor's eyes that the font compliments the background.
- Don't make finding something a chore. While it may work better for your layout to have sub-menus on different pages, make sure that all headers and link names are very clear and easy to find. Have "back" and "forward" buttons, or better yet, see if you can make sub-menus visible on each page in that section. For example, if your graphics link leads to a page with links to avatars, buttons, and designs, then have those three links visible on each of those pages. If you really need to, have a site map in an obvious place on the first page.
- Be creatively organized. There's a difference between creative and cluttered. It's great if you want to have all these extra, amazing features to your layout and have an animated header, plus a bunch of fancy javascript codes. However, if all this distracts from the content or makes it hard to navigate through your site, you might have to go back to more basic coding or designs.
The Content
- You don't always need to sort by series. If you want to have your 200 plus icons sorted by series, then by all means, go ahead. However, don't exclude the option of being able to view all of them at once. If you only have a few icons within four or five series, then that's not so bad, but it's overwhelming to go through 50 different links for each of the 50 different series you've used. Not to mention many people would probably pass over the series that they don't know, so they wouldn't see all of the work you've done!
- Would you use it? Before posting something to your site, take a look at it and see if you'd ever see yourself using it, whether it's a desktop wallpaper or a full layout. If you wouldn't use it, then don't post it. It's better to have a consistant quality of graphics than to just put up any old thing you've made.