Here’s my opinion for what its worth…
Screenshot 1
raptrex,
I love the images – it adds a really nice explosion of color to the white/gray background. Red really stands out.
Your concept of using floating boxes to display the reviews (with rating stars) across the page is good, but the screen shot you provided suggests distorted viewing.
The longer I looked at it, the less inclined I was to stay and linger. It isn’t happy viewing on the eyes.
My suggestion is to keep all floating boxes the exact same size that way, when the eye travels horizontally it isn’t immediately put off by the display of uneven boxes.
Also, you might consider keeping the spaces between the floating boxes (top, right, bottom and left) EQUAL to its neighbor to make browsing easier.
Another suggestion is to keep the images one size, too, as the eyes always tend to seek mirror dimensional shapes first, before accepting abstract ones.
My other suggestion is to keep blue images away from your header and the top of the page, as the header is blue, too, and gives off a ‘bland’ look and feel. Any other color near the top will work (go, red!).
With all that nice color in your ‘content’ section, the font in the side bar is fine. A different color might be helpful; as it now stands I thought it was a little bland – unless you’re downplaying your sidebar contents so not to distract from your content body?
You might need to nudge a little more space between your tags, so the words aren’t cut off as interest grows. The blue/gray tags are being cut off by the white tag word.
Otherwise, screenshot 1 was pretty good.
Screenshot 2
I really like that red image! It’s a pity it’s so small. When you consider the entire page is dedicated to one review, it’s a shame, really, that the image is tiny in reference to one’s monitor size.
Why not display the image to the full advantage of what you’re trying to achieve?
As a single entry article, make the reviewed image stand out by offering a larger version. Display it like a trophy. That is the purpose of what you’re trying to achieve, right?
Then, as you’ve already done, you can list all comments to the side. It will look really neat when you have lots and lots of comments trailing down one side, and a really nice sized image capturing interest in the main content body section.
What do you think?
Overall, the color contrast wasn’t too bad. If you like it, then that’s fine. I wasn’t too fussed on the comment color background and blue link color – a little too blue for me. But if you like it, then go for it. The site is yours – you can do whatever you want.
Hope this helps.
PS: Unless I’m looking at different screenshots, I didn’t see any green backgrounds? Did I miss something?
