Captious Pedants

It's been four years since the last time I reviewed your site! Boy, I feel old. Thank you for this trip down the memory lane. I read my previous review of your site before writing this one, and I'm glad to see that the site has gotten more focused in its orientation and objective (and about to get even more focused after your upcoming revamp). The current site speaks to your maturity as a designer. A nice comparison with Frozen Rain four years ago.

Presentation

Well... I guess I spoke a little too soon. There are things that don't change: I still see frozen-rain.net, Frozen-rain.net, and Frozen-Rain.net. You might not care about how your site's name is capitalized, but it is important to maintain consistently, if not to confuse your visitors, then for the sake of aesthetic uniformity. It is distracting to see three versions of your site's name on one page, and I strongly believe in delivering a consistent image of your site's identity, down to the minute detail.

In 1280 x 800 resolution, your layout appears to utilize space very well. Rarely do I encounter a layout that uses white as its primary color without giving off the impression of too much blank space on the screen, and for that, good job! The design is simplistic and serves its purpose well. The only thing that I am puzzled by is the butterfly and the trail of... bubbles coming off from its wings across your header image. The abrupt change in style, from the "realistic" flower to the almost-elementary, slightly playful butterfly, catches me off-guard. They seem jarring together. A design, like a website, should have a coherent identity; all its elements need to compliment each other, and if they don't, there should be a reason for it.

I dislike having to scroll over tiny little squares and wait for the tooltip text to appear to find out where that button leads. Images should speak for themselves. If they don't make sense on their own, then perhaps it's time to rethink the images idea. I believe that when listing affiliates, one should either list the names of the sites or use relevant graphics of a sizable dimension so visitors would have a better sense of what they're getting themselves into. Tiny squares with tooltip texts is just a strange compromise that in the end, accomplishes neither goal.

"Previous page" should be to the left of "Next page" wherever links are concerned. (Think of a time line, with arrows. Isn't it strange to have arrows of the future and past point toward each other?) If nothing else, think about it this way: humans are creatures of habit. If your visitors are used to seeing "Previous page" on the left and "Next page" on the right on every site except yours, wouldn't they be temporarily caught off-guard whenever they come to your site? Do you really want to re-condition them?

A couple more notes from my fellow dictator, Veve: On the matter of consistency, using 6 different fonts is quite the achievement. I think the number is arbitrary, but if you're going to use a variety of fonts to do subtle emphasis, they do have to agree with each other. The navigation text works nicely with the flower image, and I don't mind the serif font used for the subtitle. It's adds a nice sense of sophistication like a Victorian garden table. And the title would give off the same feeling if not for the odd character spacing. However, the "Affiliates" text is just random, and obnoxiously big. Some extra line height may help with how clutter the the text appears to be, especially with the opening paragraph. Between the heading and the text, and between the paragraphs themselves. Everything seems so bunched up together, whereas everything was so comfortably spaced on the navigation bar. Thinking breathing room.

Content

"About"

• I feel that there is not enough space between your header and your paragraph. The problem isn't so apparent on the first page, but it's very distracting on pages like "About," and in particular, the header for the "About Me" section.
• There needs to be some space between your image (avatar) and the text in the "About Me" section. Right now, the text is hugging the image.
• Your bullet reall doesn't go near the top but is somewhere in the middle when an item spans two lines. It is somewhat distracting when things don't align the way they're supposed to.

"Portfolio"

• Why the differentiation between "Layouts" and "Commissions" if all commissions are layouts? This way, won't people who are interested in requesting something from you have to look through both pages? I believe that a designer's stye and ability should be gauged from both paid and non-paid works. In essence, there should be no differentiation between the two.
• I think you can afford to be more selective about the works you choose to display in your portfolio. The layout that features nothing but a black background and a vectored umbrella, for example, is not up to par with the rest of your works. Layouts no. 6, 5, 3 and 2 are very similar to each other, both in style (images that have been heavily blended) and in color scheme. They do not show your breadth as a designer. Ultimately, a portfolio is about quality and not quantity. Part of your problem, I think, stems from this seemingly minor inconsistency in naming: On the "Layouts" page, the first heading appears as, "Layout Archive"; however, the page is under the "Portfolio" section. An archive aims for completeness; a portfolio highlights certain strengths.

"Resources"

• Your latest additions to the textures give me a headache, and that's not an exaggeration. They look like parts of a photo that have been blurred beyond recognition and remind me of what the world looks like for someone who has astigmatism before she discovered corrective lenses. I think it is unwise to have your all latest additions to a category looking very similar to each other. It signals a kind of interchangeability about your work--like you created them in a series instead of treating them like individual works, each with its own purpose, theme, and identity. Furthermore, texture, by its definition, is supposed to be linked with a sense of touch. Dry wall, soft petals, cotton, paper... they are textures. Blurred photos are not.
• And since I'm already bugged by these textures... last time I checked, textures are supposed to be repeatable in some sense, so that one can create a pattern on a page when putting them together. In other words, there needs to be some sort of symmetry to a texture. What can one do with textures that are tiny (100 x 100px) and unsymmetrical? Making avatars out of them? Not quite that practical now, is it?
• Your links go in the order of icons, layouts, and textures, but your latest additions go in the order of icons, textures, and layouts. A bit inconsistent there. Also, separating your latest graphics from the links seems a bit illogical to me. Should I scroll down to see your latest additions, then scroll back up to go to the actual pages?
• Speaking of consistency, it throws me off a little to have a navigation bar at the top where I can move back and forth between different works in your portfolio but not in your resources section.
• The last three layouts in this section really show their age. I think it is time to remove them because 1. bigger screen resolutions have become more common in the last four years, and a tiny i-frame layout that took up a fourth of the screen in 800 x 600 is even tinier (and thus, more annoying) in 1280 x 800, and 2. you have grown as a designer, and they are no longer up to par.

"Services," "Contact," and "Linkage"

As my partner in crime and loveliest Veve once said, utilize all the space you have on the page. Why limit your visitors to a tiny textarea while there is plenty of white space on the right side of the form? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to stretch the input fields so that they look a little bit more balanced on the page?

I'm starting to feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but I have this uncontrollable need to point out the text on your "Link me" buttons: "watermark," "frozen-rain.net," "frozen-rain," and "FR." I can understand the "frozen-rain.net" and "frozen-rain" thing, and I can excuse the "FR" if I'm in a really, really good mood, but "watermark"? Huh?

Coding

I am curious... why did you decide to use a table for your navigation links and then apply a Javascript on top of them to create a on-hover link effect when you could've used CSS? I had Adblock on at first, so I didn't realize it was there until i looked at your source code. Allow me to refer to you the magic of a Pure CSS hover list.

Closing Thoughts

I think your site has gotten a lot more focused since my review four years ago. Part of it, I reckon, is due to the natural passage of time and our maturation. I would like to see you distinguish, for yourself and for your visitors, what's a "portfolio" and what's an "archive." I look forward to your further experimentation with designs. I'm a strong believer in the idea that a successful web designer is someone with a distinct personality and style, but that this style is always linked to breadth and adaptability.