There seems to be a bunch of drama going around with unrequested reviews going around. Well, I’m NOT interested in joining in that nonsense, but I thought it might be fun to review the Big Bad Bitch herself, Jem. Why? Because people rarely do.

So, heading on over to Jemjabella, first off I want to say that this is NOT my favourite design by Jem. In fact, it is probably quite near my least favourite. I believe when Jem designed it she was going through a phase where she wanted her site to be more “blogcentric” and while the layout achieves this, the design is just.. eh.

It’s no secret that Jem loves blue. But, seriously, there IS such thing as TOO MUCH BLUE. I once counted the shades of blue, so let’s do this again. Including the little icons on the sidebar, there are THIRTEEN shades of blue on this page. Even the font is a shade of blue-grey. It’s overwhelming. Normally, I adore light on dark but I find the combination of the blue-grey and the dark blue to be a touch difficult to read on the longer entries. It’s not unbareable, but it’s not the epitome of comfort. Then again, that could be the effect she’s going for. Perhaps keeping your audience in a state of not-quite-conscious discomfort is a nice way to gain control. ;)

As I mentioned earlier, I do enjoy the layout of the page. I like how there are 10 entries a page, although I was confused the first time I clicked on the Page 2 pagination link at the bottom and ended up 11 entries later than I asumed I would be! The visited link colour on the sidebar is a bit too dark.

I find that the Blogmatter and Projects sections don’t really get a lot of attention where they are. Of course, they are sort of secondary in terms of content for the site. I know that I would appreciate it if your Links page was big and bold and noticeable so I could get more traffic to my site. I would appreciate that MORE if the link to me linked to my actual site! Some of your links need to be updated or removed (Ava Rae, As a Dream, Chiklita, Dubious, Liquid Essence, Neonglow and of course AISLING).

Your little header image is cute. It’s my favourite part of this whole thing. I’m not a fan of the colours for the navigation. The red isn’t too bad, but the yellow is a bit jarring. I think it’s mainly that it’s a green-tinted yellow. The darker yellow on the dark blue would’ve worked a bit better, or even a light shade of blue, like your tagline. ANYTHING but neon asparagus pee colour, please!

On to your About page, the first thing I notice is that your subnavigation is… um… boring. VERY boring.

While you’re taking the time to bold WEB DEVELOPER perhaps you could bold JEMMA. You know, really link the two to drive the point home. Why do Karl, Hex and Fudge get bolding status, and Ginger and Afro get the shaft? Pfft.

Your Geek t-shirts page is definitely cute and unique, but not entirely interesting. … Unfortunately I don’t have any suggestions, except maybe to buy more shirts so this page is updated more often. :P

Your Internet History page is fine, apart from a typo in “After an upgrade disasted in December 2008.” “Disasted” should be “disaster.”

Er…

“Besides jemjabella, I own and run several separate sites. My tutorial site, tutorialtastic; I took over the running of the quilting bee in May 2006 after having provided programming and technical support for over a year; I also run rev.iew.me – the website reviewing community. When I’m not working on my this site, these are where my time goes.”

… Do you have issues with capitalizing the things that you name? Are we going to be welcoming little william come November? :P

Contacting Me page… why not just list each of the questions, and then write NO! really big under it? :P

Hey, look, light blue buttons on your misc stuff page! That’s shade #14 of blue.

Your Articles page is nicely organized. I’m not looking at all of them though, because I am lazy. I clicked on your Unrequested Website Reviews article, however, because I am writing a review of your site. It’s… kind of short. It’s less of an article and more of… Jem’s personal disclaimer on why she will write reviews, even if you haven’t asked her to.

I clicked onto your review of Amelie‘s site, since she is someone I know, and completely burst out laughing at “I see blue, more blue, lots more blue and wait, what’s this? Ooh, pink.” Replace pink with red and neon asparagus pee yellow, and we have the first impression of your current design!

Um. I never even noticed that you offered avatars before. It never even occurred to me that you would. I always saw you as more of a… hardcore coding-type, and less of a graphic hander-outter. :P OMG LADYBUGS. *cries*

I think your scripts section is linked… A LOT of times. I remember seeing it linked TWICE on your About page, I believe. Now it’s in Useful Stuff, and it ALSO has its own giant link in the main navigation. WE GET IT.

I remember when we made Ninjas for the Army, and they had white backgrounds to match your page and they floated all nicely, and that looked really cool. And now they’re on a dark blue background, so they’re these little white blocks and that is not as cool.

And thus concludes my journey through Jemjabella. Overall, it’s hard to find a lot to complain about in terms of content, other than the fact that there isn’t a lot of new stuff popping up.

It’s just the design that irks me, really. Complementary colours exist for a reason. I like pink, but…

jempink

IT’S TOO MUCH!

Disclaimer: These are pure facts. Someone DID die and make me the King of the Internet. And I purely mean to offend Jem with this review.