Here you all go 
SOD: doubtfull content, blurry fonts, uninteresting, bad design, could be html, it’d be the same…
Cyberwebs: some nice 3D design, nice transitions too, maybe a bit too Matrix-like…? Too many preloaders…
Brainchild: nice but too pale, huge empty space, is it just a menu?
As the main menu constantly follows the mouse, it’s VERY hard to click in the submenu to scroll for example…
ParadiseLimo : must be a joke, right? All I got to see is an ugly preloader & intro, then a thanks page, no content at all…or is it in a pop-up (which got blocked)? Too bad for you then.
GMH: ugh…no content again, takes AGES to load for nothing, preloader takes you to a second loading screen…how do you expect to win clients with something like this?
Alex Desings: amateur work…textlinks…no way, sorry, that’s not Flash.
The people: nice enuff, just too many pop-up windows, use Flash for these, specially for the photos…best one so far, but…
Swirl: nice…erm…babes… not sotw material though, too basic.
College of: nicest one so far, skin the scrollbars in the “foundation” part!! maybe a vote…
Streetsville: yeah, well…fun, but not interesting…
As I can’t vote for “none”, vote goes to “College of” then…
I loved the bowling site =)
soldiersofdeath: Nice design, but you’ll have to explain why you put a swastikka in there :hangover: Also, I didn’t like the pop-up: you have a lot of free space on the page 
cyberwebs: Dark dark… The letters kept cycling for a LONG time, you should limit the number of cycles. The animation seems very slow, a higher fps wouldn’t hurt.
brainchild: Well made and very good looking, but how are we supposed to read anything in such a small window?? The right part is completely empty :-\
paradiselimos: I remember seeng that site a long time ago It’s good, but the design and the content remain too basic.
GMH: Pretty basic too :-\ A bit more detail wouldn’t hurt.
Alex Designs: Better than last time, but too classic for a designer’s site, I think. The sliding nav especially.
The people rock: Nice site. I like the colors and the geeral design. The usability is good too. Nice job.
Swirl-entertainment: Nice site, but the design needs more work, more details.
Chelsea College: Best one so far. Nice consistent design, a bit too orange maybe
Streetsville Bowl: Nice and clean, but nothing in there is SOTWesque…
Soldiers of Death At first glance I thought this site could use a bit more work, but it has potential. After further inspection, I noticed some problems.
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File size is way out of hand. The roster section is over a meg in size which is way too much. The file size of that section alone is about the file size of other entire webpages. I would try to find a way to optimize those images more or reduce the image size a bit because every byte counts.
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The next problem is with consistency. It’s easy to build a website, but building a site that is consistent and organized is a different story. Here, the site is organized, but it is definitely not consistent. I don’t like the way how certain sections opens up in new windows. I feel as if I’m going to a different website each time.
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Since this site was designed using flash, I would expect to see a bit more razzle dazzle. The transitions could be better and the button rollovers could be a bit more elaborate. If you’re going to use flash, then exploit its potential, otherwise use plain HTML and dreamweaver.
Cyberwebs I’m sorry, but the Knight Rider techno song killed it for me and I’m glad there’s a feature to shut off the music. Besides that, here are the problems I noticed:
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First off, there is a alignment issue. The copyright text at the bottom is sitting all on the right side of the layout and it’s not even aligned properly. I would either center it or align it on the right, but flush with the layout. The way it’s positioned now is an eye sore.
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The text you used for your buttons doesn’t go well with your layout. You used a formal font for an informal layout.
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Why is there a blank space above the navigation? It just seems odd to have that space there.
Overall, I just thought this site lacks professionalism and isn’t too clean in design. Nice try though, but not SOTW material.
BrainChild My first initial response was this site seems interesting, something different, but the buttons at the bottom killed it. Here are the other problems I noticed.
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As for design, it’s okay. As for usability, it’s horrible!! How on earth do you shut off the music? At certain agles, the player slides way from the mouse and same goes with the other sections.
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Some of your text in one of your sections hangs outside of the scrolling area.
I didn’t like this site very much, it was hard to navigate so I left after a few clicks.
ParadiseLimos Here are the problems with this site:
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The splash page could use major work. Poor choice of colors, the blue hurts your eyes and the pixel font was used way out of it’s intended size range. On top of that, it’s blurry as well.
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The main layout is no different, same problem with colors and font sizing.
Not very well put together and looks really sloppy.
GMH The layout took forever to load and there wasn’t any options to skip the intro which was a bad sign already.
Once again, here’s another fine example of a poorly designed site. Why you may ask? Here’s why…
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There is no theme or defined color scheme to this site.
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It lacks content, for a design site, it should be filled with content and samples of the company’s work.
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In the about us section, it is stated that they design professional flash sites which is pretty ironic because they have not demonstrated any kind of professionalism in design with their own site.
I suggest you guys start over and plan things out further then go about designing a site that will help convey your designing skills.
Alex Designs Big improvement from your last one, but just because you improved doesn’t mean you’ll win SOTW.
There’s something about your designing style which I can’t pin point at the moment, but it lacks the professional look. Maybe it’s just your lack of experience, but I know you have potential.
One thing about being a designer is being able to adapt. Take negative responses and use it as a way to improve. So far you’ve shown all of us on this forum that you’re capable of that which is somethng you should be proud of.
You may not win SOTW now, but down the line with the way you’re pushing yourself, I wouldn’t be surprised if you win later on in the future as long as you continue to improve.
The People Flash Nice use of typography on some of the elements, but the body text and nav text could use work.
Overall I thought the layout was a bit too dark. The font use for the body text makes it really hard to read. On top of that, the text is blurry as well.
Also the link section should open up in the layout and not in a new browser window. Keep it consistent.
Swirl Entertainment Very lovely ladies! This site gets my vote!! haha j/k Ok on the serious note, I thought the layout is pretty straight forward and clean. The only bad thing about this site is the way flash was implimented. There are no rollovers of any kind of the nav buttons and the fading transition between sections is weak. I would suggest coming up with a better transition effect and some rollover effects for the buttons to compliment the site’s design and ladies. =)
Chelsea College of Art and Design Very nice splash page, nice use of negative and positive with the white and orange. Nice use of color to show typographic hierrarchy in the title.
The layout is pretty simple, transitions and effects are smooth, but the use of orange here is too dominant and is an overkill.
After viewing just a few sections on the site, it became an eye sore. The text could be a bit more clearer as well. The way it is now doesn’t help the readability at all.
It’s also obvious that typography is more dominant on this site which is really boring. I suggest balancing it out with more graphic elements. It would also help tone down on the orange.
Streetsville Bowl First impression was, man those bowlers are horrible!! Besides that, I like the cartoon approach of this site.
Along with that, I like how easy it is to navigate through each section.
It’s obvious the designer payed attention to the demographic for this site and hit it on the mark.
I voted for this site because it is a perfect example of how to use flash to build a site that serves its purpose.
Soldiers of Death:
Despite the camoflage and army backdrops, this site looks awfully bland. I’m guessing this is a page for some clan. Everything works, which is a good start, there’s some server-side scripting, which is also a plus.
Cyberwebs:
Hey my Random Letter Cycling, though it does take a fairly long time to complete. The music eventually ends, the site itself takes most/all of your CPU time, which can serve as a great inconvenience, but other than those flaws, I like this site. The graphics are OK, the sounds are pretty good and the colors are also alright.
Brainchild:
Wow, I thought this site might’ve been the one had it not been for the really irritating ambient CLICKING!!! Plus, the navigation mores around only when your mouse hovers over it, which is annoying when it ends up outside the browser window. I’m running at 1280x1024 and I can’t read the text, it’s also because of the colors, which aren’t bad, but need to be mixed a little differently. It’s not a bad site, but I think i’m going to pass this one up.
ParadiseLimos:
The intro was simple, yet too simple. And that just about sums up the rest of the site. Oh yeah, there was hints of music in the background but i didn’t hear anything.
GMH:
This site took really long to load but it was downloaded…the transition from the intro to the actual main page took an unusually long time. With that aside, despite the unnecessary animations in the background, the links are simply click and poof. It would be nice if there were some animation to show each part of the site.
Alex Designs:
Looks pretty good, with nice pics in the background, but for the about page, i think he only needed one pic of himself, or even none at all. The scroll flash thing seems to be a recurring trend these days…
The People Flash:
I like this site! Good blend of colors, nice simple animations for each link, a pic-scroll at the top that you can actually view! This may be the one.
Swirl Entertainment:
So this is a site for (entertainment) dancers right? It’s got a nice layout, but I wish it didn’t have to lad each section like a new website.
Chelsea College of Art and Design:
This site strangely reminds me of 2advanced’s site…only orange. Beside that fact, it looks pretty good.
Streetsville Bowl:
Nice layout, great background animations, but at first I thought this was going to be a flash game page. This page is really well done.
Whew, those were a lot of site visits, I think my final choice has to be The People Flash.
my vote is for streetsville bowling. I didnt like the rest.
This site is simple, but it is functional.
I’ve voted, critiques will follow tomorrow. Hope that’s not too late.
Hey electron,
Thanks a lot for posting the information for SOTW. I really appreciate it
Cheers!
Kirupa :rd:
No problem. =)
Sorry I didn’t critique. My comp went all schizo on me over the weekend and I had to fix it up. And by the time I got to view SOTW entries it was late last night and I had to get up at 7am this morning to head to Maryland. I voted for the Streetsville Bowl site. I was going to vote for Chelsea College site, but then I realized that their bottom 6 boxes were exactly the same set up as 2A including what content they represent. Not to mention that orange color did start to give me a headache after a while.
I voted for Streetsville because it was the only other site I liked and I liked it because its simple without being too simple or HTML-ish. I thought the idea of the bowling alley rollovers was clever, the navigation is clear as day and the site itself serves it’s purpose without going overboard or underboard.
