The text, particularly the left sidebar, needs more margin around it. The testimonials stay on the screen for too short a time and the white stays too long, long enough that the impatient clicker might not wait for the next one. You might want to just feature two testimonials and have a link to a page with more.

Colors render differently on different monitors, but on mine, the background clashes with the purple in the sidebars and the heading color has more yellow in it than the graphics.

I'm kind of insane, though.

Erin, it's definitely feminine, but I wouldn't call it too girly.

Well, is your target market women only? Because I could definitely see it being a limiting factor for a masculine audience. Especially for what you're doing; it doesn't need to be a feminine feel.

The other thing is, there's no tie in the design to your tagline at all. I don't think you should have an animated cowgirl tipping back her ten gallon hat with an inkpen. But it's something to consider that if someone responds to your tag, and comes to your website expecting something with those overtones and is confronted by a very girly page, they may not have a positive response.

I like the design, and the purple for the testimonial widgets is what I'm working around, and that color can't be set (or not without coding, which NO.)

Really? That seems weird, and/or the "coding" in question may be really minimal. I think it's important you make your choices based on what you want, not based on something you're just working around. This is stuff you're going to have on absolutely everything, to keep your brand consistent. So you're talking, how does that work with letterhead and envelopes and business cards and signage. You don't want to be basing all that on a widget color.

You might want to just feature two testimonials and have a link to a page with more.

Yeah, this is a good idea. Because not everyone wants testimonials. Some people might feel they read as salespitchy. So they should be there for people that want them, but maybe on call and again, not on every page.

Erin, I can make the widget graphic any color you want.

Maybe just use pullquotes from the testimonials that link to a testimonial page? I also agree with Liese that it would be nice to have some kind of visual tie-in to the wordslinger theme.

I have now tried all four coax connections that I know of in my house. None work. Earliest available appt is Friday morning.

Oh, my.

I have to admit; I am kind of glad to be limited by the widget colors, as I am honestly find myself overwhelmed by visual choices.

Liese, I absolutely agree with you in that I need a visual image that's going to link the tag. I had one, but I took it down last night to focus on the other graphic aspects, because of the aforementioned overwhelming-ness.

I am absolutely going to change the background color to something more neutral, and I will have J play with the colors in the header image. I DO like the berry color and combination with purple, but I think I will see about a deeper palette.

I honestly DO want to target a good section of clientele, but I do think the balance of the editing job might be leaning more towards markets, like romance, paranormal, urban fantasy, so I think having a slightly feminine feel is going to be acceptable.

As long as I keep it slight.

My attention is a little divided, so this is slightly incoherent, but I am looking at the feedback and I really appreciate it.

Hrm. Off to play some more. Excellent points to tweak!

And I may have spoken too soon about not changing the widget header colors; played with all the theme colors, and the purple is STILL a little to bright. But the rest of the colors are as well.

Oh, my god -- this is why I failed art.

Erin, this may be too primitive to help you, but this site allows you to play with various background and text colors.

[link]

See, what I want is a book on household/clutter organization (or instructive human) that will simply TELL ME WHERE TO PUT THINGS. Not a single one I've ever seen has done that. They'll tell me how to plan a party or how to let go of clutter or how to understand where my need to collect/keep things comes from, but they don't tell me what to DO with the stuff I am not getting rid of. I'm serious. Thz srs prblm.

Testify, Zen! I have probably too much stuff, but I like my stuff. And while I don't find the time to do everything with it I'd like, I wouldn't mind if it was in a PLACE where I could be ready to use it. I'm not quite at hoarder levels, but I do save things (rather a lot actually) I want to go through before I toss them (and I've gotten much better about the tossing, but I can't find the time to go through them AND appreciate the stuff I want to keep in an appropriate fashion), so the STUFF has piled up. And I have more room now, so it means I've acquired more stuff (or more to the point, places to put stuff).

Hence, the too many choices I seem to have in my life on things I'd like to peruse or otherwise enjoy that I feel paralyzed to decide between.

This whole discussion has been very helpful in clarifying some of my problems, but I don't know a good (not easy - I don't expect an easy one) solution. Frell.