Over the past day or two I’ve posted my entire design portfolio to Flickr. I finished it last night and went to bed at 5 AM. I awoke a few hours later and, upon checking my account, found that I had made a friend overnight. He decided to comment on one of my client websites:
…gah…what a horrible color scheme that is! Look here kiddo: www.backwater-productions.net/images/Muses/Color_Theory…
See if you can’t learn yerself somethin. Further, if you can’t tilt your images without making them look all jagged on their edges…don’t. Also you got WAY too many fonts types goin on here. Seriously, pick two and then stop, anymore than that and you start looking like you were either confused about what direction you wanted to go with your style or you just got click happy in Photoshop after downloading a some font pack. Yes, look at all the pretty fonts, very nice, but you don’t need to use them all at once. Less is more. Overall the design is very cookie cutter looking, it looks like the sort of $5.99 template job you’d buy off “Bob’s Discount Web Designs” or whatever. There’s no soul to it, no sense of style or individuality. One of the first things you should ask yourself is, “What does the design say about the company? What does it convey to visitors?” In this case…it says HALFASS with an extra helping of “couldn’t give a --”.
Well that was sweet. I looked up his Flickr profile and he had only posted one picture, in which he photoshopped the head of a famous web designer/developer onto some gay porn. Classy. I deleted his message and got back to work. A few minutes later, however, I got an email from a guy named ‘Matthew Moulton’. Sure enough, its my new friend!
From: Matthew Moulton Subject: LOLYou can’t cover up what you don’t like on the Internet, Kiddo:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.html/msg/4e2a984d0fb5ac8cIf you can’t take the criticism you best stay the -- out of the biz. `, )
“wtf happened to that poor smiley” I lamented, but no time! It was time to engage my web design peer in this serious conversation. And so I clicked on the usenet link and found that he had reposted his criticism, along with an awesome signature. And so I responded to let him know that I wasn’t going to let him troll me. Apparently this careful sleight was a bad idea and I was really in for it now. Matthew Moulton, professional web designer, had enough of my amateur pandering and took it to the next level — emailing my mommyclient. That’s right, he emailed my client to let them know how much of a hack I am:
I just wanted to let you know how horrible I think your site design looks. First of all the palette used doesn’t fall within the scope of professional color theory http://www.backwater-productions.net/_images/_Muses/Color_Theory.png
Here’s a lovely quote for you:
“When choosing colors for your design, remember a few rules for mixing
colors. The human eye cannot focus on red and blue at the same time.
Trying to read red type on a blue background or vice versa causes
extreme eye fatigue. Your audience will not be receptive to your
message if it hurts them to read it. Never, ever use blue type on a
red background and even worse, is red type on a blue background.”
Another problem with your site is the over use of fonts. Generally
speaking you want to stick with just two font styles, any more than
that will create a jumbled, messy looking design that will make it
hard for your viewers to focus on any one thing.
Yet another problem with the site is that when the user scrolls down
the page the navigation bar is lost. This is a VERY amateur level
design structure. Professional level design teaches that you should
NEVER lose the users ability to navigate through your site, because
once you do the only navigation they have left is that great big back
arrow at the top of their browser that’s likely going to take them
right off yer site…and they won’t be back.
The graphics on your site are also poorly done. Not only have they
been improperly split apart and compressed, the tilting effect was
done very poorly and has produced some very jagged, nasty looking
edges that really stand out and practically scream “our site was
designed by a 15 year old!”
Overall the design the very plain, cliche, cookie cutter looking and
doesn’t really convey anything about your business. It’s boring and
annoying to browse at best. I’m not sure if you just got suckered
into buying some $15 web template (or even worse got resold a $15 web
template for 10 times the original price), but in either case your
website at this point is only serving to hurt your business and you
would be far better off without it. If you’re not even going to take
the bother to at least attempt to take the endeavor seriously and have
an ACTUAL professional level site made…don’t waste people’s
bandwidth.
—
Matthew Moulton
http://www.backwater-productions.net
I realized that I was dealing with a weapons-grade troll, so I looked him up on Google. And wouldn’t you know, he’s got kind of a history. I ignored the email he wrote to my client (she likes her design and his email was pretty insane, so whatever) and was writing up this post when I got another email from him:
You’ve been sent a Flickr Mail from nateklaiber:
:: Threats
Mr. Moulton,
Please note both Flickr.com and the proper authorities have
been notified as I have flagged you as:a) A potential pedophile
b) A potential sexual predator
c) Making unwarranted threatsAll information has been submitted to them, and any future
communication will be directed to them as well.
LOL
Boy I think ya broke the irony meter on that one, Kiddo. And unless
you’re now claiming to be underage (boy won’t that be fun to tell your
clients) I don’t see where you’re coming up with these random pedo
accusations…well, I mean other than the whole angry, desperation
thing you got goin.
It’s pretty typical with your type…you go around mouthing off, then
ya get put in yer place by someone better, but oh no, yer from the lil
Johnny Flunk school of education…passed along from one grade to the
next, always getting an ‘A’ for having a positive ‘Attitude’, always
having someone there to spoon feed you and wipe your ass for you,
never once even tasting the bitterness of failure or
inadequacy…well, until you reach the real world anyway, then ya meet
someone like me who pretty much -- slaps you eight ways to last
Tuesday with yer own stupidity. And so really, what recourse do you
have? I mean it’s not like I’m wrong, it’s not like you can actually
counter any of the arguments or points I brought up in the email to
your client…so what does lil Johnny Flunk do in a situation like
that? Yeah, that’s right…you lie…you slander…you -- Jesus up
the ass with the business end of a steel rake and you resort to the
most pathetic, Hitler inspired, cliche of “attacks”, couching your
failed reasoning in the guise of, “Oh I read the accusation somewhere
else by a doorknob just like me so it MUST be true!”
Let me tell ya something child, I’ve seen yer lil song and dance many
times over. I’ve been on the net even before you knew what the
Internet was. I’ve been randomly accused of pretty much everything
under the sun, from being a supposed pedophile, to the polar opposite
contradiction of a pedophile (an adult baby), to even the full
embodiment of the antichrist himself. Your flailing, blind
accusations however hold no weight and unfortunately for you, you
can’t back lies up with bull--
So you fail…and that makes you angrier…doesn’t it? So you do it
again…and again…and again…and eventually an interesting thing
happens. You become what’s known by many as a “Hatter Addict”.
Forever trying to “get back” at me for blistering your ass over my
knee with reality, rather than simply own up to your failings. Little
Johnny Flunk can NEVER admit to failure, can you? So you get caught
in a vicious cycle, since, sad to say for you, nothing bothers
me…ever. Hell, I once had a kook like you who went so far over the
edge he actually hacked and defaced the Nambla home page with pictures
and derogatory remarks about me. Now honestly child, if THAT didn’t
bother me, do you REALLY think your lil overcompensation is even going
to give me anything more a bit of a chuckle?
snicker
You’re WAY out of yer league on this one you cl00less Webbie and we
Netters…well we don’t ever go easy on yer type. Anything you
censor, delete or try and hide will be reposted publicly on Usenet.
And no, Sparkles, you can’t get things taken off Usenet. Once
posted…posts are permanent, they can’t EVER be undone, they’re
FOREVER. And no amount of your --ing and whining to Flickr or any
other entity that has nothing to do with Usenet at all is going to
bother listening to you so long as I follow the rules on THEIR site.
The key phrase being “their site”. Anything that happens outside of
their domain isn’t their problem, no matter how much you would like to
try and make it so. I can understand the need though, lil Johnny
Flunk is looking for a new parent figure to bail him out and make him
feel all warm, protected and special…hate to break it to ya, but I
REALLY don’t think the guys who own Flickr wanna take on THAT
particular role in regards to your -- britches. It’s high time
you put on some big girl panties and learn to wipe yer own ass, Kiddo.
nods
Man, this guy is insane. I replied to point out that the Flickr complaint was filed by Nate Klaiber, not Reid Young.
Oops, my bad, you both subscribe to the same Flickr group and you both had little snit fits in regards to recent postings of mine so I mixed the two of you up. Disregard the last email and good luck with your client (hopefully you’re working on correcting some of the problems I brought up).
Sure, I’ll get to work on that.










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