I'm usually optimistic with these things, but this looks like an art student not educated in customer-friendly design had an orgasm.
Constructive Points:
- We don't print internet pages, so feel free to use other colors than white. It's creating too much contrast with blue EVERYWHERE and makes EVERYTHING stick out, causing confusion. Good way to piss off NoScript users tho I suppose since it now looks like the site didn't finish loading.
- Why take out all the borderlines and boxes just to make the site seem lighter? Especially the front page is supposed to direct the view, not cause chaos. You should really think of a better way to tie together the individual elements so we can see which box deal with Extra Credits and which with Movie Bob.
- because of the aforementioned lack of structure, the front page looks so full you don't even want to start anywhere. Like a wall of text in HTML shape. Try to split the posts into different, clearly marked groups. Use colorcoding to your advantage.
- bigger loading times don't seem like a fair payoff.
More personal gripes:
- I don't care about my recent history, please give me the option to hide it so the frontpage looks less cluttered
- make the top navigation bar's category titles thicker and thus easier to read. Slim fonts are neat, but not good for webdesign. Webdesign should always be clear and visible at the core and be SUPPORTED by artsy ornaments, not SUPPORT IT.
- Tickers belong to the top. Sorry, that's just where I always expect them to be, and it's a working concept.
- think about customization options to hide aspects from the website. Those would be real improvements. I'd love to browse the site without the entirety of the right navigation, the top one is enough (I'm sure you can stuff those ads elsewhere)
- The new font isn't terrible, but it's a downgrade from the other one in terms of visibility. No I'm not 60, yes I do a lot of visual design myself, but when I browse the net I have to be able to recognize the contents of a frontpage within a second. That's the kind of medium you chose, people.
- No idea why you made your site's biggest and arguably most important content - the videos - more hidden by hiding the sidebar, but I can deal with it. But please change the font of the titles beneath video thumbnails in the show's gallery. Multiple lines are touching each other and the surrounding elements. Same reason I don't like how the escapist logo touches the white. It's not a smooth transition because the logo wasn't optimized and makes it look even more amateurish.
TL;DR
You tried to make the site lighter and went too far, now you hollowed its bones out and the bird comes crashing down. Too much chaos, not enough clean-cut visibility.
