New wordpress template, please review!

[Agenator]

So we are doing blogs for religion class. Instead of signing up for a generic blogger account (recommended by the teacher) I went ahead and custom built a wordpress template found here:
http://creepyeyestudios.com/religion/wordpress/index.php .(domain of its own to come shortly as my team members pay up lol ). Anyway I was wondering if you could take a look at the design and give me a few ideas as too how it could be improved. Ignore the text, its all filler right now.
Thanks
(p.s. creidts may or may not be involved for objective and well written reviews)

 

[tittat]

At first i loaded your site in IE6,the layout was well cluttered.
But it looks nice in Mozilla.The background images of "pages",Archives etc looks cool.But i think you can go for fancying your navigation button a little more.As a whole site gives me a pleasant feel.
Good luck

 

[xmakina]

Very nice template. I would probably avoid black text on a grey background, however, as colour blind users may struggle with that.

 

[relisys]

nice template, although you could do with a little bit more blending there

 

[Salvatos]

So we are doing blogs for religion class. Instead of signing up for a generic blogger account (recommended by the teacher) I went ahead and custom built a wordpress template

First and foremost: thank you for that!

Now for criticism:
The black font is indeed a bad choice for a lot of users.

I'm very unsure about the cross. I think a different pattern would suit the site better.

For the menu titles, I would go for more similar colors instead of five clashing colors, especially since they are different from the rest of your site's colors. You could replace the purple one with your background's orange, for a start.

The menu's grey background is a bit dull as well, but I can't come up with a better suggestion.

A border around the menu would be good I think. The problem is that the side of the menu joins with the separation in the header, so adding spacing or a border there might clash a bit. Again, I'm at loss of a suggestion for that as well. Maybe using the top left dark grey area and make it surround the menu as well, just making the menu's content a bit tighter.

 

[Jordan C]

I think you need a new font, something even as simple as Arial.

The images may look beter if they somehow blended into the background (as suggested by someone else) or use transparency.

Apart from that, its nice!

 

[Agenator]

First and foremost: thank you for that

no problem

I think you need a new font, something even as simple as Arial.

Okay, thats easy enough to change and I cerntainly agree (just cant believe the thought hadn't occured to me lol).

The menu's grey background is a bit dull as well, but I can't come up with a better suggestion.

I'm thinking about finding and image to repeat underneath, something that doesn't stand out too much... anyway Ill look into that more later.

For the menu titles, I would go for more similar colors instead of five clashing colors, especially since they are different from the rest of your site's colors. You could replace the purple one with your background's orange, for a start.

Another great idea, thanks alot (its back to photoshop when I get spare moment lol).

The images may look beter if they somehow blended into the background (as suggested by someone else) or use transparency.

nice template, although you could do with a little bit more blending there

Hmm, I'm not exactly sure what you mean here, could you explain a little more?

Very nice template. I would probably avoid black text on a grey background, however, as colour blind users may struggle with that.

Just something that didn't cross my mind at midnight of the day this was due XD That will be changed asap!

All in all thanks for the suggestions and the compliments. Credits will be awarded to a couple of the really good suggestions. If more useful suggestions come, I'll award some more credits.

 

[Salvatos]

Thanks for the credits!

Oh by the way, I just noticed how you used the banner image on the menu headers. I'd suggest changing them to focus more on the sun, because for now it only looks like a color streaked with black, so even though the idea is good, it doesn't show enough. Again, using a less "bold" color would help bring this forward.