Gem Sim Designs - 14 May 2001

Vima - On entry the colors are pleasing, but I'm a little overwhelmed by the banners all at the top and think they might need to be moved down the page to a less prominent area. After all, the content here should be more important.

Right away, I notice that there is a problem right clicking in IE. I usually like to test my walls by saving them as my wallpaper, and that function has been taken away. Believe me, if anyone really wanted to steal these walls, they could just grab them from the cache or do "Save Site" save the site to the hard drive and have all the files anyway. That's exactly what I did to test these and the ones I tested didn't pass the tiling test. I did notice that the HTML didn't convert well and there is a lot of unnecessary coding.

Although some of the walls are really nice, I don't care for the moulding choice and probably wouldn't download because of that. They need a little faux texturing or something to give them more realistic appearances. The solid colors are just not my bowl of Jell-O.

The floors are mostly solid and I like a little pattern and texture.

With a little work on tiling and maybe a little more moulding variety, this site could really become good source for paper and floors. Two martinis.

Squeegee - For a minute there I had thought this would be one hell of a fast review. Using Netscape I detected that the main page of "Gem Sim Designs" opened up and then a Homestead error page saying "We can't find the page you requested" appears right afterwards. But, I am free from anxiety to see that IE loads it up with out any issues. Again, another site that isn't friendly to both types of web browsers.

I have observed that adorable girl graphic before. I think I have seen it being used at the T & S Forum (formally called of course). I can't recollect her name, but I have always found that the person using that image is helpful to others in that forum (major plus points).

I like the look to the main page. It's straightforward and all the colors go with each other. There are a few animations, but they are not in large amounts to annoy me.

Oh!! I like the personal photographs!! I am always a fan of a person sharing a little of themselves as well as the things that they share that are Sims related. My reasoning is that a person like me can then get to know where that person is coming from and appreciate what is offered more because there is a human touch behind it. By the way Lisa, you have very cute children. Your youngest son Chase is a natural with the camera. :)

Back to the review.. There are some great looking walls and floor selections. Some are not that feminine and I tend to favor those. Maybe it's because I am male and that's the main reason.. But I do have a certain taste to a point that it's like looking at fashion and style through a narrow tunnel. At least that's what the girlfriend keeps trying to burn into my ego. :(

Some of the imagery on the walls have of that that "stretched" look to them. The textures look fine, but the upper designs are stretched. But overall, there are some damned beautiful selections featured here. The one that caught my eye was the "Gem Aztec Orange" featured in the "Misc" area.

I enjoyed this site because I have seen that it does feature some of the main traits that I tend to favor. That is a personal touch (not only the way a site is made up, but some sort of personal bio or something of that nature) and that it's a major plus if I have seen the person in the numerous forums helping others who seek help.

This site has that in my opinion. I submit a review of three martinis.

Simantha - Ohh, it's Lisa's site! I know Lisa, although I haven't talked to her lately! Okay, this should be interesting then :) I have to say those animated gems are kind of cute, for about....half a minute...then my mind sort of blocks them out. Hmm, too many buttons and things on here, keep your voting links to a links page please people, it's weird seeing them on the front page where you should be directing visitors to your content, not your popularity!

Oooh. I do very much like the walls and floors, and thankfully Lisa puts them in sets so I don't have to hunt alll over the site to find the matching bits. My one concern is that the walls might not tile exactly smoothly, as I can see some bits of the borders look like they are somewhat cut off instead of being continuous.

Anyways, I'll just order up another couple martinis so I can give these two and half to you, Lisa, for your site GemSimDesigns...taking half a martini away for the layout.

Skyler - Well... My first impression is, I've seen these little dolls on peoples posts and have always thought they were the cutest! So seeing one here makes me smile :) I like the colors used, the teals and greens against the white background, just seem clean and crisp. However there is way to much movement on the page for me to endure for too long. I have things blinking and flashing at me. It's rather distracting. How about toning it down just a smidgen?

It appears this is just a small wallpaper site, no objects to download. Some of the papers are pretty good, some are rather blah, with no texture or depth to them. She won't let us right click to check the tiling, but that never stopped me. I wasn't going to download a bunch of papers I didn't need just to look at tiling, so I just used a different technique I have and viola, I can check them. Some tile fairly well, some aren't so great :( She has some fabulous borders here, but some of them are matched up with papers just a bit to bright for my liking. She has good shadowing on the molding though :)

I'll give her two martinis with extra bubbles, and I think a bookmark. Personally I'd like to see less flashing of icons and such, etc. Toning down some of the wallpaper colors will really boost this site in my opinion. Just to reiterate, I really do love, lets say half of the borders here. The ones that look the most realistic are the ones for my Sims ;) Her floors need more depth/textures for them rather than taking a piece of wallpaper and making it into a floor.

Storel - GemSimDesigns specializes in walls and floors. They don't have anything else, but they do have an extensive selection of those: nearly 500 walls and over 350 floors. Almost all the walls and floors are in sets of one or more walls with one or more matching floors, which is very handy. It can be quite annoying to find a nice wall somewhere and then realize you haven't got a floor to go with it anywhere.

The site is well organized and easily navigated. The sets are divided up into Living Room, Kitchen, Bathroom, Bedroom, Kids Room, Misc, and Holidays. Exterior contains only walls, since you don't need matching floors for exterior walls, and a small Floors section has just floors with no matching walls. A small Guest Artist section showcasing the work of Ginger rounds the whole thing out.

The walls and floors are remarkably tasteful in color and pattern; I can't remember the last time I saw a site with so few loud or garish walls. If you're looking for lots of nice walls and floors, this is an above-average place to look. Four martinis.