Theme Rejected - Justified Reasons?

Hello! Just confused by some feedback I have just received from my theme reviewer and would like your honest opinions.

The reviewer who shall remain nameless stated :-

“Usually, I’d be able to provide more specific feedback but I’m afraid that isn’t the case here. Every aspect of your design will need to be improved, significantly. Right now the template feels like a freebie and doesn’t offer the level of aesthetics necessary to be accepted under ThemeForest’s acceptance guidelines.

I strongly suggest that you take a fresh look at your theme, evaluate the basics and make improvements as necessary.”

That is a pretty damning review, (albeit a copy and paste job) my questions are is it even worth pursuing this? If they feel that much work is needed, perhaps I should scrap heap this and move onto the next one…?

We never design for our work to look like freebies and I spent a long time analysing the current level of design quality in the JigoShop category… Perhaps I have just got this one wrong.

All feedback welcomed! Thanks

Exacly the same as i got it

Can’t realy know whats wrong, from that kind of reply

Lol thanks Anps, at least I’m not alone on my thoughts on this one…

“Every aspect of your design will need to be improved, significantly.” These guys are just lazy man. At my old job, if the creative director or art director didn’t give you C&C with a job you submitted for approval, they’d get canned in a heartbeat. Their job is to review your design and help you improve it for client approval. There was no copy and pasted back and forth emails either, every job submitted was thoroughly reviewed and marked for changes. These guys would go through 250+ jobs a day which would include print ads, flash banners, static banners, web designs, landing pages, tv spots and radio spots.

I just think the reviewers are being lazy.

PS: I would have to say that the wood background is killing the design for me.

I noticed some default browser buttons appearing. For example login, watch for that kind of details or is it maybe just my browser?

Hello there!

Don’t freak out, I have been rejected 4 times now as well, but I won’t give up until I get approved!

• my God those are awful backgrounds, ditch them
• Typography is lacking, you need massive improvements there
• Try to spice it up a bit, it looks a bit generic

Regards, Nikos

Well, I know the feeling of being rejected;)

As mentioned before, the backgrounds are rather destroying the theme then making it better.

Also, the typography in the main menu feels a bit unmatched with the rest of the design.

I also would suggest you put some time on the footer. I mean both in terms of typo, spacing, but also, is the search and login functions really needed down there? They maybe are better placed in the header. Maybe some twitter/facebook widget, payment icons, customer service could be more useful?

Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback, I did feel the review was sort of weird. I agree every rejection should cultivate the design and improve it but that did seem overly harsh…

@xstortionist I work as interactive designer and my Creative Director is the same lol gives quality feedback however not sure i’d want that type of feedback from a reviewer and in many cases fellow designer… I agree the backgrounds may be a hinderance but options are options I guess. They are there if need be but you don’t need to use them by force…

@Anps What browser and version are you using? That should not be happening.

@routsounmanman Thanks for the feedback. Again backgrounds… very subjective. I may be stubborn and stick with them, i guess you never know who may need that type of look. From my experience stores generally are quite reserved with font-families. I’ve always been taught keeping them to a minimum for consistency is best but can you explain what further improvements can be made? Web fonts? I’m using Helvetica for all main body copy including headers, i like its neutrality / adaptability.

@OpenThemer Agree the font face in the main menu does appear out of place on further reflection… Will need to work on this. I actually have another footer style that i disregarded that i will now go back to. I was just filling space with widgets in the footer and they are subjective as to ones requirements. But I will be making changes here also!

Thanks very much for the feedback! truly appreciate it!

I am using Firefox 10.0.2