Looks good for your first. But your font is to big make it from 10-12 pixels and larger font about 24 to 36 pixels. what looks good to the eye.
Holy hell bet no one expects me to be posting anymore. Anyways, first things first, I'm (was) notorious for harsh critique. It's all in the effort of making you better. Now thats that's out of the way... There's a lot of monotony. Nothing in the template particularly stands out. Second, that font you used for the header (and navigation and sub-headers) seems woefully out of place. Theres no theme it's blending in with. Next, and this is common among beginners, is your use of the drop shadow/outer glow. The way you used it makes it appear as if something paper thin is hovering slightly over the background. Although this may sound contradictory, without giving any shape to what seems to be hovering, it makes the template seem very flat. Next, your use of negative space is wasteful. Now, you don't need to cram all the page elements together like people in a Japanese subway, but you have an unnecessarily large amount of space between your "boxes." This is especially pr------ent between the title box, announcements box, and then the content boxes below. Additionally, for when working in Photoshop on a web template, when your font is sized at or less than 14, you should turn anti-aliasing off (at least for the mainstream web-fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, etc). It gives it a more realistic look compared to how it will turn out when turned into an actual site with HTML based text. Now, personally, I hate that title/nav/sub-header font you used, but thats purely personal opinion, so take it for what it's worth. My writing is being cut short now (dinner), so I can't write anymore. Hope that helps.
nice to see u around Equ check my web 2.0 thread anyway as for the template...first thing i must say that you're all better then me when i started (darnit). Its nice that you started to use the gloss style its very popular lately. Now the key to a good attractive design is contrast and strong color but still have to be pleasing to look at. For content you should use verdana or tahoma at 12pixels and no aa. now for the actual criticism: -banner is nice and big but its just a solid color with text. Add some pattern maybe a slight gradient from dark to light. Make it subtle don't overdo it. -navigation is ok but you really need to change the font. -Content boxes are fine its nice to see you have your spacing down and its organized quite good for a beginner. Text is way to big tough. Maybe you should stroke the content boxes with a lil more darker blue color. -for the background never use such a gradient makes it impossible to code so it expand if you have to use a gradient make sure that the color is the same from the banner down. I normally don't crit like this but Equ had make me gone. Good for a first just keep at it and you'll improve^^
