You Can't Escape

I don't want to come off as mean, but I'm honestly having a difficult time finding a place to start with this critique. There are so many issues I feel need to be touched on, and I don't think I'll be able to list them all.

Okay, let's just talk by topic:

Typography
You're using an overabundance of all caps fonts. This can be fine, but when all caps lettering gets tiny (like it is in all of your nav links) it becomes hard to read especially when you track the type in as tightly as you have. There seems to be a trend in web design to make lettering small. STOP. Websites are highly functional things, and they're meant to be useful. If you make the whole site hard to read, you're defeating the whole purpose of the site.

Spacing
There are so many things on this page that the eye is overwhelmed with imagery. You've got to give more space to your items, or else people will feel tense and not want to look at things. The most eye-catching part of this design is on the right-hand side. Those logos have plenty of padding AND plenty of contrast so they become the most comfortable thing to look at. This is clearly backwards. You want visitors to look at the header, not the sponsor logos.

Color Scheme
Absolute duotone work is hard to get behind. You're really only using blue and subtle shades of black. More variation in color would be very helpful. You've also ruined any possibility of hierarchy because you've used blue so much. The best way to imply hierarchy with color would've been to indicate a dominant color and a secondary color. The dominant color becomes used for the ultra-important things, while the secondary color is more commonplace. Right now you have no dominant color because the blue is so abundant.

Header
Your header feels far too simple compared to the rest of the site. It also isn't telling me anything, and yet it takes up 1/4 of the layout! A good header serves a purpose and isn't just a pretty image.

Navigation
This is partly related to the header. Your navigation is pushed down so far that it doesn't feel like the main site navigation. There are also so many options in the nav that it feels overwhelming. It'd be best to cut down the header and also cut down the amount of navigational options so people feel like there is a clear path to information.

Hope that helped. <img src="e.deviantart.com/emoticons/s/s…" width="15" height="15" alt="" title=" (Smile)" />