Website Review

NomadSoul2501

Hi guys,

I'm on the job hunt again after moving back to Switzerland last week.
I want to polish my website and make it easier to navigate and understand.
The changes I'm planning to make are from this article by Jon Jones:

http://www.jonjones.com/2005/10/07/your-portfolio-repels-jobs/

I am planning following changes:

>Have the portfolio page be the main page

>Add a two line introduction to the portfolio page with my name, desired position and email.

>Add a link to the 'Resume' page at the bottom of every description on the 'Portfolio' page so that the user wont have to scroll back up to get to the resume. (Is there a way to pin the navigation bar? Would that be better?)

>Add my contact info to the banner images

>Add a watermark with name, website and contact info to all the images in my galleries.

>Translate the resume into German and add an english/german switch to the 'Resume' page.

>Rename the 'Home' page to 'About Me' and move it back in the selection order, before the 'Contact' page.

I will be working on this today and over the weekend, so I haven't done those changes yet. I am posting this now to get some early feedback if those ideas are even any good.
Should you see something I missed or have any more ideas and suggestions please don't hesitate to comment

Please visit the site at:
www.g-cg.com

Thank you

NomadSoul2501

Quick update:


Done
>made portfolio main page
>Updated portfolio intro
>updated about me text
>changed order of pages
>Added a link to the 'Resume' page at the bottom of the project description on the 'Portfolio' page.
>Added a link to related videos at the bottom of the project description on the 'Portfolio' page.
>Added a link to related tutorials to the project description on the 'Portfolio' page.
>added a hyperlink to my email on the portfolio page though it is still broken
>Add my contact info to the banner images
>Add a watermark with name, website and contact info to all the images in my galleries.



Outstanding
>Translate the resume into German and add an english/german switch to the 'Resume' page.


Questions
>Should I add videos that are related to projects to the portfolio page?

NomadSoul2501

OK, most changes are done.

I added my contact info to the Aberdeen and Nanyang galleries first.
Also, I made the thumbnails bigger (some thumbs are blurry because I haven't updated them yet).

Are the thumbnails too big now or should I make them even bigger?

check it out at: www.g-cg.com

DWalker

I'd get rid of the flash and load the images directly.

Many of the images in the simulation section seem blurry or out-of-focus. Also, many (possibly all) of the links in that section are broken, coming up with a "content cannot be loaded" message.

I'm personally a fan of a single large banner image for each project linking to a page of images, but that's a matter of taste, really. I just feel that it allows a quick overview of your work before delving into projects the viewer finds interesting.

On several of the island images, the specular light on the water makes it look like plastic wrap. It's especially noticeable in the third image in the water close to shore; sea foam really should be visible in that region. Also, sand under the waterline should be considerably darker. Finally, palm fronds are typically shaped by the dominant direction of the wind.

MikeSeguin

Site is looking good; just a few things that are my own personal opinion:

1) Cut down on the number of renders for each of your environments. It's a little too much currently. Try and boil it down to at most ten of the renders that you think really show off the environment.

2) Have a flythrough and the floorplan with each environment listed.

3) Unless I somehow missed it (which means it's not prevalent enough anyways), list what engine/program your environments were done in.

4) Diversify: Show work from at least two different programs/engines, to show that you are not program/tool dependent.

NomadSoul2501

Thanks for the feedback

DWalker, you must have looked just as I was replacing the images in the simulation gallery with watermarked ones. This should work now, could you please let me know if it's fixed?

Personaly I also like the banner images idea, but I decided against it because the article said to keep the navigation as flat as possible.
Also, I don't know how to do that in WP.

Do you think a Banner that leads to a page containing large screenshots kinda like we have them in polycount would be easier?
If I did that, I could get rid of the slideshow plugin.

MikeSeguin, with one exception, no environment has more than 9 images.
Do you think I should separate the simulation gallery more so that it doesn't look as one huge block?

Where I have them I linked to flythroughs of the environments.
I will create and add more, to cover all environments
Would you have those videos as part of the galleries or can I leave it as a link?

I didn't list any software used. I thought having that in the resume was enough.
How would you suggest I do it, would it be enough to have in the gallery description or would you add program icons to the images?

I really appreciate the feedback, and will get right on the suggested changes

kolamano

I like that site