Single Page Portfolio v. Multiple Page Portfolio
polycounter lvl 7
Question about formatting for a portfolio website: do you prefer a single page, with the images in a list and contact info very visible, or do you prefer to have a "main page" with links to different pages for projects/pieces? I currently use the later on my portfolio, but I'm debating switching. So far my thinking is
Pros for Single Page:
- Only a few, best pieces
- Least friction for viewer
- Simple
Pros for Multiple Pages:
- Easy to divide up different styles of work
- Easy to divide work into professional and personal categories
- Possibly more manageable to navigate to a particular piece
Pros for Single Page:
- Only a few, best pieces
- Least friction for viewer
- Simple
Pros for Multiple Pages:
- Easy to divide up different styles of work
- Easy to divide work into professional and personal categories
- Possibly more manageable to navigate to a particular piece
Replies
You get more exposure when your work is the first thing a recruiter sees. Multiple pages means having to click back and forth through stuff which takes more effort.
Not a fan of the huge, infinite scroll list of random images and projects without much sorting. I find that a hassle to look at, and not very concise. I feel it's easy to put crap projects at the top of that list and have an employer leave the page without even knowing that there was something that suited them more further down, whereas with a landing page with icons for each project, you can get a feel of all the things someone's tried immediately.
Just my 2 cents.
Of course, if you've got nothing but gigantic images (or god forbid it's a flash website or some shit like that), it may take forever to load a page even if they are organized with thumbnails or divided up into sections. And it's definitely possible to go overboard with organizing things.
So long as people can find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently without having to click 5 times through different menus, and your main points of interest are readily available at all times (some actual work, contact info, resume, etc), I think you're alright.
You pretty much nailed the analysis. I used to have a single page layout and I switched because I wanted to have breakdown shots for assets, which was too busy with all of them on one page. Single page is the easiest to create, maintain, and use but it's less project-oriented and more stream-of-art oriented.
I think single page works great if you're extremely prolific or if you do only one thing very well (HP modeling or w/e).
http://www.alecmoody.com/
Small thumbnails are annoying and I want users to get a quick view of my work as soon as they load the page. I really like single page layouts but they start to be hard to consume when you have work that should be logically grouped or you have a lot of elaborating images (multiple angles, wireframes, texture sheets).
Check it out O o' I test it with my temporary folio stuff... Cool thing is, it offers fast-loading lightbox + save images as + Pin. Pretty cool actually.
http://cargocollective.com/pyr3d
I say less clicking is better. People don't have a ton of time and shouldn't have to click around to view your work. That said though if your work covers multiple categories and styles it might be better to have individual pages (like AmsterdamHH says).
Just make sure your best stuff is the first thing people see. I really don't understand why people use headers that just say their name and take up 25-40% of the screen.
When you're starting out you'll probably have a little bit of every style and type of work. That said you probably shouldn't have that up. Just your best work and what you want to have a job making. Eventually you'll hone your work and portfolio to a point where you're specializing more. That will accommodate one page design a bit better.
Example: I like to make hand painted/stylized props. I make environments too I usually don't have the free time for them though. I can make more gritty, realistic stuff. I just don't enjoy it that much. So I only have props that I would want to for 8-12 hours a day on my site. I don't want people to see a realistic scene that I made and think that's my jam. Cause it's not. And quite frankly there are better Artists than me in that style.
Now bringing that back to you. I like your design. It's good. The separate pages work for yours cause the 'thumbnails' are giant. So I know what I'm clicking before I click.
I was looking at this guy's portfolio and he has boxarts of shipped titles. It would be redundant to show all the artwork from those games on one page because he already gets the point across "Yes, I worked on these games. So click on them if you want to view more".
If I know the title and what type of art you do I can easily figure out what type of work you did. I don't need to see a dozen pictures from one game and have to go back to look at the next, and do that 4 or 5 times.
It's what I try to do on my site, http://bobbyross.com/ using squarespace's flatiron template
I used this too in mine, cheating a bit on weebly templates. http://www.felixcharacters.com/
Want to make it worse? Spread your folio over multiple sites like blogger, personal-webpage, vimeo, youtube, artstation, cgsociety and then all cross-link it in a confusing fashion! AAARGHHH!