Tips For Designing Website/Portfolio?

NURBS

I'm going to be redesigning my website pretty soon and I would like some tips on how to make it look nice and professional. I've never been real good at coming up with my own designs so I'd like some input. It's a Wix website but I'm going to get a proper domain name and don't worry about my picture in the about section, I will get a proper one too that actually has my face in it.

https://joshforsberg.wixsite.com/nurbs

jStins

Your current site isn't too bad, but just use art station. You're a 3D artist, not a web designer. Rolling your own website just drains time that you could be spending on your 3D work. 

PixelMasher

just use artstation, there are a ton of threads where leads and art directors rage against wix sites and custom portfolio sites with confusing navigation. a normal artstation profile is what I preffer to browse, not even those custom artstation portfolio view sites. I add candidates to collections so i can go back and sort through potential hires at a later date etc. I wrote a massive article about it 

https://www.polygon-academy.com/why-your-portfolio-needs-to-be-on-artstation/

long story short, using wix or wasting time trying to design a easy to navigate, visually appealing portfolio site is pretty much a waste of time these days. artstation has taken over and is what 99% of leads and AD's I talk to want to see, because its so easy to use and they are used to it. 

CrackRockSteady

+1 to what has been said here already, and I'll also say that I'd nix the video reel unless you have animation or VFX to show off.  No one involved in hiring artists has the time or desire to sit through 2 minutes of slowly spinning props or whatever.  We want to be able to easily and quickly see large static images of your work and breakdowns.

jaker3278

Use Artstation please. Its where all the traffic is and where employers hire. Just get on it. 

NURBS

So your all saying that it would be a good idea to just ignore building my own website completely and just use Artstation, correct? Do potential employers really use JUST Artstation?

PixelMasher

100% yes. There are a ton of other reasons to use it as well that can lead to you getting a job offer, like i mention in that article. It has hands down been the most important site for me career wise for recruiting in the last few years. 

If people like your work, they can instantly dm you on the platform without having to hunt for your contact info. 

BagelHero

Even if they didn't, it provides you a website component you can link to as if it's a regular portfolio website (though I personally always switch it to profile view anyway). You don't need an account to view or interact, and it's already set up in a way that is actively difficult to screw up navigation/display of portfolio pieces. It's your best bet if you value your time.

Neox

NURBS said:

So your all saying that it would be a good idea to just ignore building my own website completely and just use Artstation, correct? Do potential employers really use JUST Artstation?

absolutely yes, but have a backup. its not very likely artstation will run out of business, but you never know and it happened before with cghub.

NURBS

And what about making a demo reel? How important is that, if at all?

BagelHero

If you don't make shit that moves, it's 0 importance. People wanna see stuff quick.

If you make animation it's 100% important. If you make environments, individual flyarounds/gameplay are a bit important and it might be nice to have your absolute best stuff in a really quick little demo. Like really we're talking 40 sec or less and they can see more if they look at the individual projects. If you have props and characters a demoreel is like... really not important. if you made a cute little idle anim or some cool robotic item that's rigged up to unfold you can just make gifs or individual breakdown videos, theres no need to make someone watch a whole compilation video when that's not even your expertise.

Obviously, per case basis, grain of salt, etc. there could be a reason why some people make demoreels for their static objects. But tl;dr:  generally speaking, unless you're an animator, no demo reel.

NURBS

Wasn't expecting to get this many responses. Thank you everyone!

Meloncov

BagelHero said:

If you make environments, individual flyarounds/gameplay are a bit important and it might be nice to have your absolute best stuff in a really quick little demo. Like really we're talking 40 sec or less and they can see more if they look at the individual projects.

For environments fly throughs are great, but I'd much rather see a short fly through clip after the still images on each page of your portfolio, instead of edited together into a single demo reel. It's much easier to quickly look through a portfolio than a reel, and if I get a good first impression based on the stills I'll take the time to look at the video.

Biomag

3 things about videos (first 2 of them also for the Marmorset viewer):
1. They can not be printed out for interviews
2. Their file size is a pain in the butt and takes too long to open and won't be attached in internal emails
3. They might have artefacts from compression

If you add them, then only at the end after screenshots. Most people won't even bother watching them because it usually takes far less time to judge the quality of an asset than watching a clip of it.

Obviously if your job is animation or effects or anything moving, guess what? The things mentioned before don't matter

Be efficient in your presentation, it shows also that you understand your role (including not wasting time on your on webpage design).