My portfolio site is up...
polycounter lvl 18
Hey chaps finaly got the chance to get a website up and running it aint much but id really like some comments on the work i put in my portfolio... if i should add or remove anything.. also does the site work correctly for you? thnks in advance!
PS i got my own domain name which is
www.jodygallagher.co.uk ... but it wont be up for another 24 hours apparently.. does anyone know how i go about linking this domain to my current site... sorry about all the questions but im complete amature when it comes to web sites!
Jody
http://www.real-lamerz.co.uk/std/ - working address..
PS i got my own domain name which is
www.jodygallagher.co.uk ... but it wont be up for another 24 hours apparently.. does anyone know how i go about linking this domain to my current site... sorry about all the questions but im complete amature when it comes to web sites!
Jody
http://www.real-lamerz.co.uk/std/ - working address..
Replies
One thing it suffers from is scroll bar fighting. The main window scroll bar, and the one inside your frames there get a bit annoying when quickly looking through your stuff, but not a big deal.
It all seems a bit tightly packed in, I could only imagine most of this is very difficult to read/navigate at a higher screen resolusion. Color scheme is a bit bright for your content. How about moving the links to your portfolio up a few notches on the menu bar?
As far as content goes, your characters look great at a distance, but a ot of the detail falls apart up close with blurry texturing. Your newest character, the tiger, is an exception.
I think your main body design is to narrow. You need to run at least a resolution of 1248x1024 to view the whole thing. At 1024x768 (most people resolutions) it still appears to narrow. I also feel your content space should be bigger. Its good that you have a large image that open in another window for your gallery as that would scare me if it loaded up in that tiny content frame.
Plus space your font away from the border of the orange table in your content area. Some of your letters like your 'i' is hard to read with it right on the edge.
Oh and change 'About Us' link to [About Me]. We are starting to think you are Venom. You also might want to put that your CV (Resume) is available upon request under Contact and Downloads. Or you can create a link that's called CV and state that as there are HR (Human Resource) people who will be looking for it and if they have to hunt long for it they will give up. Plus get ride of the 'Post by Jody'. This is your site not someone elses unless someone else designed or posts to this site.
Some nice work. I would like to see the texture flat of the tiger. When you get your next character done and post that on your site, get rid of the Various models, as they bring down the other art (speak of which that is something I need to do on my site...
On your Download frame you need to get rid of the space between the e and p in hope.
Get rid of the Links page if your going to have the Affiliates frame. Or get rid of it and move your navigation bar up in to your banner area, that way you can make your content frame wider. I'm not sure about doing this, I'm just brainstorming.
Another suggestion is don't use this wording "I can be contacted at [snipped out email] if anyone needs to ask anything or for prospective employers to get more details". This sounds to me that youre separating yourself or distancing yourself from being reachable. I would go with [Contact me at [email address] if you have any questions.] Its short and sweet and to the point.
Your drawing and painting has a very unique style, which is different from your texture work on your models. But in my opinion my own skills are not good enough yet to try at characters yet so I cant be much help in critiquing your characters Jody. I would really like to see the texture flat of the tiger guy as I see some texture stretching and blurriness on the blade. The chainmail pattern looks good but I'm bothered by his chest piece is looking to clean compared to the blood and tarnish on his blade. As far as function to form goes the handle (stick) wouldnt go into a blade like that. Usually there is a metal cylinder around the shaft especial on a curved end if the shaft cant go all the way through like an axe. I do really like the work with the fur. Great job.
Oh as far as the linking, you should get a IP address for your new site consisting of four groups of up to three digit numbers. The reason as to why it takes 24 hours is that your site name has to propagate out to other servers that combination of characters ( jodygallagher.co.uk) is associated to that IP address. Sometimes it may take up to 48 hours or three days. My site took about 16 hours locally for me. But in the States east coast it took something like 26 hours (time of day issue I think).[/email]
@Lore
*Ill try and widen the main section a bit but its quite complicated and i think it might just mess up all the layout..
*space the words out from the border
*CChange about us and add CV
*get rid of the space between the e and p in hope
*Get rid of the Links page
* change to [Contact me at [email address] if you have any questions.]
Think i got them all again thanks... im getting a .co.uk addy so it said it wouldd be less than 24 hours so im hoping that means tonight.
Jody[/email]
Because of the fixed site size for 800x600 you are working with a small area. The top banner and menu take up a lot of space and don't leave a lot of room for the site content like Lore mentioned also.
The content is what it's all about. The rest is just window dressing
If you have made this site as a portfolio to show to for possible employers then I would go for a 1024x768 resolution or make the tables size automatically with the size of the browser.
A couple of things that hit me right away:
- Times new roman font = good for print, bad for web
- Italic font = hard to read from a monitor. Don't use it for whole paragraphs, just to highlight specific words that need to jump out.
- I would make the gallery frame a bit larger. Maybe don't show the 2 boxes with information and links above it besides on the opening screen to make some more room for the graphics gallery.
- The thumbnails in the graphics page are all a different size which makes it look messy.
- In the graphics page you need to scroll to get to the first images. Put the info that you are into 3d games modeling in the "about me" page since the art speaks for itself.
- For all models list the poly count, number of textures and sizes.
Jody
Jody
DOH! hehe sorry
Jody
It was different from the standard portfolio page but still was within the standard in a certain way, which is good. I hope the "had to redo the whole thing" means you'll keep the elements that where good on it, which was still quite a lot. Its easy for others to see the bad things than it is to see the good things.
I look forward to you next innovation.
Jody
You have a strong sense of typography here, except for the lone widow (single word on a line) of the word 'here' on your Home page if Im using Netscape or Firefox. In IE the widow is gone but that is due to my own computer settings compensating for the higher resolution that Im run. But widows in paragraphs are hard to get rid of on the Internet across different browsers, so this is not a screaming issue. However the one thing that remains consistently out of place is the top menu having the word 'Portfolio' floating over the Home link. You'll have to correct your div width here for Online Portfolio to appear on one line above the top nav menu.
Next thing under Firefox and IE I'm getting the side scrolling bar for left to right. You'll have to shriek your main table to 700 or smaller to compensate for the side up/down scroll bar. 1000 is a little too much and your site fits nicely in to a 1024x768 resolution. I would aim for that as most people are using these days that resolution, especially if theyre using a 17" LCD.
I like the color choice as its very calming and relaxing. But on flip side its not attention grabbing. I'm not sure what you would prefer. Because either one will speak volumes for your personality. But to me your coming across as a very calm collective person, and in my opinion this color pallet suits you better. Even though the old one worked just as well.
You have a nice cohesiveness on the layout, except on the Portfolio page. You have a space between all the bars but the one between the Tiger and text description. In fact your portfolio page is the only one that has double horizontal bars.
And the last thing is those bar's are working as great separators, but they end pretty abruptly to me. Or they seem like they are just floating there. Maybe create a graphic on either end that rounds them off or fades them off. I don't know if it will work, but give either idea a try and see if you like it. You can always go back to the original as long as you copy the folders.
You have a great set up here on your site and your doing a good call on not putting out personal information on the web. You also dont want to put any references personal information out there. I also wouldnt put your phone number out or youll get weird people (mostly from Polycount) asking if they can cook and eat your children.
Now I can critique your CV if you want? I dont have my MLA book on hand its packed in a box somewhere. But Ill try to recall all the guidelines it gives on creating a informative Resume/CV.
Good call on the download page, Cubik. I was tied last night when I did that post and must have not noticed. Jody, your link font is changing style (or in stylesheet case weight) on mouseover in the download page. Its going from normal to bold which is moving the rest of the words in the line. A good idea might be to create an external .cs file that handles all your fonts. That way you can do a overall font change on the fly in a matter of seconds and see how it looks very quick throughout your whole site. Plus it would cut down on size as you dont have to type out your font commands over and over. All you have to do is call to your font name.
I would check your distances between the textareas and the borders too. It's a bit distracting when the distances changes from page to page.
I really think that you should tie the picture shown in the topleft corner together with the logotext. And replace the text with a logo of some sort.
The face texture for the thief model is missing.
www.jodygallagher.co.uk/
My mate barry got the whole domain crap working and a good job he did too. The old url wont work anymore
Cheers for all the support with the site guys !!
Jody
PS ill look into the design more when i get a chance.. cheers