Portfolio Nerdism
polycounter lvl 18
I'm a nerd for portfolio design. There were a few things I wanted to do with my old design to make it best as possible.
Aim High:: other game developers are probably on high resolution monitors. I set my minimum at 1280x1024.
Contact/Resume accessibility: At the header and footer of each page, my name, email and resume link can be found.
Right to it: the main piece of the portfolio being the first thing the user sees. With static thumbnails to one side, the user gets exactly what they came for instantly.
Eliminate the need for Back button: NEXT buttons to the top and button of the right hand side of each page. This loops back to the beginning. Also, all thumbnails are always in the same place on each page.
Finale: last gallery page show thumbnail links to all portfolio pieces.
Here's a link to the site (not much for new art): http://chrisholden.net
I'm finding this template to be really strong, and already have someone else using it. If anyone want to to use it, that's ok. Since I've signed on with Mythic, I won't be needing my portfolio for a while, but I wanted to leave it in perfect harmony.
<font color="red"> </font>
Aim High:: other game developers are probably on high resolution monitors. I set my minimum at 1280x1024.
Contact/Resume accessibility: At the header and footer of each page, my name, email and resume link can be found.
Right to it: the main piece of the portfolio being the first thing the user sees. With static thumbnails to one side, the user gets exactly what they came for instantly.
Eliminate the need for Back button: NEXT buttons to the top and button of the right hand side of each page. This loops back to the beginning. Also, all thumbnails are always in the same place on each page.
Finale: last gallery page show thumbnail links to all portfolio pieces.
Here's a link to the site (not much for new art): http://chrisholden.net
I'm finding this template to be really strong, and already have someone else using it. If anyone want to to use it, that's ok. Since I've signed on with Mythic, I won't be needing my portfolio for a while, but I wanted to leave it in perfect harmony.
<font color="red"> </font>
Replies
As for the layout:
Not everyone that uses 1280x1024 browses in fullscreen, I for one, do not.
Center the name and link to resume.
Other than that, it's streamlined and to the point. Way to go!
as for design, i know people are divided over this, but i like a sort of title or main page, one that still has work on it, but introduces you to the site with a bit more cermony.
also, when i was putting my portfolio together to get into uni, i was told by my tutors to put my absolute best stuff at the beginning, my second best at the end, 3rd around the middle, and then fill the gaps. Ideally, the viewer will look through the whole thing, and that way they start the viewing on a high, maybe have a pick-me-up half way through, and then end on a high.
just my 2p tho.
I'd recomend reading "The Non Designers Design Book" by Robin Williams (the lesbian author, not the hairy comedian). It helped me a great deal with page layout and graphic design.
Mostly you aren't making the page readable. You aren't using proximity, size, or contrast to separate elements, so everything is fighting for attention at once, or hiding in the background invisibly. I didn't even see the Next button until I reread your post and then went looking for it.
I think the layout and idea is great, you just need to tweak some of the elements so that it reads the way your brief intended, right now it's a bit too jumbled.
the page is good and clean, but poop's right, some of the design elements are lacking. personally i'd like to see a more clearly delineated hierarchy. here's a quick mockup; my eye keeps on wanting to see some sort of header graphic, and as poop says, the next buttons need to stand out better too.
also try and give the main in-line image some breathing room from the sides. them butting right up against the thumbnails muddles things.
so yeah, get a second accent color in there, and be careful with that little cholden.net button in the lower left corner. in the current state of the page, the color attracts attention, and you want your viewer focused on the portfolio, not on ways out of it. hope this gives you some good ideas for refining it.
Large thumbnails are great as it avoids a lot of name calling on our end.
"Click on that one."
"This one?" *click*
"No, dumbass, we just saw that one. The one below!"
Hahahah
If anything, the biggest turn off for us is when images don't load instantly. If your site takes more than 2 seconds to load an image... we're 99% likely to close the browser.
but you just got a job, foo! why you sweatin' this portfolio stuff? because you know you'll probably get fired on short order, eh?
the resume looks particularly jumbled and dull. Like you copied the text from notepad and just dumped it on a page.
The simplicity of the image menu works well, but I'd suggest placing all the images in a section on one page. For example some of the ingame stuff has multiple screens but your walrus of doom does not. This kind of discrepancy fragments the site without reason.
the Green, black and gray mix with huge boring font is very ugly indeed.
I think if you were looking for a bit of direction, you' do no better than to look at MOP's site. I seriously think he's got one of the best portfolio sites I've seen in recent years.
Scathing critique on your site copyright hawken 2006