Portfolio Critique

Delvolta

Hey guys, converted my portfolio from a blog to a working website.

come check it and let me know what you think, and if you guys find any bugs.

www.delvoltaart.com

Swizzle

This may come across as a bit abrasive, but I swear I'm not trying to be a jerk. :poly122:

It takes at least three clicks to get to any content. That's a major problem. To compound it, you load a Flash viewer to look at images and Flash is notorious for loading slow and being unresponsive.

Put content on the first page with large thumbnails. It should take at most ONE CLICK to get to ANY content on your website no matter which page you're currently looking at. Load all images on straight HTML/CSS pages with no Flash and little or no Javascript.

If you were going in for a portfolio review and you were supposed to take a folder full of your drawings, you wouldn't put your stuff in a mechanical box that requires flipping three switches to engage a sequence of locks and pistons that takes thirty seconds to flip between different drawings. It would make the person looking at your portfolio say "Huh, cool schtick. Now why do I have to go through this when there are ten other people in line with portfolios I can just open up and flip through with ease?"

Dump the Flash viewer, even if you like working with it. It's hostile to the viewer because it takes a long time to load and the image transitions are jerky and fugly even on my fairly beefy computer.

Your art isn't bad, but it's taking so much effort just to work through your website that I'm only doing it so I can be honest at this point. Even if you had some mind-blowingly crazy stuff that was absolutely masterful, I'd still hate to look through it because the web design is ticking me off.

In short, follow the KISS principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Ben Apuna

Be sure to check out the Your Portfolio Repels Jobs thread/article for more info.

ralusek

draco is lolz. i like him

edit: i will say that your steampunk environment is hardly steampunk, i would consider renaming. looks more like an average mine/war scene. steampunk needs moar ridiculously scaled gears/blimps/windmills/propellers.

killingpeople

i love your Steampunk_Environment | 9

Delvolta

Thanks, I know K.I.S.S.

I appreciate the time you took on the critique, and don't worry about being abrasive, Im not web savvy so what ever I have at my disposal I use.

but I shorten the clicks to the art to just two, I can't do any better until I can get some who knows what they're doing to help me.

I switched over to simpleviewer hopefully that will help

http://www.delvoltaart.com/

thanks for the link, that is useful information.

ChrisG

I couldnt actually see your work straight off, i had to look closely to see it was on the left and it just looks like links to other pages and dosent stand out as THIS IS MY WORK. I have created a paint over for what Im thinking (easier than writing)

Dont try and complicate things with different categories, keep it simple!

renderhjs

• Red on black with Times font = looks just bad, like a word document decorated by some secretary
• start with content right away, not some intro, home, splash, cover or other 'no- one cares about' pages
• loading with just HTML and not flash is usually faster because unlike Flash HTML and all browsers support progressive and pyramid JPEG images- so you already see parts of the image while it gets loaded.
• Using flash prevents people from linking, saving or referencing to specific images. Its all locked up into some primitive container.
• Google ads on a portfolio are a big NO NO imo. because a portfolio itself is already a advertisement for your skills,- dumping some bold google adwords on it degrade the whole site many levels down.

  Sponsor: Blurb photo books...Ads by Google...

  Or if you did not put them there willingly (because you used some frameworks or services by others) its not nice either because it shows imo. that you took the most convenient way.
• Browsing through the works is difficult- usually imo. having some thumbnail previews of all the works on 1 page is way easier to browse through all the works.
• way to many different font styles through out the pages,- it looks very inconsistent that way and gives the impression of a bad design

hope that helps

jaball

hey, I was going to comment but it seems like swizzle and everyone else pretty much nailed it. Nice work though, just make it simple to get to.

Swizzle - That box you described sounds pretty sweet! if you made it look like the hellraiser cube (or somethin like that) and had all kinds of crazy design elements as you opened it, I think that would be a huge selling point if someone handed me a folio like that! you may be on to something...

cholden

Hidden content is hidden.

You know photoshop can automate a web gallery that puts everything on one page right?

It takes three clicks to see your content. Reduce this to one.

I'll be outright with it. This is the type of site employers hate, and it's hurting you in the long-run more than you can understand.

You know photoshop can automate a web gallery that puts everything on one page right?

This "simpleviewer" does not live up to it's name and closes things. It's hurting you a lot more than you think. Your site is flash therefore automatically broken. Here's why....

It also imbeds your images into some wacky no-save format. Part of getting yourself out there is easy access to YOU. Employers love saving your images and coming back to you later (right time, right project, someone else looking for people). ALWAYS allow raw images to be saved and watermark them for god's sake! Nothing huge, just name, email, web site, whatever you need it get people back to you. On top of that. ALWAYS properly name these files so you're super easy to track back Daniel_Garcia_Environment_Steampunk01.jpg and so on.

Every single piece is seperate from the others. As in, user must browse from one page to another to see your work. This disruption of flow halts any reason to continue trying to find your work past the first piece. No "oh what's that?" factor of interesting thumbails since your page is just a black screen with text.

You know photoshop can automate a web gallery that puts everything on one page right?

Finally, I'm going to direct you to this article
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=39516

Don't make me link him this thread because I'll do it!

I missed a few rules myself, but I live by example and offer up my own site as reference since I don't have any other handy.

TheMadArtist

Adding to what others have said, your resume is laid out horribly. You've got some lines that are left justified, some that are centered, some that are slightly in between; it's a real pain to read. Something along the lines of what cholden has on his sight reads so much better. Run it through spell check too, got a few errors on there.

Delvolta

Thanks guys, as I was reading this I got some Ideas that will help.

I will be working on it and I'll repost it tomorrow morning.

Thanks again for the time you guys took.

Delvolta

k finished

www.delvoltaart.com

Delvolta

Thanks for your critiques everyone. I appreciate the time you guys took to look at my stuff and I think I will keep like this for awhile. I will post up more art work soon.

delvoltaart.com

Thanks again.