Building portfolio page...need feedback:)

ENODMI

Just started building my webpage and was looking for some feedback. Im still building the content, so I wondering what you guys think of the layout so far, before I get too far along. Thanks guys:)

enodmi.com

ZacD

make the pictures a bit bigger, like 600px wide.

PredatorGSR

Your work looks very good. I agree with Zac that it would be better to have larger thumbnails. You don't have a large catalog of work so you could get away with having larger images for your thumbnails, like 720x480 or something like that so we can see more of the image.

MattQ86

I'd get rid of a lot the spacing between each thumbnail and maybe stack them in rows of two.

I say this because Ashley Jukes has one of my favorite portfolio layouts. Everything fitting clearly onto one screen with very little scrolling is just more pleasing to the eye.

felipefrango

- I second to what everyone said the fact that you don't need to keep your 3D and 2D in separate pages, you have enoush room there to get each category in a separate row in the same page, for example. Most people use a minimum resolution of 1024x768 nowadays so considering scrollbars and other stuff you're left with an area 960px wide, don't hesitate to use it.

- Your name and contact information should be readily available at all times, whichever page the visitor may be. Try finding room for it by the website header above the menu. That might actually get rid of the contact link altogether, which is good, the simpler the better.

- The resume's page filename is in all caps which looks weird but it's more of a pet peeve of mine than a real issue.

- You should always provide contact information on the pictures themselves, put your name and website/email on the corner discretely so that people know where the images came from in case anyone saves them.

- I'd ditch Lightbox or whatever addon you're using to show the pictures, they're annoying, distracting and images seem like they take longer to load. I'd have each thumbnail take to a page with more shots of that model from different angles, wireframe shots and maybe texture sheets, you're showing too little of your models.

- Provide the pictures with other relevant information such as triangle count and/or texture size.

- Try getting your models into a real time environment such as UDK, Marmoset Toolbag or just use a real time shader for 3dsmax or whatever you're using, and inform what you're rendering with either in the pictures or in some sort of description.

- I noticed you haven't got your resume up yet, but when you do, have Word and PDF files available for download as well.

EDIT: I just now saw there are arrows when the Lightbox thing pops up that lead to more pictures. One more reason to ditch is, it only shows when you have your mouse there and there's absolutely nothing else indicating there are more pictures, not even a "1 of 6 pictures" label at the bottom as I've seen other times. As I said, make it as easy as possible for people to see your art, don't make them hunt for it.

tex_cookiedough

only crit is when you bring up one of the images the arrows to see more angles or pictures of the images could be hard to find, heck i didn't even notice it... other than that i like the way you've set it up

and yeah maybe some bigger shots / real time shader :P

edit:

oh and the contact link, i really dont like getting linked to outlook maybe have a page for it? idk personal preference

ENODMI

Right on guys, thanks for your time, I appreciate it:) going to play around with these ideas and see where I end up. I really like the idea of consolidating both the 3d and 2d to the same page, getting my contact info up front, and finding a way to reorganize the image galleries so they are more intuitive. I still want the lightbox for the images, but I can see the problems I have currently. Again, thks

achillesian

some very nice clean work here, finishing and making the goat game ready i think would seal the deal, good to have a finished humanoid in a portfolio i think. Love the sword also.

felipefrango

I do have to reiterate that Lightbox is fucking annoying and not many people see it as anything more than a nuisance that only gets in the way of the things you want people to see. Seriously, I can't think of a single benefit, all you get are drawbacks. Sure it looks kinda cool and modern or whatever but it's a barrier between your content and the people you wanna show it to. I have little patience clicking "next" 100 times to browse through someones pictures instead of just scrolling with my mouse wheel, I reckon employers have even less.

ZacD

lightbox would be okay if it preloaded the pictures and you can mouse scroll.

SyncViewS

Hi Enodmi, I'm a big fan of yours and I like your works, I find them fresh and inspiring. I'm sorry to reiterate that Lightbox-style presentation is as annoying as hell. I (but could have been an employer) have tried to save your sword for inspiration but simply couldn't. To take a screenshoot is too much. On the same line, write your name and contacts on every image, and if you don't like it, you can use a footer like I did.

I'd add direct links to Polycount threads too, about the "Gladiator Sculpting challenge" and the other works. A link to your Polycount Sketchbook would be nice too. If someone wants to see your work in 30 seconds browse your site, but if he wants to see more, and maybe know you better, can take a look at the forum too.

ENODMI

Going with you guys on this, very logical to ditch the lightbox, too many obvious problems that will just detract from the overall intent...which is to get my work seen:) I pulled the site down for now, going to get some more content together along with everyones suggestions and hopefully repost a new test tomorrow night. Again, thanks for taking the time to help me out.

felipefrango

Glad to see you considered our input. I hope I didn't sound harsh, but I tried to be very specific because I like your art and your attitude and you look like someone who deserves to be employed. :thumbup: Let us know when you make changes to your website.

ENODMI

felipefrango - Not too harsh at all, I love honesty:)

Better? I still have more content to add, 2d and 3d, resume, but I thought I'd get some feedback again.

http://enodmi.com/welcome.html

Chemical Alia

I really like the grey background, it fits well with the grey backgrounds in a lot of your images and doesn't distract from the work at all. I think the colums work well and the thumbnails are a good size, but I don't feel that the labels are necessary with what content you have up right now. Separating them with the columns seems to work fine for me. Or maybe they just feel a few pixels too close to the logo and therefore crowds the top of the page, lowering them a tiny bit could help with the spacing. Overall it looks great, though, it will be nice to see it with more content.

felipefrango

Niiice, much better I'd say, much more straight to the point, just needs a little polishing.

- I'm sure you still haven't set your page title so just don't forget to do it as it'd be quite embarassing to present your work in an Untitled Document. For the model pages you might wanna make it like "Site title - Model title", imagine your site is crammed among several tabs and/or the browser window is squezzed in between other stuff in the taskbar. Make sure the first characters remind the user what the tab/window is about.

- I'd try getting the whole logo/header part up a little, it seems a bit unnecessarily tall and wastes some space, in the end it pushes your art down a bit much. No need to cram everything into one block, empty space is good, IMHO there's a little too much that could be used better. You could scale down the logo a bit and have the email to the right, for example. It's all about considering different screen sizes and showing as much art to people without making them scroll down.

- Also maybe make your email pure text instead of an image to make it selectable and, consequently copiable. Not a huge issue, people could always copy the link but as I see it it's an unjustifiable barrier between the user and the objective. An image takes longer to load and isn't selectable, so the only reason I can think of for one to use it would be the use of a non-web font but then again your email is something you wanna make as clear as possible so the available standard fonts should look alright unless you've got something more specific planned for the whole site that can't be achieved through pure text but then again you can do so much with CSS in terms of effects and stuff.

Edit: Just saw Alia's post and I have to agree on the column labels, if you got rid of them you could pull your art back up a bit and show more of it.

MattQ86

The only crit I can think to give at this point is maybe darken up the background to something like the gray you see on this page. It'll make your images pop a bit more and be a bit less distracting. Also it just looks more "portfolio"-like.

ENODMI

Chemical Alia, felipefrango and MattQ86 - I cleaned up some space and pulled the images up higher, I think it looks a lot better this way. I also darkened up the background which really seems to help focus the attention to the images more.

Felip, thks for your thorough comments and observations, I appreciate it. I forgot to relabel the pages before I uploaded it just a moment ago, but It will happen:)

http://enodmi.com/welcome.html

nullfed

I'd suggest making more of your life sketches. Maybe feature a couple of them at a larger size and include the thumbnail image below that. perhaps include the 'random' stuff in the same section as a '2d' category.

Rocking spider by the way

felipefrango

Dude, congrats, IMHO it looks a LOT better, you've managed to put in some real improvements while making very simple changes. Also, you've got some NICE life drawings there, I had checked the page before but I hadn't noticed how awesome the actual drawings were, you should definitely have a few larger images besides the collage of thumbnails you have there.

Edit: I just noticed that while you changed the email link to text it no longer links to your email. I don't know if you forgot or if it was intentional but I probably didn't make my advice clear before but IMHO it should be text AND be a mailto link.