Portfolio advice
polycounter lvl 13
Hi, I am in the process of making a portfolio, I have made a mock-up in Photoshop however I am after advice as the portfolio can make or break an artist.
I have recently finished university and have been working on my own independent stuff for a few months, while I was at uni a fair bit advice was given and as such I am trying to round up / peoples opinions on what makes a good portfolio, along with uni I have researched on the net too.
The main advise I have been given is to make it clear and easy to use / follow, this has been hinted at keeping it simple, not using flash or any fancy stuff to make it animated in case the end user has trouble viewing it.
While I agree with this, in my opinion games are computer based and people who make them are normally good with computers, thus having standard software like flash installed, so how much of a difference does this make, would potential employees use mobile devices to look at these and thus have trouble that way?
another point that was stressed a fair bit is to only show your best work, not to show outdated abbilities mixed with your best work, my question for this is would it matter if you swapped out one of your lower quality pieces of work for a superior work in progress? what do employers look at more, quality or completion, in my opinion showing a work in progress may hint to someone who starts something and doesnt follow it through. though the higher quality work may show that your capable of doing more.
my next question is regarding layout and style, this was the area I found least information on.
is there a preferred layout compared to others, is it better to have it all fit on one page without scrolling and supplying links within that area to hi-res pictures or does scrolling down a bit not matter too much, I ask as I have seen several formats where they are all within a smaller area and requires no scrolling and some that are about 2-3 times the height of a monitor and thus scrolling down is needed.
For my site currently I have placed them all into one page with no scrolling however it was then suggested to me to do it the other way and have larger images on the main page spread out more.
here is a mock up .jpg from Photoshop, as such the content needs changing so only after opinions on site design, I did not create the title as per the portfolio guidance as its just a more general question atm and not specific to my site
I have recently finished university and have been working on my own independent stuff for a few months, while I was at uni a fair bit advice was given and as such I am trying to round up / peoples opinions on what makes a good portfolio, along with uni I have researched on the net too.
The main advise I have been given is to make it clear and easy to use / follow, this has been hinted at keeping it simple, not using flash or any fancy stuff to make it animated in case the end user has trouble viewing it.
While I agree with this, in my opinion games are computer based and people who make them are normally good with computers, thus having standard software like flash installed, so how much of a difference does this make, would potential employees use mobile devices to look at these and thus have trouble that way?
another point that was stressed a fair bit is to only show your best work, not to show outdated abbilities mixed with your best work, my question for this is would it matter if you swapped out one of your lower quality pieces of work for a superior work in progress? what do employers look at more, quality or completion, in my opinion showing a work in progress may hint to someone who starts something and doesnt follow it through. though the higher quality work may show that your capable of doing more.
my next question is regarding layout and style, this was the area I found least information on.
is there a preferred layout compared to others, is it better to have it all fit on one page without scrolling and supplying links within that area to hi-res pictures or does scrolling down a bit not matter too much, I ask as I have seen several formats where they are all within a smaller area and requires no scrolling and some that are about 2-3 times the height of a monitor and thus scrolling down is needed.
For my site currently I have placed them all into one page with no scrolling however it was then suggested to me to do it the other way and have larger images on the main page spread out more.
here is a mock up .jpg from Photoshop, as such the content needs changing so only after opinions on site design, I did not create the title as per the portfolio guidance as its just a more general question atm and not specific to my site
Replies
The other pitfall with flash is that people tend to focus on building some kind of multimedia web experience which just ends up driving people nuts with load screens and small unsaveable images. This tends to be a classic new guy trap that a lot of people fall into their first time out. Unless you're applying to be a web designer you really don't need anything fancy. The content needs to be the focus not the site.
Keep it simple for yourself too. 6mo a year later you might need to crack it open again and update it, if you have half a dozen apps, weird little quirks and hiccups along with crazy server configs to juggle its just a pain in the butt.
I don't mind a misc/WIP section, those can sometimes give you a view into how the person works. However the majority of pieces should be finished. If all the person has is WIP stuff and they can't seem to finish something that's a bit of a red flag.
I really don't care one way or the other, I'm mostly looking at the content and I don't want their site getting in the way of that. I like to know what I'm clicking on so those cute little thumbnails that literally show you only a finger nail or an eyeball tend to not get clicked.
Some people like the layouts where its all out in one page at full screen and if those load quickly it can be nice, but again you never know the connection speed in different places so some testing might be needed. It can also load funky on small devices and again where speed can be a bottle neck.
You might think its weird that someone would view your portfolio on mobile device but its great to pull out when people ask about it and have it right there. It can also be helpful in an interview because there might not be a computer where you can access your portfolio and having it there can make things go a bit smoother.
EDIT:
I would change your title to something different. "Computer Games Modeler" sounds like something from 1992. 3D Artist, Game Artist, Environment Artist, Character Artist, they seem to be more standard and not quite so dated.
hey scott just as a heads up the word on the street is that adobe is abandoning flash
http://www.transformerforums.com/forum/asus-transformer-video/8962-flash-going-away.html
an some personal opinions from me would be to use simple text and don't feather images
You might also want to check out company websites that you like to get ideas there usually much more complex then you would want your personal portfolio website to be but its nice to see how a professional site is built
good luck
-The layout along the top is ok, but I would drop the About Me page. When they look at the site they want to see work and if someone likes it they will contact you to learn about you as a person. It's unlikely that anyone is going to read that.
-Might want to put your name and job title on the other side. Most people read from left to right. Also the image at the top isn't really necessary. With a good font, simple text is enough.
-You might not want to put your phone number on there. Put it in a downloadable resume or an email to a company, but it's probably not best to have it right there for the world to see unless you just don't care about having some random jackass calling you. Random people do find portfolio sites sometimes and trolls are always looking for food.
-For the job title, try 3d Modeler, Environment Artist, or something more commonly used. "Computer Games Modeler" just sounds weird.
-Make a new email account that is solely for jobs and make the name sound professional (ie [email]scottjones(AT)gmail.com[/email]). Just lose the numbers unless it's impossible to get something good using just your name. Same thing for your URL. Some people can get away with having weird ones, but most of them have years of experience to show that they're not just some kid who likes to play games.
-Find better fonts too. Some people have an irrational hatred of Comic Sans. Go for something clean and easily readable. Also, keep fonts and layouts consistent through the site, resume and cover letter.
-At the moment everything looks pretty desaturated. Your type stands out more than you work. I think part of it might be the gradients around images. They fade into the background, but you text has a sharp contrast, which makes it stand out. (Plus the titles are huge compared to the other text!)
-Look around on Google for Environment Art and Modeling portfolios to get reference for what others look like. Also, you might consider a carbonmade template. A lot of people use those and they're relatively cheap and easy to update.
Good luck!
First of I agree the title computer games modeler inst the best!
before I continue though, mat suggested to look at google and said to consider carbonmade templates, is this the best approach? I always though that if you have something that stands out from the rest it helps, using an existing template that has been used by the masses somewhat defeats this point, so I suppose the question is do employers look for a unique site that looks good compared to others or doesn't the site matter as much as it has been made out to me in the past?
continuing on with the answers you guys gave.
regarding the "about me", I have seen some very professional sites that have an about me, the idea is that people can find out what I have done / like doing easily and quickly rather than trawling through the CV that may have unrelated stuff that is included in CV's such as school grades (this sort of thing in my opinion for this kind of job is useless as its based upon your abilities not what grade you got in history etc.) as a potential employee I find it useful to see what other people have done / worked on at a glance without going through CV's as I am not an employer. however I can understand when you say that not many employers may read that part and so for a portfolio site, is it worth it/needed? (was going to put up my dissertation as a link here for people to grab)
will have a longer think about that
mat also said that it looks a little de=saturated, the main image at the top I agree with however its all done in real time from UDK, I had a height fog actor to add fog, this has made the distance view de-saturated, however this way it doesn't distract from the text IMO, the middle image is just a cropped version of this, the actual close-up images of the scene are not de-saturated.
I also had a quick mess around in Photoshop with saturation, the truck looks a little de-saturated too though there isn't much difference in the space station, the truck though, same as the others is real time from UDK and I am just wondering if it looks more de-saturated than it actually is because of the other pictures around it.
below is the full truck for a comparison.
(none faded border)
Another good point mat brings that most people read from left to right and to have my name and info on the other side.
would agree to a point that I would of probably done it though my main issue here is that the space in the picture is to the right.
To the left the scene the land mass in the background somewhat suddenly cuts off as the land mass wasn't the focus of the scene, having the text over the picture would look messy, and as the email and telephone number is probably going to move from the front page, is there anything you could suggest?
Text I know is a big issue with websites, all to do with comparability, readability and how it looks, I personally fed up of times new roman, and as an arty type website thought comic sans would be more appropriate. have you any suggestions for font type, I will also look up some examples for this one.
I was planning on having the other text as low file size images, I intended it to stand out a little from others this way, a good or bad idea?
this somewhat changed from general questions to more specific rather quickly :P, anyhow it is all good and useful information, will probably change the title of the thread at this rate
I'd say either make images so you know people see exactly what you want (unless they have all images disabled but that's unlikely for someone looking at an art folio =P) or use nicely degrading fonts.
Like so This'll first check if the PC has Calibri, if it can't find it, it'll try Trebuchet and so forth, and if none of these listed fonts can be found it'll default to a sans-serif font. Works pretty well.
I am sure you chose the resolution 1920x1200 because that is what you are working on. And I am sure it looks awesome on your monitor. But as Mark said you might have a not so technically inclined person looking at your site and they are probably going to be on a smaller monitor than you. I would say even for this generation that is on the larger end of things. I am a fairly techie person with pretty good hardware and I am only on a 1920x1080.
Let me show you what I see.
Now keeping my bookmarks bar up also has something to do with how drastically it is being cut off but I never turn my bookmarks bar off. And even if I do your email is still being cut off. And to be honest I am too lazy to scroll to the side and see if your email is .net .org .com ect. You just lost a job sir! :P
But more sersiously... You need to design to the lower end resolutions because there are going to be people looking at it on something smaller than mine. My gf's laptop is only 1366x768... and it is an alright laptop. On her laptop I wouldn't even know your name. Try to stick to something around 1024 in width. That should cover most low-end monitors AND mobile devices.
Enough about resolutions...
You need your name in the top left hand corner. It is the strongest point on the page because people look there the most. I honestly don't care about the picture... lol you need to get your name there. You should care more about people remembering your name than remembering your art. If your art is good enough they will remember it and come back. If you art is mediocre and they didn't catch your name... you probably don't stand a chance.
I don't think you really need the names on the pieces. Artists should realize that we suck at naming things. When we name something it tends to sound corny/cheesy/lame/ect.
I think it is almost better to not brand your work with something that could be seen as negative. What is someone doesn't like the Zombie genre? Just food for thought. That and it is one less thing to have to worry about design wise. Because if I was going to pick on the design on the names...
- The font looks girly. Especially as that baby blue. I understand you were matching your Splash Damage picture, but here in a year when it is not your best piece are you going to want your whole website designed to it?
- On Survival... The "S" hangs down too low and is distracting. Yes I am serious. That is part of design.
- On Splash... The "p" hangs down too low.
- On Space... The "p" hangs down too low.
If you really want the names consider putting them on the thumbnails and not the site. That way you only have to worry about how they look within the thumbnails and then the alignment isn't having to carry across your entire website.
Be consistent with how you spell "modeler" only one "L" you spelled it right on one page and then wrong on the next one.
Make your thumbnails all the same size. Your splash damage thumb is not as tall as the rest. I am assuming that you didn't have a large enough render. Doesn't matter. Scale it up. Wrong? Maybe... but I bet people will wont notice that you scaled the thumbnail up, but they will notice the size difference between that one and the others if left that way. In any case if you fix your resolution... you shouldn't have to scale it up to be consistent.
I second this. Do research. Doesn't have to just be artists. Look around at all websites and get inspiration and ideas. There is good web design everywhere.
And lastly... This is personal taste but I am not a fan of thumbnails with no border. I am glad you got rid of the faded edge but I still feel like they need a 1 pixel stroke or something.
Shameless/Shamefull plug? You can always check my website out. I am currently building one myself and I try to follow all the advice given on this page. http://jeremiahbigley.com/
Cheers man!
http://www.jeremiahbigley.com/Bigley_DO_NOT_DELETE/Downloads/Portfolios.html
The splash damage is lower because with the border it didn't matter, just removed the border in PS to show the example, easily fixed and sorted, at this point there is hardly any point in doing so as its all got to be done in CSS anyway. I agree it needs a border, again will work on that.
The names, at least the zombie survival and splash damage where the titles of the project given, those two where given as guidelines, like competition names etc. I decided to put them up to show the creativity used in designing the pieces.
spelling, I realised was wrong in the first one, changed it in the second, when I originally done this it wasn't going to be shown till a much later stage, forgot to check it all for spelling etc.
regarding change of content, if I was to change it and remove splash damage then I wouldn't mind re-designing the site, web site design is a hobby of mine that I like to do occasionally for fun, still learning a lot with it so in a years time will probably be better at it and re-make it anyway.
The text was an arty move, wanted something that looked more art styled, looking at other folios most people use hard straight text instead of curly soft, will get a tone of different fonts and take a look to see whats better.
Edit*
quick update changed text and colour along with border and fixed image size,
going over other peoples folios they have their about me instead of CV and have the CV in that page, also the position of their name varies from site to site, including some to the right, while there are more to the left or in the middle if I move them over there is a massive blank space on the right then and IMO looks odd.
'To design a site which is able to perform efficiently the core fundamentals of a portfolio, showcasing your work in the most worst case scenarios.'
ie. Person in charge of hiring is about to rush for a meeting, poor equipped computer, low res monitor, poor internet connection etc.
For typeface look at Myriad, Gill san, Helvetica neue, Futura etc, although you may need to embed them as a jpeg/gif to be safe.
Make sure all spacing is consistent. And I would suggest against touching the titles up against the boxes. They are creating "tangents" which can be a design tool if used intentionally. They can create tension and a focal point which is not what you want in this case. Have it like your first title Zombie Survival.
The font you went with this time around is tons better.
Now that doesnt necessarily translate 1 to 1 ; but if your folio is too complex and badly straightened out, then a potential employer will think exactly that about you. That's why going for a blog template is a very valid choice : it looks decent, and it also shows that the person behind the folio is not wasting precious time on irrelevant things.
Your art should speak for itself. A simple page with your name on top and images (or big thumbnails, or a click-through flipbook) is enough. This takes about an hour to put together.
For your own good just quit working on this like right now...Get yourself a carbonmade account or someother free stuff out there to showcase you 3D, wordpress of anything else. All the time your losing on the website is time your not putting perfecting 3D. You're wasting it by making web! Delete this...if you like your web adress just make it redirect to the other gallery and it's done.
But if you really want to keep it, even if I've studied into web design as well, I'm not going to help you with this it's way too complex to showcase your art and it won't do you any good, trust me
Now I'm going back to making 3D, good luck
the other fancy gimmicks are just quick 5 min job errors from within photoshop, all will be properly aligned neatened up.
theslingshot, tbh that was not helpful at all, your suggestion to stop working on it is somewhat hypocritical considering that you stated you have studied web design.
I personally spend every waking moment of the day working on 3d assets for the last 3 years and then some time when I wasn't awake, I hardly play games, even skip food to get stuff done in the past, if I want to spend 2 days working on a site then I don't think its going to set me back, all I will say is that over the last few years I found that there is more to life than just 3d modelling.
if you don't like it then say so, I don't mind the truth as long as its not pointless or unhelpful, if its a gut feeling and nothing to pin point then say so.
however as you said you are not going to help then it is up to you. enjoy your 3D.
Totally missed that.
If you really want learn and make your own website that's awesome, I mean it...
-You might want to drop the title for the thumbnails, they don't really add anything, and the information of each section will be on their respective anyway. And you can just put the WIP right into the thumbnail
-If you don't want to use other pages for each section, you may want to try lightbox, an easy to integrate cool pop-up gallery, in which you can put different group of pictures for each art you did. And you can still add a description pour the entire group and it appears at the bottom of the image with a "image # of #"
http://lokeshdhakar.com/projects/lightbox2/
-You may want to add a direct link to your LinkedIn and to a PDF version our your resume via small icons, maybe under your email? Many people rely on those these days
-Try to use less fonts as possible, if you want to stylize your name a bit that's cool. But I would change the font of your TEL and email for the one you have for the menu.
-I would change "Home" for "Gallery" or "Work", home is kinda old school and it doesn't say much.
-Like others said, keep looking at other people's portfolio and keep searching for webdesigns websites, they have a lot of inspiration out there.
http://www.thewebdesignblog.com/
http://www.lightcms.com/gallery
http://www.awwwards.com/
Did not re-read everything so I may probably be repeating things...I will come back and help if I can, but right now time is going by and I have to go.
But good luck with your website...sincerely.
you don't want something like that to stand out.
from what I've learned over the years (and Ive redesigned my portfolio MYSELF over four times) is let the internet/website shit get out of the way and let your work shine through.
if you look at my site you'll see the combined work of
1. years of learning and critique on the issue of artist portfolios
2. the design experience of a professional Web Designer.
it took me a while and some convincing to decide to go with the "mousewheel down forever" approach but its the only thing that most people who are tech savvy (as you cite) have the immidiate instict to do. clicking on thumbnails is much less natural that just plain scrolling down.
/my2cents
also my main issue with the scrolling down website that I find happens a lot with these types is the loading time, I have a fairly decent net and yet because there are 20-30 1080p images all loading at once, they all load slowly and I for one do not like waiting 5 min to view just one when the entire site may be bad or irrelevant. now if this wasn't a problem I would be more excepting of this method, when I first thought of to scroll or not I thought about having thumbnail pictures but vertically instead of horizontally as it would give more space to display them instead of being squashed up into one page.
theslingshot, didn't mean to offend or anything, just that I spend far too much time 3d and not doing anything else, occasionally its good to take a break, while I have no job and finished university I have no deadlines and thus got more time of late, I agree that if I had stuff to do for a set time then I wouldn't bother. also thanks for the input.
thanks again to all for your help, going to finish my WIP a bit more then post a website link to then get more crits
You can create a simple clean layout with vertical scrolling like many artist do these days. You don't have to put full resolution image on one page but link to them.
Stick to 1 font. Arial is your friend.
Dump the background image it's distracting and doesn't look particularly impressive.
You want to present your work cleanly and directly.
You'll notice that the best artists have the simplest portfolios.
Check out this thread http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92838
You could always save yourself the trouble and go with carbonmade. There's nothing wrong with it