Best practices for a portfolio website
So I have been pounding my head on this for a while and as a 3D artist I really want to redo my website
Here is the link to it right now www.scorchingstudios.com
The feedback that I have gotten so far is that its too busy, I should not make myself seem like a company but like a person and a lot of the models are not high quality enough.
Is it best to display a well rendered snapshot, an animated video, or an interactive 3d like verold?
Now I plan a full overhaul of the website, would love any advice, what works what doesnt? Anyone have a portfolio website that gets tons of compliments from employers, would love links to see what works, thanks to everyone in the community in advance.
Here is the link to it right now www.scorchingstudios.com
The feedback that I have gotten so far is that its too busy, I should not make myself seem like a company but like a person and a lot of the models are not high quality enough.
Is it best to display a well rendered snapshot, an animated video, or an interactive 3d like verold?
Now I plan a full overhaul of the website, would love any advice, what works what doesnt? Anyone have a portfolio website that gets tons of compliments from employers, would love links to see what works, thanks to everyone in the community in advance.
Replies
But, this might help. http://wiki.polycount.net/CategoryPortfolio
But I just checked out your portfolio. Gotta say dude. It's very.... 'Full on'.
The large tribal design. The fact that you have named it as a studio rather than your own personal portfolio site. The music with the pixelated video in the background. It's all a bit much dude.
Some of your work is well executed. But you'll scare people away from the purpose of your portfolio with all that stuff...
On second look. You should research the portfolios of artists you aspire to be like. You have so many images in your gallery. From sculpts to illustrations. Choose a focus.
Probably not advantageous to have multiple images of characters with huge watermarks over them stating that they're drawn by another artist...
Seems like you're trying to fit everything you've made on to your site.
It should only be your best work.
Plus how many WIP's can one artist have! Surely your not working on all of those projects at once?....
http://www.thejonjones.com/2005/10/07/your-portfolio-repels-jobs/
Also why music, if I wanted go listen to music I would play my own music or log into spotify.
Read the link Chris posted from jons blog, he is very respected in the community and works in a hr / hireing type role.
I was thinking of a sketfab website see example http://karolmiklas.sketchfab.me/
what do you guys think of this also too much?
Nice to have a rt3d viewer, but make sure people can still see your work, if they don't run javascript.
http://karolmiklas.com/
http://www.3dkp.com/index.html
http://www.pioroberson.com/
So I guess the biggest lesson here is to not impress them with your website functionality, but rather the content of your work.
Also the sketchfab layouts are really nice.
http://www.briansum.com/#
does this work or do you think its too busy
I found the thumbnails sliding left and right to be really annoying, happens everytime opening/closing the largest images.
I personally hate lightbox... by default, they have you wait for a fade-in, which looks nice at first but gets old really really fast. And there's o navigation once I'm in the lightbox... why?
Also they didn't brand their images.
and have it work with no javaScript, just pure html and css
check out Adam Bromell's portfolio, boom no scripts, and no clicking around, and i got a face full of art.
http://www.adambromell.com/
Paul Pepera same idea what i see first is what i want to see right away.
http://www.peperaart.com/
both of these are very simple sites, but they do get the point across.
look at Tor Fricks, little more structure but same idea
http://www.torfrick.com/
other good example for the site is http://www.mikerusby.com/ he has the art upfront, i can instantly see how to contact him, and his work experience. Everything i would care about seeing all upfront, in a instant, and best thing about all these sites, is they are all html and css, and just work no matter what browser and settings are being used.
Since believe me, if someone has hundreds of portfolios to go through, and one of them dosnt work, well he wont take the time to make it work so he can view it.
don't bother answering this dude he clearly wont listen