Constructive Criticism
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- jackpot
Hi all,
Finally got my portfolio up online! Wondering if anyone has got a mo to have a look and give some constructive criticism.
Cheer guys and gals
B )
- VectorMasked0
Constructive?
ok.
Too much black. You certainly don't want people to print your pdf portfolio at all.
The red and black don't work too well here.
Gray line around your site doesn't look good. Why is that flash anyways?Cover of front page looks unfinished. Grids in the pdf are very inconsistent.
You using MrsEavesBold for all the descriptions, except onpage 10, where you are using MrsEavesRoman.
Choose asecondary typeface. MrsEaves is actually not working well at all. Now if you wanna keep it, using in headers, but not as running text. It's not readable against black. MrsEavesBold is too strong and muddy and MrsEavesRoman's letterforms are not well defined.
Go with a clean typeface for this. You want people to read it.Overall type needs a lot of work. there's issues with the grid and the hierarchy.
Your cv is hard to scan.
- Horp0
First thought... too wordy... way too wordy. You are misundestanding the pupose of a CV. Its not to convey an indepth account of your work experiences, it's purpose is to offer a succinct, easy to scan read, top line set of bullet points of dry data.
Its a common misconception that its good to put as much 'helpful information' down as possible. It ensures you go to the bottom of the pile though becuase nobody wants that much information from you.
To make matters worse, in my opinion you've made the text almost illegible too with your choice of a whote on gray serif font, quite tightly tracked. If you are going to do type white out you have to open the tracking to account for the white's optical bleed and it shouldn't be so small either.
Sorry to be so negative but the masses of unreadible type were the most dominant thing so I have nothing to say about the work, which was a bit lost amongst all the info.
- VectorMasked0
Probably ditch MrsEaves completely. It is a wrong option for your portfolio. it has no relation at all with the work you have, your logo or the overall style you are going with. Srsly. Ditch it. Or it will work against you.
- d_rek0
Ok... first, why the hell did you create a splash graphic in flash so that I couldn't even right/alt-click and save your pdf portfolio to my desktop?
- VectorMasked0
+1. Agree with Horp.
Type will kill you here. Too much text. When I get stuff like this at work I don't even spend 3 seconds looking at them. I know there's errors by the fact that it is too full of stuff I don't need.
- This is all positive feedback. Hope you don't take it the wrong way.
;o)VectorMasked
- This is all positive feedback. Hope you don't take it the wrong way.
- VectorMasked0
oh and I think you should try to stick to a "name" or something.
You have "Benjamin", and "Ben Ben", and "baar"- I resisted saying this myself, but I have to agree, you have too many names going on.Horp
- Dancer0
If you cost me a new ink cartridge... In the words of Drago "I will break you..."
Also: Red on Black....oooo
- vaxorcist0
I always remember a conversation I had with a great creative director, who spoke of the difference between Descriptive feedback and Prescriptive feedback.
Descriptive tells you how I feel, what I see, how it impacts me
Prescriptive tells you what I would do if I were you
My Descriptive feedback is that I find it odd that the work is after the CV, that I find the work images a bit small, that I like the work itself but find it crowded, please note that I'm looking at a PDF on a laptop monitor, so each page is only screen-height tall. I also find the CV busy.... I do like the notes at the bottom of the page of each campaign, but I find the type hard to read...
Prescriptive feedback is that I'd move the CV behind the work, and possibly separate the busier parts of the CV into an "other details" section.... I'd space things out more, and possibly consider going horizontal, if this is likely to be seen on laptop monitors. The dark background is cool for a website, but on a PDF it's odd and too toner-drinking to print.
I have to note 2 more things:
1. simplicity sells, but the ability to gracefully cram stuff in is prized, as I once worked at an agency that hired based on ability to do 1 page print ads and posters, but we later did more low-brow stuff and only some designers were able to elegantly cram lots of stuff into a direct mail piece, those designers kept their jobs when the layoffs came....2. Think about audience... if this is intended for other designers, go cool and sparse, if it's intended for getting gigs from non-design-geek clients, you might do well to expand the text at the bottom of each page and make the whole site HTML, as that part can be search engine fodder.... and make a business case, not just a coolness case for your work....
- jackpot0
Brill guys, thanks very much. All taken on board. Keep it coming!
- ********0
Is this serious?
- Yes thanks! this is all very helpful actually! :)jackpot
- Scotch_Roman0
In no particular order:
Did you use Arial for the homepage? Yikes man. Use Helvetica or Univers, but never Arial if you can help it.
Color: Way too dark. You actually want people to be able to print this? Also, red on black or gray = bad idea. It creates a color vibration that is not savory in the least. Reminds me of early 90s death metal, which is not what I think you're after.
Agree with what others have said about putting your resume last. Also, at your current level it should be one page. All of your contact info can easily fit as a header or footer on your letterhead. Nobody cares what your birthday or nationality is, that's only needed for tax forms. As for your work experience, this isn't a novel. Use phrases that are descriptive yet terse, rather than ornate sentences. People will appreciate being able to grasp what you did for a firm in 30 seconds or less.
Agree with VectorMasked about your grid or lack thereof. It's inconsistent. I also agree with others about Mrs. Eaves. It reads poorly on screen and is not space-efficient. I'd recommend something more mature like Baskerville, Garamond, Sabon or Plantin (if you want to be trendy), and pair it with Helvetica for something that will suit your work better.
The red rules are dissonant as I mentioned before, but seem to be superfluous to your layout. They're also too heavy. If you must use rules, make them relate directly to your grid in a way that is not distracting, and use a lighter rule.
The BB thing is not particularly strong, and I definitely wouldn't use it to reverse out page numbers like you've done. Your "brand" as a designer should be very simple and should certainly not be on every single page of your PDF.
- Oh and whatever font(s) are used on the homepage should match what's used in the PDF.Scotch_Roman
- cramdesign0
You really should set this up as a proper html site. Some of your work is pretty nice; an actual site would show it off better and would avoid the way pdf files display on screen. Some nice big jpg files really aren't that hard to set up even if you don't have much experience with web design. I know that flash is initially more comfortable coming from print design, I am with you there, but html/css is really not hard, will broaden your skill set and, unless you are really going to take advantage of what flash can do, it will make for a much nicer portfolio site. Good luck.