Portfolio Refresh: Thoughts?
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- astereo
After months of putting my own site cleanup on hold, I finally got around to doing some house cleaning. Constructive criticism is welcomed, as always.
- fyoucher10
Some feedback:
- Think you have too many fonts that are too close in size and it starts to seem disorganized. I'd say keep it down to 2 or 3.
- Get rid of the transition used on your homepage hero. I think it's kinda cheesy. A simple crossfade or wipe would be better IMO.
- Work on the look of your main navigation and all buttons. There's "minimal" and then there's too simple.
- I'd redo the logo but maybe that has some personal significance.
- fyoucher10
Oh yeah, get rid of your pricing directly on your site..unless you want to get elance budgets. Those prices seem so cheap that some potential clients may automatically associate it with poor quality. Put that suff on a separate rate card PDF or something.
- Ancillary0
the animation transition on your hero banner happens too quickly, you need to sit a bit longer on each frame, I didn't have time to read the content before it animated to the next frame.
- Amicus0
"Designed a high quality (300 DPI) brochure (inside and out) for a Bodyplex Fitness Center in Dawsonville, Georgia. Delivered in a high resolution PDF format."
300dpi is standard for print work. Copy like this sounds downmarket for those clients with experience and limits your ability to reach higher end clientele.
- Amicus0
I also agree with fyoucher1 about the logo. IMHO it lacks class. I'm sure with a little effort you can do better.
- Continuity0
1) From your contact (excuse me, 'Get in Touch') page:
"Quotes are flat-fee’s" – remove the apostrophe. An apostrophe denotes the possessive, not the plural.2) Re-think your copy on the Services page; there is waaaaaaaaay too much blah-blah, here. You don't need to tell people you worship at the altar of The Church of Mike Industries. You tell people what you offer in bullet points, and then you let your work speak for itself.
3) While we're still on the Services page:
"As a author of 6 freely released [...]" – _An_ author. An. Not A author. An.
And spell out the word six. Good editorial practice states you spell out sngle-digit numbers, and use numerals for 11 onwards. Your grammatical, orthographic and syntactical sloppiness aren't making you look professional, here. More on this later.4) _Still_ on the Services page (and elsewhere):
If you insist on having outbound links that take the viewer off your website, and onto someone else's, then make them open in a new tab or window. Otherwise, you've lost them. That simple. You want people to stay on your site and look through your stuff, right?5) Agreed with fyoucher: get your rates off of there.
6) Your About page suffers the same problem as your Services page does: it's entirely too wordy, and it actually doesn't say anything at all. Like you're trying to compensate for something. Keep it brief and relevant. Also, what exactly is the relationship between what you're saying, and those photos on the right?
7) Still on the About page: you contradict yourself when you say, "First, it’s all about keeping things simple", because you then go on to use the word 'utilize' later on in the paragraph. The three extra syllables won't make you look more clever. 'Use' is not only perfectly valid, it's also simple. Like how you claim you like to keep things.
8) 'Utillize', 'open lane of communication', et cetera. Please stop it with the buzz words and phrases. You're not fooling anyone, especially considering the veritable preponderance of errors in what ought to be no-brain, basic writing.
9) 'The push to have flawless code has become a “requirement” [...]' and [...] 'understand passing a “validation” test [...]' Want to "explain" why you feel the need to put quotes "around" two perfectly valid "words" that describe exactly what they say?
10) Also, terms like 'self-taught' are compound, and require a hyphen.
11) Lastly – and I say 'lastly' because, well, I'm getting bored of typing all of this out, not because that's the end of what I think are the issues – you may want to consider either having a single non-transitioning (note the hyphen, there) hero image on your front page with teaser copy, and a link to the project's page as a feature that you regularly change. Or, you should have a total of four or five images transitioning. Reason being, only having two images flipping back and forth like makes it look not just empty, but boring and leads one to believe those are the only two projects you've ever done. Also, the timing of the transitions is seizure-inducing.
Seriously, though, your copywriting threatens to stop the whole show. It's abysmal and over-abundant; stop talking about you, and talk more about the work, why things were done as they were and what the results were, if you have to say anything at all; and, for your own sake, have someone proofread what you write.
Oh, and one last thing: believe me when I tell you that potential clients simply couldn't care less that you dicked around with HTML at age 12.
- *single. Someone pass me the ketchup for my meal of crow.Continuity
- single-digit. Not sngle. Your grammatical, orthographic and syntactical sloppiness aren't making you look professional, here.centro
- If you noticed, I corrected myself in the first note.Continuity
- orrinward0
I like your work, and I'm more impressed by the fact you're as young as you are. (This is not saying I wouldn't be impressed if you were older).
The general attitude of your language and presentation conveys a bit of peacocking though, which I think is a discredit to your ability. I get the impression that you're a student trying to really sell their work as professional, when in reality, you needn't try and sell so hard as your work is already at a professional level.
I think your nav is crowded and poorly prioritised as well:
Home | About | Services | Work Collection | Labs | Get In TouchHome: I'd say lose it - Your homepage doesn't offer anything people will want to go back to after navigating to their chosen page. People are also quite used to clicking on a top-left logo to go 'Home' if they need to. A 'Home' link only really has a purpose if the homepage content offers a strong, broad overview of a larger site.
About: Less important than your work, so it should go after a 'Work' link.
Services: Put it after work I'd say, and shrink it down - If it's on a per-client basis, cut out the text as you will negotiate what you will do at a later date. If you have a long explanation of what you do, and what they want isn't there, they may assume you don't offer it. If you keep it concise, they will assume they should ask.
Labs: This section seems redundant and can be merged with Work Collection. Mark them as experiments or something. It seems you just put a 'Labs' nav in because a bunch of companies do, but you've missed the mark on what that section usually entails.
Get In Touch: I have a feeling others will disagree with me on this, but unless you're an agency expecting people to come see you in person, I see this as a redundant page that inhibits users from contacting you, especially through a form. Just make your email and phone number visible on every page at the top. People may want to contact you at any time, so why hide it behind a page and a pretty intense contact form.
- calculator0
There's some really constructive comments on here and people have taken time to give it. Nice to see for a change!
- Projectile0
IT'S SHIT!!!
seriously what were Gap thinking with that rebrand?
anyway, I digress. Your porfolio's great. My constructive feedback, however, is as follows:
My first instant impression was that it felt a little like a brochure for a university or something.Very standard. Clean and neat, but not very creative. I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this, so feel free to ignore.. especially as it does reflec the style of most of your work. (though I'd see it as an opportunity to show versatility)
If anything, just make the images in the carousel look more loved. Those can be a lot more enticing, perhaps a background colour.. at the moment the feel a little like powerpoint slides...and then you have this whacky, messy logo that doesn't fit at all with the look of your site. I reckon a complete rethink of that would benefit you greatly.
Don't be afraid to go below the fold on your home page if it means putting more work up, and put CV as a link at the top. It's more important than a few things in the nav.
Extatic preview looks nothing like the work. False advertising.
- freshdude0
I never heard of any of your clients. Yawn.