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Thankyou for the responses folks! Really appreciate you guys taking the time to have a look. I understand that the text on the home page may not look like links, however I feel that they're highlighted enough which makes them stand out from their wording. I'm not sure really what else I could do to make them stand out, besides underlining them? Thanks for the input about the portfolio height issue, I guess that was me just adding stuff in because I could animate it, not actually because it had a use. It's changed now, thanks! Ste - sorry about the white on green. However it looks perfectly fine on my monitor and also every other monitor I've tested, including my crappy Sony Ericsson phone - I assume the problem lies with your monitor? About the jQuery hover effects - yeah, that's what I've been trying to figure out. I've been using CSS 3 animations but they don't work in Firefox or IE, but they work really nicely in Chrome and Safari. Damn browsers and their differences! Any idea how I could go about implementing jQuery effects as a fallback for the more useless browsers? Cheers once again guys, really appreciate your input! ~ Alex

Hello folks, Got tired of my old site, so I redesigned it. Wanted to emphasize my work more and let the content do the talking. Also wanted to do away with the traditional multi-page sites with nav bars - the idea here was for it to be more like a brochure that you can flick through. http://www.duskydolphin.co.uk/ What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Any thoughts / ideas? I'd love to hear your comments Cheers guys! Alex

Thanks for your relpies folks, they're really helpful! As a lot of you seem to be mentioning the load time, I'm going to work on optimizing all of the images and the code which will hopefully speed it up. I know the simplest thing to do would be to split it up into seperate pages but the main goal for this site was to be a one-page portfolio. Are there any other things you reckon I could do to speed up load time? Once again, thanks for looking! Alex EDIT - sorry Jay, I missed your post there! Thanks for the input, a favicon is definitely on the to-do list!

Hey folks! Long time no see, Anyway, I decided to redesign my portfolio website to reflect better what I get up to in my life. I wanted to showcase my work in a way that was simple and elegant. So here it is, Dusky Dolphin V5 I hope you like it. Please feel free to be as critical as you can, I really want this to be good. Thanks guys! Alex

Hey folks, I designed this website for a charity cycle event that I'm participating in later on in the month. What do you guys think of the site? Basic and simple was what I was going for! http://www.c2c-ride.co.uk/ And if any of you wish to support us, I'd be eternally grateful!! Thanks folks, peace out ~ Alex

Thanks fellas. ALTWeb - haha, I get pulled up so much for that! But it's actually supposed to be lowercase. I could try and give a very moving and personal reason for why it's lowercase... but there ain't one, I just like it like that! Cheers for looking mate! Acrylic - I know mate, I tried to implement a JavaScript form validation thingymabob but the bugger just would not work, so in the end I gave up. I'm confused about the external CAPTCHA validation as I set it to off... will have another look. Is there any way you could reccomend how to run a simple validation for my form? Cheers buddy! ~ Alex

Just thought I'd post to say this site looks very promising, you've done a good job so far and I like the use of the wood background, it really breaks things up. Couple of little pointers that I think may help you out: 1. I do agree about the GeoTrust logo. Maybe ask the client if you can move it to the bottom, or if you can't maybe try and redesign it a bit so that it fits in with the site a bit more? Even just making the background of it transparent and removing that inner glow would make a big difference. However - I did look through your HTML briefly and it doesn't seem to be there - is this something added after you made the design or did you put it in? 2. The navigation / header. I'd suggest dropping the navigation down onto the same level as the logo. This would make the header a lot more recognisable: it's nice as it is but it looks a little haphazard to me, and took me a little while to work out where the navigation and logo were. About fitting the search box in - be creative! Maybe you could lose the "home" link and make the logo link to the homepage instead, that would give you a bit more room to play with. 3. A small one. I think the "logos" in the middle of the first piece of content don't really go, I'm not sure if it's their angles (three tilted, one straight?) or their colours (what about having them in single colour, and reveal the colours on rollover?) 4. Beef up the page (numbers) bar a bit. At the moment your deign is quite blocky, box-oriented and the number bar (no idea what the hell to call it) looks a bit fragile. Have a look at the one on this site http://www.cssheroes.com/ and you'll see what I mean. Be creative with it, make it look cool so people want to look through the products! 5. Try putting the product boxes in their own "container" semitransparent box as well? 6. Spice up the footer a bit more. Reward people who have looked right to the bottom of the page! Put a nice design there or something. I know personally I neglect my footers a lot but they are really important in the overall view a person has of your website. 7. Redesign your login form. Make it more interesting and make it fit more with the design of the site. At the moment it looks like a bog-standard login form, and not terribly interesting. Hope that helps you! I'm not being mean, remember that's just my opinion, but you're off to a good start with this site, so keep at it! ~ Alex

Howdy folks! Bloody hell, it's been a while. I think the last time I logged in here was more than a year ago. Ah well, nice to be back again! I'm posting because I've totally re-thought and redesigned my personal portfolio (emphasis on the personal now, so it's like my online scrapbook). It's in the late stages of testing, before I properly launch it, but I thought I'd ask you guys what you think, as you're the knowledgeable types! Because the only other feedback I've had is from a mate, who took great offence that one of the pages was blue. Yeah, I know. Anyhow, here she is: http://www.duskydolphin.co.uk/ Feel free to be as harsh as you like. I'm really quite fond of this design, and want to make it the best that I can. Cheers folks! ~ Alex P.S. I know the free MP3 album isn't available yet. It'll be done soon, I'm workin' on it

Hi Rob, I think you definitely have the skills, but one thing which would be great for you to look into would be some website design galleries, and see what people are doing right now with their sites. A few sites are: http://www.css-website.com/ http://www.cssdrive.com/ http://www.cssheroes.com/ but a Google search for "CSS gallery" will return a load more. Basically, try and make sure that you are clear and professional with your content. Choose your colour schemes and fonts carefully, and use plenty of padding and white space to give the feeling of airy-ness and space in your designs. Good luck! Alex

Hi folks, First of all, Merry Christmas! Hope you all had a wonderful time. Thankyou to all of you for all your comments! Reading through them has definitely given me food for thought, and many of your ideas / suggestions have been or are going to be implemented. This is just a small bump to say that the non-christmassy site design is now live, so trundle over and take a look. Let me know what you all think, Cheers! Alex

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to review my site! It's much appreciated Mikec1uk, thanks! Yeah, I was going to divide the page into three and have three links at the top, however the portfolio shouldn't be growing much bigger as it's only there to show my very best works, not every piece of work i do. So if I made a better logo, say, that would replace one of the old ones. I hope that makes sense, heh. Thanks for your review! Sunwukung, thanks for your review! Please read my answer to mike's point above, cheers! Helen, thanks! I like to put my own mark on things Peter000, wow thankyou mate! Yeah i thought about shortening each box too, but then I found that I was trying to squish all the info into a smaller space, which didn't look too cool. Yeah, hopefully the small links that float on the left should help with the scrolling, but I'm taking your words on board! Thanks! T_break, thanks, yeah I don't know why but I really grew fond of the whole 'chunky' look, hope I haven't overdone it a little though... About the wording, I tried using more formal words but one thing I always wanted was for the website to be 100% me, and to be honest that's the way I speak sometimes. I guess it may look unprofessional though, you make a good point. I'll see if I can't come up with something a bit more 'pro' Cheers guys, keep the reviews coming!

Very nice design there, I really like the cloud at the top. Colour scheme and fonts are very well matched. Only a couple of little crits from me, 'cos I'm awkward like that I'd have added a little more space between the links and the edges of the navigation bar, just to pad it out a little bit. Also, I'd have changed the rollovers, in my humble opinion text that moves when you roll over it is a bit wierd. However, they're just my opinions and they're probably different to many other people's, so I guess they don't mean a great deal Overall though, it's a lovely design, and a very solid website. Great job, shame the client changed their mind. Cheers Alex

Hello all, you may remember me, I think I posted here a while back when I first released my site. Well, now I've just finished redesigning it completely, so... tah-dah, without further ado, go to www.duskydolphin.co.uk and let me know what you think! I know it may not be to everyone's tastes, but personally I'm mighty chuffed with it, having gone through at least 10 other concepts before settling happily on this one. Cheers, and have a great Yule (can't bring myself to say Merry Christmas yet, it's all come around too fast!) Alex

Hi Russ! My site's www.duskydolphin.co.uk

Nice job Russel! I'm almost 16 and have just set up my own site too. Aout the design done by Tehi, dont go with it unless you are happy with it... you dont want to have a portfolio that you don't like personally (btw tehi, It's pretty nice )

Grunge removed WelshStew, thanks but I'm going to keep the site as it is. I like a lot of space, i think it makes everything feel clean and uncluttered. But thanks anyway

Hi ErisDS Oh right. I know what you mean now. I'm going to leave it in, for accessibility. Thanks for the pointer Hmmm yes I like the sound of that... kinda breaking out a little more.... hmmm... I'll see what I can do when I get time, thanks Black stuff around the logo is (or was supposed to be) kind of grunge, although I don't think it's working to well... Maybe I should remove it? Cheers! Alex

Hi guys (and gals) Thanks for all the comments! I honestly didn't expect so many... About the site looking like it's a template... hmm maybe it does. I might have taken the 'mininmalistic' style and put it down in a bit of a generic way. But... I must say I like it (for the time being anyway ) and I've got a few clients on the go too so I can't afford to spend time reworking it. Thanks guys! PS sunwukung; the border in firefox doesnt show up for me where about are you seeing it?

Wow you guys are fast! Thankyou for all the comments, will review them when I have time Cheers Alex

Hi guys! New here , have been making websites for a while though.. Here's my NEW portfolio site (not that there was an old one, mind you...), please check it out and tell me what you think. All pages and CSS validate Here's the address, site went live yesterday. http://www.duskydolphin.co.uk Cheers! Alex

Damn thanks it always does that will ahve a look Ta

Hi great site but ur header image seems not to line up with the rest of d page. other than that great! @lex

Niiiice! If ur going to use seperators in the links bit, try stuff like link | link | link or link :: link :: link lol i love it! @lex

I like the new site, its cleander and simpler - easier to fin things. though some links went missing - like quicktime (now in downloads)! @lex