Mr Kipling

To view them all at once, try turning off JavaScript. Personally I don't like it like this - it looks a little too busy? I think that having one open at a time keeps the focus on the individual piece, and lessens distractions. Also, the JavaScript accordion effect is kinda swish and I thought that it would be a good idea to include a nice piece of hand-written unobtrusive JavaScript to show what I can do in just a few lines of code, while still having it degrade gracefully (not that employers are necessarily going to be poking around the JS files, but you never know!) In short, I guess I just kinda like it? Not the best justification, I know, but there isn't much else going on visually in the site and I think that a little touch like this makes it slightly more interesting.

For what it's worth, I have now added a contact form to the site. Design changes to come when I get the time.

Did you try clicking on the name of a client? It slides down to reveal a thumbnail and some descriptive text. But even so, I agree that it is a bit boring. I think I'll go down the contact form route - it's been mentioned more than once. I'm not going to put my phone number or address online though, as I don't feel that it is very wise; this information is available 'on request' as mentioned in my CV. Of course, when I send out a CV direct I use a different version which has all of my contact info included. Thanks for the design advice, this is precisely the kind of stuff I was hoping for! I agree that it's very bland - for some reason my designs mostly seem to turn out grey. I like the idea of incorporating green ino the design more, so that is definitely something that I will experiment with. I must admit that I like the CV being back and white (it seems nice and clean to me, plus it helps when printing) but I'll experiment with incorporating colour, especially if it helps keep the branding consistent. And again, the contact form is mentioned; I'll get on it! Thanks for the replies all, I've found them helpful.

I'm guessing from the lack of replies that my site is perfect and can't be improved in any way? Awesome! (that was sarcasm by the way, I just wanted to bump the post)

I really like it! I'm a big fan of closely-kerned Helvetica, so on the web closely-kerned Arial will have to do And well done on resisting the urge to to use a sans-serif font for posts, this makes things a lot easier to read. My one criticism would be the links; the grey colour doesn't (in my opinion) provide enough contrast with the copy, and could do with some other visual distinction (underlined? bold? I'm not sure...) Also, the hover colour for links is unreadable. But... really nice design, I like it a lot!

Hello everyone. Here's my personal portfolio site which I offer up for critique: http://www.bradabrahams.co.uk/ Perhaps some background would be helpful. I'm a 24 year old front-end web developer, and I've been employed in the industry for just over 2 years now. I got my one and only job at a small web design studio straight out of uni. At first there were just 3 of us (me, the MD, and a developer) but now there are 13 - so the company is doing very well. I'm the front-end lead, so I'm responsible for implementing and maintaining sites for our larger clients (the smaller ones tend to get done by the two junior front-end developers), as well as training the junior front-end guys, keeping abreast of new technologies, putting in place standards (such as naming conventions and QA checklists) to ensure that quality doesn't slip... you get the idea. I'm the front-end guy. I think that I have XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript down pretty tight. I also have some knowledge of SEO, usability, accessibility, all the usual things that go hand-in-hand with front-end development. However, I'm not much of a designer. I'm not awful; I like to think that I have at least some flair for visual design, and I'm very big on making sure that designs stick to grids as much as possible. I guess you could say that I know a lot of the theory, and I can implement pretty much any design without a problem, but I don't have that "spark" which makes somebody an excellent creative. This leads me to my problem. I have created a portfolio site to showcase my CV and examples of my work, and I'm happy with the front-end work, but the design is just a bit... uninspired. I would really appreciate it if somebody could give me some pointers as to how I can improve the overall look and feel. Here's what I like about it: It shows that I can use modern front-end development techniques effectively. I quite like the PDF version of my CV. As we've established, I'm not an amazing designer, but I think that it is quite clean and effective. There is of course an XHTML version on the site as well. I like the accordion effect on the portfolio page, which I wrote myself using jQuery. It's completely unobtrusive; if you don't have JavaScript then you will simply see all of the portfolio items. Also, if you click on a portfolio link on the homepage then the JS reads the anchor in the URL and opens the relevant portfolio item. Sorry for going off on a tangent, but this kind of stuff is what I love to do Here's what I don't like about it: The design is rather uninspired. It's functional and serves it's purpose, but I don't think that it really stands out from the crowd - and if I'm going to be applying for my dream job(s) then I think that this is important! The content is very traditional, in so much as it is "home / CV / portfolio / contact". There isn't much of a user journey. It just feels a bit bland. To this end, I am working on a page which explains my work process and the principles of web design and development that are important to me (my "work ethos", if you will). The contact page. It's simply a link to my email address, which isn't very good at all. I was thinking of adding a web form (I know C# and PHP so this wouldn't be difficult) but at the same time I don't know if a contact form is really necessary. So, does anybody have any suggestions on how I can improve my site? I eagerly await your responses. Thank you in advance!