Hey guys,

 

I had this template lying around in storage for about a month and finally got round to coding it. There has never been more reason to get the portfolio up to shape than now. Simply because I finish up in college this Summer and will be looking for a job.

 

Would really appreciate feedback on the portfolio so far, it's about 70% complete. If anything that seems to be drastically out of place, or radically needs changed in style and usability I'd really appreciate any pointers.

 

Small changes to any design elements would also be duely noted.

 

I'm fully aware of the browser issues at this stage, so for now it is best viewed in FireFox.

 

Anyway, thanks for the heads up guys and also in advance to anyone who gives critique on this.

 

Cheers

 

Alistair Rossini

 

http://alistairrossini.com

Nice website, really like the business card idea

 

one thing i did notice, it that when you hover over "About/Hire" it does not underline like the rest of the headings...

It's really slick, bright and attractive.

 

I think the header area is too busy, particularly on the right hand side where you have all those stripes with icons. Maybe pull your twitter feed off into a small sidebar panel or something?

 

Your quick search text box looks like a button, not an input field - that's non-intuitive.

 

The arrows between your 6 process boxes aren't very prominent, neither are the numbers in the box headings. Took me a minute to work out that this was a set of 6 stages.

 

You probably have to decide whether you want to be Scottish or Italian (Scottish favicon, but Italian colour stars everywhere)

Very nice! Agree with everything Andy said - I'd also recommend having your navigations active and hover states as the same image (tiled next to each other) and change the background position on hover. This means you don't have to download a new image so there is no flicker as it loads.

 

Good job though.

It's a quite poor design Alistair.

 

When i first went on the homepage i didn't know where to begin. I didn't know what i should look at first.

Everything is just in my face shouting at me from all different angles. There's no colour scheme, no grid, no hierarchy.

 

There's lots of small elements in your design that are really good, like your 'London themed' contact designs in the centre of the screen. My advice would be to remove 70% of the content and focus on elements that you ACTUALLY need!

 

Was too afraid to click on other links so didn't even go past the homepage.

 

You've got skills tho, there's non doubt about that!

I have to say I agree with pereira. While there's some solid Photoshop skills in evidence, your usage of angled shapes is leading the eye in several directions at once, and the hierarchy of information is not evident. In addition, everything looks "clickable" - but some elements aren't, some just make a tooltip appear - it's really not obvious. It also looks a bit like an American election site! I think you overuse the handwritten script - I'd reserve that for your logo and perhaps a few very limited spot effects.

 

Don't be discouraged, the execution of the individual elements isvery crisp - but they don't co-ordinate well. It's like a chocolate cake in a bowl of sugar covered in ice cream - there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much going on. Think less about the visuals and more about the usage. Make the site READ well.

@ pereira.

 

Guys, whilst I appreciate criticism I think your brief interactions with the site were fairly lame. No disrespect.

 

Talking about grid systems, no design hierarchy and everything being clickable, angled edges leading you wherever etc etc.

 

The site itself, okie it doesn't use a standard 960px rule of thirds grid, that clearly has no effect on the layout. The fact you werent even willing to click into other pages before giving a review is fairly annoying.

 

The tool tip doesn't just appear with no fore warning, the area you moused over I am pretty sure it wasn't by chance the tool tip popped up. It was because you had seen "Site information" and navigated to that area.

 

There is a clear flow of content, the numerals in the design flow and small arrows both give an indication of that. (I can accept what ZigPress had to say that they may not be as clear as needed)

 

The business cards at the top of the home page, seeing as that is what we are reviewing right? Is fully clickable because that is important and immediately takes design hierarchy "I need a job" in other words, click here to hire me as soon as possible.

 

The blog and portfolio areas use tabbed navigation to seperate inner content and when you click into a full portfolio or journal article the font size increases if you really want to read it.

 

Anyway this is more directed at pereira "Was too afraid to click on other links so didn't even go past the homepage."

 

Thanks for the heads up on all posts and will certainly be considering some things here.

 

Cheers

 

Alistair

 

*Edit - What is a "London themed" contact area? I have no idea, no inspiration from London was taken from this design...

 

The design I guess was inspired by my nationality of being half Scottish, half Italian... thus you see the large Scottish flag and Italian colours in the footer.

wow. someone doesn't like hearing the truth.

 

Mate, don't be asking for feedback then 'get annoyed' at certain comments. The fact that I was 'too afraid' to click on the rest of the site was because I could only imagine how cluttered the other pages are. The fact the i would not go further than the homepage is not good for you, your looking for potential clients and you will hardly get any work if they don't go past the homepage.

 

Web design and development? I think you should just stick to the development side of things because you obviously have no concept of layout, colour, hierachy etc....

 

The only thing thats 'lame' is your inability to accept 'constructive citiscim' which is exactly what i was trying to do.

Just because you say at the end of a post you definitely have skills doesn't make it a constructive post.

 

No need to turn this into something it is not. I can definitely take constructive criticism.

Oh, I apologise - I was wrong - there's absolutely nothing wrong with your site and I have no idea why you submitted it for review since you've obviously considered every eventuality. I'll quote you here:

 

"Would really appreciate feedback on the portfolio so far, it's about 70% complete. If anything that seems to be drastically out of place, or radically needs changed in style and usability I'd really appreciate any pointers."

 

Can I ask: Why on earth did you post your site up for review if you're reluctant to listen to criticism?

 

The fact that your last post had to explain how it works is some evidence of that. It's obviously a touchy subject - and possibly the result of you putting in a lot of hard work (which is evident from the polish) - but I didn't make those comments to be nasty, they were intended to help. In addition, the layout changes drastically from page to page (the rock climber motif is a nice idea, but tiling vertically ain't working). It's a strange conflict of great execution but bad readability. You can take it or leave it.

 

Piece of advice: Don't respond to your clients this way if/when they criticise your designs.

Alright alright!

 

I take i take it....

 

I will consider all comments but seriously some sensitivity wouldn't go a miss. Yes it is a touchy subject, I have put in a lot of hard work and yes this is my puppy.

 

But you summed it up in one really when you re-iterated the initial post about being 70% complete, then for Per... to come in and say, remove about 70% of the content - i'm like errrr wth.

 

Sorry to have offended anyone, but I did feel slightly offended also. Maybe i'm just over touchy right now.

 

But I always do appreciate the feedback of all people with similar techy interests.

*Edit - What is a "London themed" contact area? I have no idea, no inspiration from London was taken from this design...

 

The design I guess was inspired by my nationality of being half Scottish, half Italian... thus you see the large Scottish flag and Italian colours in the footer.

 

 

 

This is what i meant. Maybe this was not your intention but it's what it reminded me of, 'London themed'

*Edit - What is a "London themed" contact area? I have no idea, no inspiration from London was taken from this design...

 

The design I guess was inspired by my nationality of being half Scottish, half Italian... thus you see the large Scottish flag and Italian colours in the footer.

 

Ah i got you, thanks for taking the time to show that. Cant say i've been to London much. See what you mean though.

Dude, you've obviously got the skill - I just think it's too much. Seriously, if you think this is hard, clients are a pain in the *ss. I think you've got the embryo of a stunning site - it's just got a few too many bells and whistles. As the old saying goes: less is more.

 

Here's one of my current fave portfolio sites, and I think it demonstrates what I'm talking about:

 

http://www.sohtanaka.com/

http://www.sohtanaka.com

 

Simply beautiful

I think the header under the navigation bar is way too busy. The titles look seperate, for example - it says follow me on Twitter but that looks like a link. I only realised it is a title to the Twitter bar underneath it after a couple of looks. Same for search and thoughts. Site information again, looks clickable and even gives you the hand which makes you want to click it - even though it leads nowhere.

 

I'm also not a fan of the in your face 'hire me' part. IMO you should be the one doing the work to get a job and it's also very unclear - are you looking for a job 'job' or freelance work? If it's for a job, then again - you should be contacting companies, not them contacting you.

 

On looking at other pages, the javascript pop-up is a bad way of doing things and the under construction thing looks very amatuer. The site, even if it is under construction should still look finished. Also, every page looks like a different website bar the header - I think there needs to be more consistency.

 

I think it has potential but there needs to be some work done on content layout.

 

Thats my two pennies on the design.

Okie,

 

Thanks for the heads up guys, and i'll maybe try to accept criticism better in the future, constructive or not. Sometime I can be a bit rash.

 

With all that said, although there has been a fair amount of work put into this site I've decided to redesign. Not because I'm OCD, or can't take criticism but more so because I wanna just keep getting better with every iteration on any work I do. Client or personal - life is a learning curve and this is what we are here for yeah?

 

So the new question...

 

What things should I be considering? Maybe you guys could put together a bulleted list in a post here of the sort of things that get you going with portfolio sites...

 

Of course I can look at galleries, infact do nothing but that for inspiration but never look too long or you end up being "inspired" just a little too much.

 

I really want a clean colour pallette and areas to be instantly identifyable. I want things to have a purpose and be on the page for a reason.

 

Everything that is in the existing site is there for a reason although it might not be necessary to have recent journal entries on every page etc etc.

 

The technology is all there, i.e backend code - WordPress is great and most of the PHP / JQuery mods are already in my library, so really it's a case of getting the design right and making everything else fit. So a re-design is not so absurd after all.

 

Anyway, if you guys could help out a sincerely passionate guy it would really be appreciated.

 

Cheers

 

Alistair

Not often you will hear me say this but...... Pereira has got several perfectly valid points.

 

The site is overly busy in my opinion, when i clicked the link I thought wow what do I look at first? is that a link? whats that? whys that there? it was just overwhelming,

as a portfolio what do you need to say to a client? This is me, this is what I do, this is what I've done and this is how you contact me. it needs to be clear and concise, unfortunatly it looks like you have seen a lot of sites that have given you ideas and tried to incoperate all of them.

 

I totaly agree that what is there is of a very high quality, the polish is excellent. but there is just far too much for a viewer to take in, the fact that you need a search bar in a portfolio speaks volumes to me, it says there is a ton of content here to sift through, most clients dont want an appertiser, a starter, a main, and a choice of 10 desserts, they just want the meat.

 

have a look at this article clicky it may help.

Yeah I'm really going to listen to ALL input after the little spat.

 

Strangely enough I read that article from smashing mag just before starting to design this portfolio.

 

Hey ho....

 

Back to the drawing board.

 

*turns up music

Not often you will hear me say this but...... Pereira has got several perfectly valid points.

 

 

lolz. I'm glad we agree on something!

Yeah I'm really going to listen to ALL input after the little spat.

 

Strangely enough I read that article from smashing mag just before starting to design this portfolio.

 

Hey ho....

 

Back to the drawing board.

 

*turns up music

 

Chin up mate, you will get there.

lol @ chin up - *sobs and curls in the corner

lolz. I'm glad we agree on something!

Yeah who would have thought, I dont know what came over me. lol

lol @ chin up - *sobs and curls in the corner

to be honest I know how you feel If i had a pound for every scrapped portfolio site i had come up with, I would never need to work again lol

So are we all feeling the love again?

 

Man this place is like being put on the rack.

It's all good - I would suggest taking ONE of your visual ideas - be it the use of a particular font, letterpressing headlines, using wrapping ribbons on the screen edges, and use that as your core idea. Try using colour, type and layout alone to get a good design - in fact, start with layout alone, no font or colour changes. Then, add one visual idea at a time.

 

The 2 things that spring to mind:

- make sure the arrows help the flow of the reader's eye

- make sure it's clear what's a link and what's not

I've started the re-design process. Spent around 2 hours footering around, looking at the screen and drawing shapes - Complete blank. Then tried to re-work an old template. No good either.

 

So then, I thought try to pick out 1 single element or design effect and then build on it.

 

Here we are now then with a sidebar - Given navigation was at the centre of debate here I felt that was a good start.

 

The sidebar widget, seemed pretty cool to start but I'm getting a feeling of too dark...

 

What do you all think?

 

Cheers

 

Alistair

again, it's well executed, but IMO rather complex. You seem to have this knack of making the graphic equivalent of a swiss army knife - which is cool, but hard to use.

 

I would sincerely suggest that you strip your ambitions right back. Imagine your user has 1% of your intelligence/attention to detail.

 

1: Make a naked HTML site. Test

2: Then apply a basic CSS layout. Test

3: Apply some typography.

4: Apply some colour to help with hierarchy and focus. Test

5: Add graphical effects to aid with focus.

6: Polish.

 

Maybe it would help if you write down your aims on paper, think about what you want the site to achieve, then focus on delivering that and that alone. Think about Twitter - one of the most successful sites on the planet , very easy to use.

 

Take a look at these. They give the information room to breathe.

 

http://glue.be/en/

http://www.chris-hortsch.de/webdesign.html

Sorry, maybe i'm missing something here, but whats complicated about a tabbed navigation?

 

That is far more organised than an endless list of unordered lists in any sidebar.

 

Is it the graphics, or the fact it uses AJAX to grab the content thats complex?

My eyes looks this way and that way trying to focus on everything at once...

 

It's to busy for me.

Okie guys,

 

Tell me what you think of

 

http://css-tricks.com/

 

and

 

http://www.komodomedia.com/

 

please.

CSS Tricks is kind of boring, and some of the fonts are too big for the layout.

 

Komodo Media is much nicer, though the CDs in the footer belong in a personal blog, not a web studio site - even if it is just one guy.

Thank you dude for your honest opinion, and I guess this is what it comes down to - a matter of opinion.

 

I can accept the flaws in AlistairRossini.com for now, and wouldn't say it's worth a re-design.

 

I think we all have our own flavours, it just so happens the people who have a taste for css-tricks, komodo-media etc have the power to hand out awards which is kinda nice.

 

I like the fact I can show off some coding skills, all be it some arbituary JavaScript animation or whatever it lets potential employers see some of my talents at first glance. This is also the way the web is definitely evolving use of new school JavaScript and bringing back a hidden gem technology of AJAX.

 

Anyways, nuff said - stressful day in the life of a portfolio.

 

Thanks much

 

Alistair

I'm not sure what your last post is getting at but if you don't think it is worth a re-design, then why do it?

 

I think the original you put up has potential, what I would do is strip it down and try to get it more simple while still keeping the polish.

CSS-Tricks and Komodo Media are really good sites.

Sorry, maybe i'm missing something here, but whats complicated about a tabbed navigation?

 

That is far more organised than an endless list of unordered lists in any sidebar.

 

Is it the graphics, or the fact it uses AJAX to grab the content thats complex?

 

In a nutshell, keep it simple stupid. You're too busy being clever to communicate effectively. The widget looks functional, I can see how it works - but WHY make it like that, why try to fit so much functionality into such a small space?

From your site I can see you're a fan of Twitter. Surely you can see that Twitter, Google and Facebook battered the competition because they were SIMPLE. Google's little search box is one of the most powerful text entry boxes on the web - and yet the most basic. I'm sure the guys at MSN scratched their head too when faced with the task of simplicity. "But why should we give the user less functionality?"

 

Oh FFS - just read this. If you don't want to take advice, stop asking for it.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...dvancedcommon00

 

<sigh>

Try installing a heatmap application, you can watch where the users mouse is moving and clicking then. That'll help you understand what's needed and what isn't. Overall it's a good site imho (9/10 kinda mark), a few minor tweeks here and there and your set. I do agree with some of the previous comments.

 

&&

 

CSS-Tricks and Komodo Media are really good sites.

 

CSS-Tricks is nice overall, there are a few bits that feel out of place though, i agree with zig that some of the fonts look a little too large in comparison with the others. I disagree that i like the simplicity of it.

 

Komodo, i think is a little cluttered, again i agree with Zig that some bits should of been left off, however working out the balance on how much personality to inject is difficult. Some clients would prefer to trust a clean, uncreative company full of suits. Others would prefer the creative flair, the personality etc. The rest fit somewhere in between.

 

Some parts of komodo, like the leaf density, is a nice novelty, but it loses that novelty after the first click, and tbh doesn't add anything to the site except a little block of pointlessness.

 

Overall those two sites are nice, but nothing amazing, but everyone has different tastes.

 

Just my thoughts, if you don't agree just ignore them.

 

and

 

 You're too busy being clever to communicate effectively

 

This is something i waste hours on, i spend hours with the bells and whistles before removing them because it detracts from the objectives.

Here's an article that has some relevance:

 

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/11...s-on-usability/

 

It's about a proposed redesign of Craigslist, the most popular ordered list in the world....

here's someone else's proposed re-design of craiglist.

 

http://craigslist.thebignoob.com/

 

They both focus on enhancing usability, keeping it simple and intuitive and cutting down the work the end user has to do.

 

One of the best examples of this imho is in e-commerce, allowing people to purchase without registering, it cuts down the re-quired work the end user has to do, and as a result, more sales.

 

I think my post has strayed off the point of this thread though, it's more a passive comment.

Nice work, its better than anything ive done so far. I agree with some of the stuff others are saying. All i would add is that your top links flash when rolled over it might be better to have them as 1 image and use the top bottom display feature in the css so they dont flash and also hide overflow.. I like the way you done the 3d effect on the bottom on the recent/feature bars.. The biggest thing i would say is if you dont intent to chnage the site then at least change the input field i did not know it was one on first glance till i read the comments in this forum. :-)