I have quite recently started up my own portfolio site to expand my part time web designing (when I am not in school).

 

I would like some comments and critique about my site at:

 

http://www.teendesign.co.uk

Hi, just a brief comment... the grass at the top looks kind of nice, the grass hanging at the bottom is going to give people nightmares...

Its a nice start to the website, although there are a few things i would change.

 

1. Put something else in the header, it looks too empty for the size it is and is a bit poitnless.

 

2. Add some padding to the top as i think it would look better away from the browser page.

 

3. The "Free Website Design" shadow effect is not too good and is more of a deterant than an advertisment.

 

4. Make the links a bit smaller, becouse it makes me feel a bit stupid .

 

5. Finally, move the style changer links to sone other place on the page as they should not really be on par with the navigation.

 

Thats about it for now, have not checked the coding but it should be perfect if you have been practasing it for 5 years.

Thanks for the comments. I will try and change some things.

 

Thats about it for now, have not checked the coding but it should be perfect if you have been practasing it for 5 years.

 

I was only 10 when I started coding ^^

Hi, just a brief comment... the grass at the top looks kind of nice, the grass hanging at the bottom is going to give people nightmares...

 

 

Ha ha, i agree with this totaly

 

I find the whole design to boaring to be honest with you.

 

It looks quite a depressing website, sorry but it looks that way

The coding's pretty good.

 

The typography aspect could do with a little work, just play and see what looks good.

 

The grass at the bottom looks a bit weird, the grass at the top, where it meets the body content, the colors don't match which really really bugs me. However i've recently come to realise that different browsers render image colour slightly different, so if you fix it in one, it'll still be different in another.

 

The designs very simple (not always a bad thing). The style switcher i thinks a bit tacky in my opinion, when implemented well, i still find these are at best gimicky (i'm not a big fan of them, except for hick's which switches to a text only version with only typography styles).

 

I'd change the logo, and find another way to replace the 'Free web design' sticker.

 

You could do a moon (thinking of the sky) with a girl sat on it or something for the logo (still a bit tacky though).

 

just my $0.02

I don't like the grass at the bottom, also you should only use h1 one time on the page.

 

h1 is the most important heading

h2 is the second most important

h3 is the third most important

 

and so on and so on.

Thanks again for all the comments, I really appreciate them.

 

I should be revising some parts of the site, thanks to your comments

Eh not bad Could use some work. Keep workin hard!

 

How old are you? I started taking things seriously nearly a year ago.. things have been working out pretty well since then! Got a few freelance jobs but thats about it. I want to get a job for this summer but it's hard to find someone willing to hire. I'm 15 btw.

How old are you?

 

15.

I think you should look up JavaScript cookies to pass information from page to page. Using them effectively would allow you to keep the chosen colour when changing from page to page.

You colour-changer might be more effective if instead of different colours, you set different times of the day?

 

I agree with the others when they mention the grass at the bottom - making it solid black would probably work better.

 

You should consider changing your contact page to have a form that e-mails you - putting your e-mail address online like that will open the doors for a lot of spam.

 

Finally, if you're good at something, never do it for free

I think you should look up JavaScript cookies to pass information from page to page. Using them effectively would allow you to keep the chosen colour when changing from page to page.

You colour-changer might be more effective if instead of different colours, you set different times of the day?

 

I agree with the others when they mention the grass at the bottom - making it solid black would probably work better.

 

You should consider changing your contact page to have a form that e-mails you - putting your e-mail address online like that will open the doors for a lot of spam.

 

Finally, if you're good at something, never do it for free

I agree with the colors.. I wouldn't even bother with them- but if you must, make it time of day. Remove bottom grass.. and try pimpin out the typography a bit! Email form is a good idea. One more idea.. i'm not sure if you were attempting to make the background the same color as the grass- but transferring colors from photoshop rarely works (at least for me). It may for you, but to me it's lighter. I'd slice a 1px by 1px image from the psd to match up colors.

 

One thing to add to what skateside said.. never do it for free, if your good at it. I think it's good to do "some" non-profit work when building up a profile. You can stick your name at the bottom and you'll get free walking advertisement. Talk to whomever your doing a site for.. ask them politely to spread the word. They'll be much more willing than a paying customer! That's what I'm working on now... spreading the word!

 

Luke

Just something extra to muse on. You mention 'My computer is full of lots of web pages that I have made and not done anything with' maybe you could display these in your portfolio until you have some proper sites ready.

Pretty impressive.

 

Copy needs looking at, it doesn't flow very well and some of the grammer phrasing is not correct example,

'This offer includes a content management system which I wrote'

 

Should be 'This offer includes a content management system which I have written.'

 

The better your copy, the more likely you are to get people actually interested.

 

Char

Agreed. Our job as "children" is to show up the adults that can't do their jobs properly. Therefore, we must follow three steps:

 

1. Design good

2. Code good

3. And sound good and stuff

 

..my mother would have me grounded

 

The lesson here?.. listen in English class!! ..at least up to high school

 

Luke

Thanks for the comments. I will try and change some things.

 

 

 

I was only 10 when I started coding ^^

 

 

Yet it fails validation miserably?

Grass brush from photoshop is so... overused? It's not really that creative.

 

I think selling yourself on the fact that you're a "teen", is a pretty bad idea. You should let your work speak for yourself, and in most cases I can only imagine that making people aware of your young age, will only make things harder for yourself.

Regarding the whole age thing: http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/interview...rley-alexander/

Yes and Mozart starting composing music at an age of 6 - there will always be exceptions to a given rule.

Dead on.

Hi,

 

First of all I'd like to say that I admire what you are doing when you must already be busy with GCSE's.

 

I'm no design expert myself, but I feel the whole wording of your site is more uncertain than assertive. E.g. "I have made about 3 websites", (so is this 3 or not?) but you don't show them on your portfolio, and then say you "have nothing to show". Why not make up some individual sample pages for ficticious companies so you have something to show and offer those samples as a template to be adapted for each client. Overall I think your words should carry more confidence that you are capable of doing the job.

 

If you can do a job well, you shouldn't offer it free. An alternative would be to approach your local charities and design a site for them free of charge. You would get brownie points and advertising from it, especially if your local newspaper can highlight you as a good example of teenage life. It makes a pleasant change to read about teenagers who are trying and doing well rather than the bad news we read.

 

Keep at it and don't give up. I wish you the very best of luck.

 

Regards, Karen

Thank you very much for all your comments. I really do appreciate it. Please don't treat me different, because I am only a teenager, I want all the normal amount of criticism that anyone else would get. I don't think that age is an issue with design.

 

I may be re-branding myself soon, so I don't draw so much attention to the fact that I am younger. Stay tuned for some beta designs soon.

 

Thanks again.

Where in uk are you?

If the width of the container was 100% so it filled the horizontal width of the page, I think the grass and dark theme would come to life.

site looks very nice, few things.

 

1) I like the option to change website colours but don't see the need?

 

2) The header is nice but you could put more info on it, looks a bit empty

 

3) The Teen Design logo is a bit hard to read on the blue background

 

however still a very impressive site, well done

Where in uk are you?

 

Norwich.

 

Thanks for other comments. I am currently trying to re-design the site.