June 14, 200917 yr Hi all, I've just come to the end of my HND Multimedia course, and to tie in with our end of year show (last friday night) and my growing portfolio of work I decided to redesign my website so adding additional content was easier, and hopefully a slightly more professional feel. Next year I do my final year of education (again ), when I do a BA Hons in Advertising Design. New website - Link Old website - Link The website is still a work in progress really, I felt it was polished enough to put up for the show, but I still have tweaks and some content amendments to carry out. I'm not totally convinced on the javascript 'tooltip' (secondary navigation on design, motion, web sections), and if I do keep it I need to see if I can work out the jquery coding to make it appear just in one place, and possibly slide up instead of down. Anyone have any ideas on the coding changes required? Compared to the original website, I think it could be seen to be lacking maybe the more personal touch, but I built the site so that hopefully the work itself might be more of the main focal point rather than the website itself, but I've also toy'ed with the idea of introducing a CSS switcher to maybe give a viewer the choice of being able to choose a more textured personal look inline with the original. I've also started to do some websites for other people for a bit of pocket money more than anything, but I am also quite enjoying the learning process and putting designs together, so never know where it may lead. So if you spot any mistakes and bad habits I'm getting into please let me know If anyone has any ideas or comments to what could be improved or tightened up, it would be greatly appreciated. Cheers Giz
June 14, 200917 yr I really like both of them to be honest... I can't honestly say that the new one is an improvement. They are both nice in there own ways. I love your portfolio, really impressive stuff and the life on a leash video is excellent.
June 15, 200917 yr Author I really like both of them to be honest... I can't honestly say that the new one is an improvement. They are both nice in there own ways. I love your portfolio, really impressive stuff and the life on a leash video is excellent. Thanks alot for the comments dt17, 'the life on a leash' animation was from a 3D unit, my first time into the 3D world, but much fun learning the software and playing, was 4 months work though I kinda out grew the other website in terms of what content I could be up on the site, originally the re-design was going to be quite similar, but with sliding elements for more content, but in the end I went in this newer direction.
June 15, 200917 yr Author The older one is infinitely better. Cheers for the comment, What do you prefer about my original website?? I would like people to see my site, and hopefully feel confident I could build a site for them. I felt my original website didn't quite convey this, and I also know the original is badly coded, and breaks in certain situations, it was the first website I ever built, so have learnt a bit in the 3 of put together in between this and my new one. Interested to hear what people think Cheers Giz
June 16, 200917 yr Cheers for the comment, What do you prefer about my original website?? I would like people to see my site, and hopefully feel confident I could build a site for them. I felt my original website didn't quite convey this, and I also know the original is badly coded, and breaks in certain situations, it was the first website I ever built, so have learnt a bit in the 3 of put together in between this and my new one. Interested to hear what people think Cheers Giz your first design was better i think. really like it, it has more of a theme to it. If it is badly coded try re-coding the site but with the same design maybe? Im a fan of scribbling on websites as you may have noticed on my portfolio so really like the doodles and underline of your links on the old portfolio. Good stuff anyways.
June 17, 200917 yr Author your first design was better i think. really like it, it has more of a theme to it. If it is badly coded try re-coding the site but with the same design maybe? Im a fan of scribbling on websites as you may have noticed on my portfolio so really like the doodles and underline of your links on the old portfolio. Good stuff anyways. Cheers for the reply... The general sort of vibe has been that people prefer my original, which is all cool, but I have decided to keep with the new design, having spent a year and a bit with my first site I have grown tired with the look and feel. I have done a bit of website tweaking this evening..... I have changed my home page layout to include a 'latest work' section, I've also tweaked the contrast of the site which now has slightly darker main text, and the main background is a bit darker. On the top navigation I've changed the rollover effects and colour, and added iphone like 'new work' counters. I'm not totally convince on these counters yet, if I knew javascript coding maybe it would be possible for them to actually disappear as you viewed the new pieces?! But I guess I could just give each new piece of work a 2 week window where it is entitled to a new label, and number counter. I also added a new 'business card design' project to the design section of the site, and the final thing I done was got every page to pass the 'XHTML Strict' markup validator.... Next jobs I want to do for my site, is create my own flash player for my animations, so it is more in keeping with the site, update the 'latest work' section on the home page with a slider so it scrolls through all my new work in turn, and then I actually want to develop an iphone version of the site for viewing on the mobile. Anyone had experience in this?? Latest website version Cheers Giz
June 17, 200917 yr Hi I like your site, but would suggest you choose 6-8 keywords and then write your meta title, description around those aswell as the content on the page. Your title should be around 60 characters and if it were me I would not bother with the word "home". Your meta description should be about 150 characters. Currently the 6 words that appear most in your content are design - 7 - 2.70% work - 6 - 2.32% get - 5 - 1.93% http - 3 - 1.16% site - 3 - 1.16% script - 3 - 1.16% So maybe a quick check of the coding to see if there is a better way to write it may help. But certainly rewrite the content so that the 6 - 8 keywords you have chosen occur a good few times each. Hope this helps Gill
June 17, 200917 yr Your new site has very clean and professional look to it, but I must admit I prefer the look of the older site. I think it is just the relaxed feel of the older site, with the muted colours and the paper effect background image. Your new site is very good, but I guess it all comes down to a matter a personal choice, so no right or wrong here! Life on a Leash is a great animation.
June 17, 200917 yr Author Thanks alot for the comments all Seems to create a real split over what website people prefer @s3 web design - thanks alot for the advice, I will definitely optimise my content and coding for my keywords. This is an area where I need to expand my knowledge more if I'm honest, I understand how it works etc... but it's pretty much the first thing potential clients want, high rankings.... I will do this at the weekend, see if I can improve the overall search-ability of my website. Are there any websites for testing SEO that you would recommend?? Haven't done any additional work to the website today, will try and get the optimising, and other changes done over the coming weekend. Thanks again all
June 17, 200917 yr I really like both of the websites! I like the creativety and unique styles used in the first site, but I am a big fan of simplicity which is why I like the newer site. I really like your graphic design to! Keep up the good work
June 17, 200917 yr Author Thanks for the kind comments Been researching into iphone web building this evening, to partner this website. Doesn't seem too bad, so quite looking forward to doing that over the weekend.
December 2, 200916 yr Hi Gizmo So sorry for missing your question! Try The Reaction Engine, good for a quick look at the basics
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