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drath
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Joined: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 1700
Location: Canada
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 Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 12:22 pm Post subject: New Portfolio Website |
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Hey, I got my new portfolio site up. It showcases some of my design work, my fine art, and some of my web sites that I have done over the past couple years. I use a modified lightbox for the image viewing, and hover css effects for additional information like award/exhibition information. My resume linked on the site was made in InDesign and exported as a PDF. The contact page uses a PHP email delivery system. It's fairly simple, but that's kind of the point.
http://vaughnroyko.info
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Scar
Lifeless Person
Joined: 15 Dec 2004
Posts: 6158
Location: Chuck Norris's nightmares.
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| Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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looks cool and everything, but the menu buttons stood out to me first once i visited the site. mostly because they don't go with the layout. The layout seems to use a pixelated theme, but the buttons on the menu are perfectly crafted and shiny. Maybe if they were more pixelated they'd look a lot better and go with the theme. Other than that its a really good unique theme.
Oh yeah, i'd use a more pixelated font as the default font also. Arial and the others are too smooth and curvy i think. Courier New, Courier, or monospace might look better.
Not saying it looks bad as it is though  Good job
** If you were targeting a little mix up of everything (pixels, smooth, shiny, bevel, flat, etc), then you actually did a really good job on the design.
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krt
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Joined: 11 Jan 2005
Posts: 4713
Location: Down Under
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| Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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There is something I like about it.. I'm a developer over a designer any day so I'm not not really one to critique but the mix of visual elements that would look horrible on their own on a site (as a web design element, not as an art form) is something to be commended. The menu seems you slapped it on from one of those examples from smashingmagazine or something similar, it looks familiar and the colours or luminosity don't seem to coordinate with the rest of the site.
After clicking a few pictures and seeing the transitions, I was expecting the menu options to also slide the next set of items in, maybe that can be an idea. Just one thing, the image clicks result in an overlay that is larger than my maximised viewport resulting in a necessity to scroll to get to the "close" button.
Sorry if I'm being too critical, after all, you may still be working on this.
As for the items themselves, there is a great variety and for the same reason as the site, and excuse another use of "something", but there is something ingenious about them, this one being a prime example. |
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drath
D
Joined: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 1700
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Scar wrote: |
** If you were targeting a little mix up of everything (pixels, smooth, shiny, bevel, flat, etc), then you actually did a really good job on the design. |
You are mostly correct with your assumption. I tried to mix up all of these elements. I have weird patterns, gradients, solid colors, pixelized forms, and more smooth things to mimic what was being displayed in my designs and art. I'm glad that it can be seen as you described. At the same time, you are only one person, and maybe it won't be apparent to anybody else. It's quite hard doing what I am trying to do with this site. Thanks for the comments.
| krt wrote: | There is something I like about it.. I'm a developer over a designer any day so I'm not not really one to critique but the mix of visual elements that would look horrible on their own on a site (as a web design element, not as an art form) is something to be commended. The menu seems you slapped it on from one of those examples from smashingmagazine or something similar, it looks familiar and the colours or luminosity don't seem to coordinate with the rest of the site.
After clicking a few pictures and seeing the transitions, I was expecting the menu options to also slide the next set of items in, maybe that can be an idea. Just one thing, the image clicks result in an overlay that is larger than my maximised viewport resulting in a necessity to scroll to get to the "close" button.
Sorry if I'm being too critical, after all, you may still be working on this.
As for the items themselves, there is a great variety and for the same reason as the site, and excuse another use of "something", but there is something ingenious about them, this one being a prime example. |
If you read the part above you may get a little more insight to what I was trying to do. But you are right about the menu. It is a straight rip from the perfab CSS tab menus that are available all over the place. At one point I was just throwing all these elements together and decided just to leave the prefab look. I now see that it may not be singing with all the choas that is happening elsewhere on the site. I think I'm going to change it, or atleast modify it to fit my site a little more, atleast in color scheme, or form scheme (more blocky/sharp).
The trouble with a portfolio site is that you want the images to be as big as possible to get the most detail. But there is also a problem that comes in like you said. On smaller resolutions there will be scrolling. My target audience; however, is people that hopefully use macs with fairly big monitors to support the resolution that is needed to see my works without any scrolling. It is an issue though. I think I may shrink some of the bigger images.
I wasn't sure exactly what you were saying about the one peice of art that you linked though  .
Thanks for the comments guys; keep them coming. This is now on my to-do list:
1) Customize (personize) the menu
2) Shrink some of the larger images (perhaps re-position the close button)
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StarBuck
Novice Poster
Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 35
Location: Skopje
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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On overall I think it looks pretty great, plus the fact that you are using frames (I really cannot think of a current site I know that is done with frames). On the design level however, I think that loosing the green patterns on the top and bottom would make the whole thing more professional... Or just leave the one on the bottom... But that's just me
Oh, and... Set a variable "no" for scrollable for the whole page, it would look even better  |
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RohitMalhotra
The Crazy One
Joined: 14 May 2005
Posts: 853
Location: __________ ~~/[[[zzz::: Some Where In The Northern Sector :::zzz]]]\~~________
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| Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:26 am Post subject: |
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Frankly the design has not appealed to me at all i guess it was the choice of the colours that put me off. Flash is good but it wouldnt be called classy. after all it must be appealing to the eye. i liked the retor gaming effect but you could have used Retro colours too. apart from theat the functionality of the site has to be more user friendly. the popups should close with a fade on removal of the mouse giving it a better effect. some explorers may have popup blocker which may block your content. or simply irratate the users
The Flash loader could have a more livele message instead of only flashing boxes.
also the content is very bandwidth heavy. you may not get a lot of users from the dial up era. bythe way for your information 95 percet of the net users are still on the dial up. or on speeds which are less thatn 48 kbps.
you have to be attractive to them also
you could do better
sorry dude you asked for an honest opinion i gave you one nothing personal.
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krt
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Joined: 11 Jan 2005
Posts: 4713
Location: Down Under
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| Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:54 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | apart from theat the functionality of the site has to be more user friendly .. the popups should close with a fade on removal of the mouse giving it a better effect .. some explorers may have popup blocker which may block your content ..or simply irratate the users |
There are no popups, I call them overlays, it is basically an element that is placed over the page.
| Quote: | | The Flash loader could have a more livele message instead of only flashing boxes . |
It's not Flash and it is just a progress indicator. If no content was to show untilt he "loading" was finished, then perhaps a better indicator might be used.
| Quote: | also the content is very bandwidth heavy .. you may not get a lot of users from the dial up era ... bythe way for your information 95 percet of the net users are still on the dial up ..or on speeds which are less thatn 48 kbps ....
you have to be attractive to them also |
I'm on a shaped connection today (64kbps) and the site loads fine relative to sites filled with art! And consider his target audience when throwing out figures about the percentage of broadband users. |
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drath
D
Joined: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 1700
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:11 am Post subject: |
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Thanks krt, you pretty much covered all of my response to RohitMalhotra . On a side note i'm switching the color scheme pretty drastically to match my new portfolio I am putting together. The theme will still be the same though. I'll post a new version within the week I am hoping.
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drath
D
Joined: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 1700
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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Okay, so I uploaded the new version of my site (I guess now it's up to version 3.0). It now features a much more clean layout (due to the white background used) which creates a lot more contrast with the patterns and colors.
I have added more customizations to the Lightbox script and my site itself to look less "out of the box" and more personalized (items folding down/up). Everything should also be more similar in theme. For example some of the navigational items in the lightbox are now changed to seem more similar, and also some of the colored diagonals that were in the header now appear elsewhere (on footer).
Next i'm thinking to perhaps add more work to each section to show more of a variety.
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raqqauniv
Banned
Joined: 16 Mar 2008
Posts: 320
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:11 am Post subject: |
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wondefull subject
thank you |
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martinz
Grandmaster Poster
Joined: 01 Oct 2007
Posts: 287
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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| simple and nice website |
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LP-SolidRaven
Dictator of the Dump
Joined: 06 Jun 2004
Posts: 7193
Location: The cheese is made out of moon
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:42 am Post subject: |
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The moving thing in the left lower corner kind a annoys me to a certain extend, else good job.
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