Level designer Portfolio (WIP)

[IronTaxi]

Have been working closely with a web designer friend on a portfolio site..

Please have a look and make suggestions.. Im fairly happy with it but any suggestions would be welcome..

Primary font is haveing a bit of a problem at the moment so please disregard..mainly looking for feedback on the left side selection/ right side gallery layout..

my objective has been to have zero pop up windows or page changes..ive pretty much done it but at the cost of image size of course..

any ideas? suggestions? constructive criticism?

Chris_Greig_Portfolio

[Talon]

A few comments...

Your contact details are very strange. You provide a phone number that's blanked out (i.e. it's pointless - put one in or remove it) and you remove your email address from the link, but keep it in the href (I'm not sure if you're trying to avoid spam or something, but this won't help that one bit).

Your type is all black TNR, which is incredibly hard to read on such a dark site. Neither of your CSS files appear to exist, which might explain that.

Aside from that, it seems ok but kind of noisy and grungy, which makes it a little hard to take in quickly. Especially all the arrows... they indicate scrolling possibilities or they direct people's view elsewhere. So the click/view ones actually discouraged me from clicking in the menu, because of the conflicting arrow directions. The profile ones indicate that there's more to be seen by scrolling or clicking on them... when there's not.

[IronTaxi]

Dont want to be a jerk MR.Talon but did you bother to read my post?

aware of the font issues..in fact i listed it as a problem right off..

hehe

I was looking for feedback on the left right layout..

if i may quote myself

Primary font is haveing a bit of a problem at the moment so please disregard.. mainly looking for feedback on the left side selection/ right side gallery layout..

agreed with the arrows but without them it seemed that the user might not get what was going on. Are you saying that perhaps no arrows would be clear enough? If so i may try that and see what people think..

Regrading the contact info..uhm..yeah...i know...wip....hehe...someone didnt have their wheaties this morning huh?

cheers...thanks for the feedback...

Irontaxi...

ps...I know whats wrong on a technical level...but how about the left/right gallery set up?

[Talon]

Yes, I did read your post.

As a layout it's fine, I guess (although personally I don't like the use of frames or tables in websites). It's just a bit akward to work out what's going on with all the arrows and grunge and the layers of borders. If you need to have arrows telling people how to use your website... you've probably got a site that's too complex to navigate. It should be an intuitive experience, you shouldn't ever need to give instructions.

My main point in that font bit was that your CSS refs don't point to existing files.

And you did specify "mainly" looking for feedback on the layout, so I felt that description gave some leeway for other feedback.

To that end, I'd also like to point out that you probably don't need Name:/Platform:/Game: in your menu options. It's clear what they are enough without the text. It'll also help make it look a bit cleaner and easier to read.

And half a megabyte of background image isn't really needed, either. You might do better to cut it down to 1000x700 or something and fade it out to black at the right/bottom.

[glynnsmith]

Aye. Agreeing with Talon, here.

I can see what you've tried to do, but this kind of mechanism does more harm than good, tbh.

It also doesn't look very presentable, with scrollbars on each side panel for the horizontal as well as the vertical. It makes it look very old. You might want animated gifs following your mouse cursor, and a .wav file playing in the background, but it's not something I'd advise :P

As Talon said, what's the point of putting ____@____ as your email address? Put your actual email address up there, so people can easily copy and paste it into their email client/web browser.

Basically, the idea of decent web design it to enable the user to navigate it with ease and simplicity. Trying to get everything to load up on one page with frames is an old way of doing things that doesn't make the browsing experience good at all.

If I were you, I'd have words with your web designer friend and get someone else in to do the job.

The arrows are especially confusing. The first impulse is to click them.

[sarge mat]

I would get rid of frames I know portfolio's are not about have a great looking site its more about being able to access your work quickly and in the most easy forward way but frames are very out dated and don’t look good You are better to go with tables and just make the edges of them not visible.

Get rid of the side bar and but all your work out in the main part where it can be seen it’s not a good idea to have to scroll down though the different pieces by using a second scroll bar.

When someone loads up your portfolio the first thing it should say is look at all my great work.



But i can talk still not finished mine lol. Working on a new design and waiting till I have some nice stuff to put on it.

[IronTaxi]

Originally Posted by Talon

Yes, I did read your post.

As a layout it's fine, I guess (although personally I don't like the use of frames or tables in websites). It's just a bit akward to work out what's going on with all the arrows and grunge and the layers of borders. If you need to have arrows telling people how to use your website... you've probably got a site that's too complex to navigate. It should be an intuitive experience, you shouldn't ever need to give instructions.

My main point in that font bit was that your CSS refs don't point to existing files.

And you did specify "mainly" looking for feedback on the layout, so I felt that description gave some leeway for other feedback.

To that end, I'd also like to point out that you probably don't need Name:/Platform:/Game: in your menu options. It's clear what they are enough without the text. It'll also help make it look a bit cleaner and easier to read.

And half a megabyte of background image isn't really needed, either. You might do better to cut it down to 1000x700 or something and fade it out to black at the right/bottom.

Roger, thats much clearer thanks..

Agreed it is looking cluttered. So the arrows are not needed.

Hmm...I guess the patform info is not as vital as the image. A little bit of information overload.. Cheers Talon.

AS for the contact info..yes i know..i just havent put it in yet..

Ok...so trash the frames right out.. cause they look dated. basically get rid of the scrolling bars.. ok...good feedback...

Im just kind of fumbling in the dark here.. my friends sites are really nice but ive directed this mess personally..hehe...

good to know..cheers...

[Talon]

One thing to note is that while it's a noble idea to try and avoid page loads and extaneous clicking... having individual pages is actually beneficial in many ways.

For a start, it means that linking someone a specific page of your portfolio is possible (with frames, this is not). That's one that's always overlooked with frames or flash sites. It also means that more pages of your portfolio will get discovered by search engines - always a good thing.

The pitfalls of that (such as having to change the menu on each individual page if you want to add/remove something to the menu) can usually be easily overcome by some very simple php file includes (or ASP or java) or at a stretch having the menu flash-based. With the includes, your menu HTML sits in a separate file and it's loaded into each page when it's opened - meaning you only need to change one file and the changes propagate throughout the entire site... kind of the same philosophy as CSS styling.

[IronTaxi]

Thanks...Ok...so back to the drawing board perhaps...

I just hate popping windows/screens and even more... i hate accidentally closing and losing the whole site..

What i think ill do initially is perhpas remove all the frames and scrolling bits and strip it down to just the items themselves..

[Enraged]

I don't think there's really enough there for a portfolio, all I'm really complaining about...