Grad Website Critique

Hi Guys,

I’m currently finishing up my master’s degree in Industrial Design and I’m looking for feedback on my portfolio website/resume. All constructive critique is welcome :slight_smile:. Hope everyone’s new year was great!!

Website:
www.nmiclette.com

Hi Nik,

Happy New Year! I had a quick look around your site, and had a couple of minor, hopefully constructive comments :slight_smile:.

Are you using the website to look for full time employment, or for individual projects? The reason I ask is the website looks to be set out more like a portfolio, but then on your contact you talk about business enquiries and quotes, but I don’t feel like I’ve seen a description of the business services you offer?

Is it worth adding a ‘work’ page, i.e when you click on ‘work’ it takes you to a page with images of all the different projects you have on the site? Or even a ‘next project’ link at the bottom of each project? At the moment you have to scroll back up to the top of the project, hover over ‘work’ and pick the next project that you want to look at. (super minor! :slight_smile:)

You have a blog link, but it only has two posts, each a year apart, each about your new website… do you need the blog? Or are there some posts that you could add to bring this section to life a bit?

This is probably more personal preference, but I like reading people’s ‘about’ sections, finding a bit more about the personality behind the design, is there any way of injecting a little more of your personality? Even if it’s on your resume page? I know you have your Facebook… which I’m a bit oldschool about anyway… I don’t think I’d be clicking through your photo’s to find out more about you! :wink:

Also, you link to your instagram account… but when you click on the icon, your instagram account is set to private, so you can’t see anything. I’d take this off, or make your profile public? :slight_smile:

Hope that’s helpful?

Sophie

Hey Nik, I agree with what Sophie says above, especially about the work thumbnails. It is hard to navigate to your projects by only a name description, especially since some of the names don’t really indicate what the project is about. I would also make the work the first page you go to on your site, not the check back for updates.

A little on the nit-picky side but I found the type you did your resume in a little hard to read, is there a better type you could use to help make reading it easier.

And just some general advice, it isn’t clear to me what your ambition is from your work, which products you want to design as a professional. I would really try to think about that and then tailor your portfolio to that type of work, even if it includes doing more projects on your own.

As a RIT alumni (undergrad) myself, feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Good luck!

Hi, Sophie !

Thanks for taking the time to give me feedback! :slight_smile: I’ll definitely make the changes you suggested to my work page. As I added more projects from the summer/fall I changed my work page to that cascading menu, but to hear that a gallery page would be more well received I’ll change it back.

My website was in a weird in between stage, originally I had intended to be setup to find full-time employment, but over the summer I was freelancing on the side so I’d added that “contact” section. I’ll remove it to clear up the confusion and replace it with an “about” page. I’ll also remove the “blog” section I had originally intended to post there weekly but I’ve mainly been using instagram as a blog. Honestly I’m glad you clicked that link I forgot it was set to private!

Thanks again for the feedback!

Hi, Leggo!

Stoked to hear from an RIT Alum! Thanks for the feedback. I’ll be making the changes you and Sophie suggested to my work page…I’ll have to figure out how to set my portfolio gallery as the home page too. I’ll look at changing the type on my resume as well, I’m not at all married to that typeface. Any suggestions? Is Times New Roman to boring?

As far as what type of products I’d like to design as a professional I’m lost… Having barely two years of experience in Industrial Design I haven’t had the opportunity to explore many different types of products. Currently my portfolio so far consists of only class work mainly home-goods. All my freelance work/internship work is under NDA’s… I can say though that my professional work experience has been in electronics/hardware. Although I’m interested in sportswear and sustainable related design.

I really enjoyed your Securus Knife project! The form is spot on and really demonstrates your modeling skills. A model in SW then rendered in KeyShot would be pretty awesome. And maybe even a life style / action shot of the knife in the end…

I reviewed the “Rememory- Medical Diagnose Tool” project. Overall, I really like the approach you took to designing a project beyond the traditional game boards we see in the market. Taking consideration of a patient and encouraging the user (and the participants) to share a personal story is a strong selling point.

The instructional (?) sketch you first presented is a nice visual overview. I read some of your scribbles through, trying to understand the thought process sketched & how you implanted them. You mentioned one of the objective is to “help players get a grasp on how the brain works, allowing team members to better understand their loved one’s illness” How did that objective get translated in your final design? Or was that something you mitigated later in the process as you realized it wasn’t worth exploring?

One of the images you presented later shows a card sample with a question “How’s your day going?” I’d love to see more questions the game anticipates to ask users, and how those questions relate back to the project objective. I’m not entirely sure how the game works :confused: The colorful hexagon diagram doesn’t give me much information?

And one last thing, I caught few grammar & spelling mistakes in your project descriptions. Tightening up little details like this can go a long way!

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

Hi, smyoung

Thanks for taking the time to review my work! A lifestyle photo is a great suggestion…I’ll work on setting up a time in the photolab to get another shot maybe with a cutting board and some fruit/vegetables? I’ll try to jump into some CAD for it as well!

For the Rememory board game I had originally intended it to be played by strictly family members with their ill-loved one which is where that objective originated from. Although as the design progressed I pivoted the function towards a less invasive “diagnostic tool” for nurses and doctors to monitor a patient’s progress as the disease ran its course. The game instructions are printed onto the interior cover of the packaging along with the storyboard showing how it would work…Although since you were confused I think I may have not made them clear enough. I’m thinking maybe combining the storyboard with the instructions might help make it clearer.

Thanks for pointing out some of the grammar stuff, always helps to have a second pair of eyes on it!