Brett Newman Portfolio Website

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1

Hi all,

I am junior in the ID department at RISD (currently on exchange at ECAL in Switzerland) and finished up my first website a few weeks ago. I would love to get some feedback on the site, content, presentation, ease of navigation, etc. Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

Here’s the link:

2

Your website is spot on. Great way to show the concept process and work. Looks cohesive and builds a clearer picture of you as a designer. Nice work and nicely done presentation.

The fine art section however sticks out as off topic.

3

I think your work is very strong. Good process shown, good sketches.

A few things:

  1. Ready to reassemble and Ulock are pretty strong, but Nest canister’s story could use some work. Okay, you’re bringing natural materials into the kitchen… then what? How do I use these vessels? How do they look in a kitchen (via context rendering)?
  2. I like how you have a consistent attitude about new, more natural and sustainable materials.
  3. Fine art doesn’t belong here. I would axe it or shove the link to it within your about me (I also do some fine art). Miscellaneous could be expanded to housewares along with some short descriptions of materials, manufacturing processes… just to keep that consistency about materials.
  4. Links doesn’t belong on that list either. These should just be your projects.
  5. I would redo your about me page. I want to know more past that you’re a designer who does a lot of hands on, shop/materials work. Expand a little on your goals. It’s not too clear to me where you want to end up. Furniture? More exploratory work with materials? I would also NOT full-justify your text like that. It’s hard to read and has awkward hyphenations (in- ternship). I would echo this for you resume: no full-justification of text.

But the overall feel was good and I got a clear picture of your design passions. Consistent color/font choice throughout your website/resume. I look forward to what you do in your senior year!

4

Shaw and Julius,

Thanks for the feedback! I was struggling with where to place the fine art section, and I like the idea of embedding it in the “about me section.” I agree that the canister project needs to get deeper, I’m hoping to work further on that project in the coming months. I will definitely go back in to the “about me” section and try to show a bit more about myself.

Thanks again for all the help!

5

hey-

overall like your site.

I think the beginning image of someone (you?) biking on the homepage is a bit random. I think some awesome process and/or teaser of some kind would be great. Or a simple “Hello” of some sort.

See it as if someone were to pass you on the street- what would be the first 5 second impression you would want to make?