Hi everyone,
Here is my new website.
Comments and critics are welcome.
Hyltom
You sir command my respect. Your site uses flash in a non-obnoxious manner. Within .0001 seconds I was looking at your work, that’s key. Your quality of work is good, and your 3D renderings seem to mesh well with them, don’t be afraid to make “pages” that have both sketches and renderings together, this will help you tell the story better. Your only major downfall is that you don’t show your development process well. I can look through your 3D renderings and then find some of the sketches that inspired them, but you’d be better off showing them together somehow. Might be best to get rid of the sketching button and next to each 3D rendering put 3 small sketch thumbnails to the right that inspired the rendering. The user could click into those for a larger image if they wanted to. I did find a typo, you spelled “Sketches” wrong.
Other than that it’s clean, simple, to the point, nice work.
Thank you for your comments Greenman. I will try to make some modification.
Concerning the flash website, it’s not my personal website. My portfolio, is hosted by Carbonmade (something like coroflot).
great work! Very refined forms. I agree with GM_ integrate the sketches with the finals. Also it is quite a leap from those initial sketches to the final form, some kind of concept development would be awesome.
I love the work though, great stuff!
Your coffee rendering has been a part of my screensaver for about 3 weeks now. Amazing Work, nicely done! A few comments in regards to your website:
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I dunno if its just my browser but the “next” and “previous” arrow buttons were really delayed. The product/sketch picture loads great, but then it would talk a lil longer for that arrow to pop up…and speaking of which, it seems a little too big (maybe move it closer to the frame border and shrink it down a smig). On some of the images that next arrow gets a lil’ close to the content within that project.
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In my opinion the home page would look better with the green and pink blocks centered. Its just an alignment issue (may not bug others, but I would like to see how it looks centered)
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All your coroflot products have a very refined and identifying look about them. That’s great…people will look and know…that’s hyltom! Great Job man.
Agreed, nice work. Did you use Maxwell to render with, I’ve been hearing a lot about it but haven’t seen any work that nice from it. Nice portfolio, you’re bookmarked.
Thanks for your very constructive comments. I think the idea of joining the product to its sketches is quite reasonnable. I will try to update few projects according to your suggestion and see how it’s going one.
skinny: Did you use Maxwell to render
Yes, this software is very impressive…even if it’s just a beta version.
65mojoe: Your coffee rendering has been a part of my screensaver for about 3 weeks now
I’m glad you like it…I will prefer to have a publication in an ID magazine but it’s a good start. I’m happy to be a part of your screensaver
My new website is online, C&C are welcome.
Website updated, please take a look and tell me what you think.
Am I going crazy…I don’t see any sketches. I did find it a bit confusing when trying to find were to click to view your work. It is hidden down at the bottom of the page.
great designs across appliances & electronic categories.
All those are renderings…wow !!!
I suggest you to put min.one case study/design process for designs.
All of them have some brand language/designer’s language.
If you could highlight that …it will connect designs & brand/designer.
It is also important that what is the purpose of this website?
this site is for… new freelance work…job…teaser??
accordingly, you can display more info…
Thanks for you comments, I will try to improve the website a little bit more.
PackageID: I’m sorry, but I’m not a student any more and I don’t think people who are interested by my profile will care much about my sketching skill.
You are all too wrong there. Even if you have 15 years of experience employers are always going to want to see how you think on paper. Sketching is the one skill that designers have and a lot of time you level of skill is judged on how you sketch. I would not hire a design without seeing sketch work. This is at all levels, Management, senior, and junior. I think it would still be a good idea to include some to show your process.
Sketching skill is surely important, it help you to communicate idea, concept in no time but I’m not agree to judge someone creativity, sensibility, feeling…on his sketch ability. Designing is more than sketching.
I agree but it is a very important tool and one can tell a lot about a designer by their sketches. Yo said it best in a previous post about sketching and that is that sketching is like a language. When you are good at it you a person can look at your sketch and tell exactly what you are thinking and how your concept has developed. By not having sketches in your portfolio you are not showing how you got to your final designs. Just because there is a nice rendering or a nice photo, does not mean that the design solved a problem. I am not saying that your work is not good. Actually I think it is great , but everyone mentioned before that you have great sketching skills, so why not show them.
I think it’s for a different purpose or end user. For most designers looking for a job, potential employers want to know and see how you think and develop your ideas, so sketching is in order. It’s also like that with some clients, they want a story and sketching is good for that. But there are other clients that could care less how you came up with it, they just want to know what your final proposed design is. For example, plenty of design firms websites don’t show their development sketches, they just show final products on the market. They’re attracting a client that assumes they have some good process to arrive at the nice final product they see, so they trust in that, they don’t need to know all of your process, only that you can deliver a good final outcome. There are plenty of old school designers that don’t sketch, they’re more builders. One of my favorite designers (an old teacher) was like that. Sketching was mostly the last thing you did to finalize the design after he figured out how something actually worked. With him, making models was most important.
Now that’s different than if you’re just creating concepts or looking to be an employee where selling the story is a big part of it, then it’s very important to showcase your sketching. But it may not be that important to the types of clients Hyltom is working for.
Of course they are interested in seeing your sketching. Sketching is a visual documentation of process and what influence you had on a project.
Of course design is MORE than sketching… but sketching is a part. I would never pull someone in for an interview without seeing it.
I don’t totally remember your old site, but I don’t remember it being so flash heavy? This one is a little busy for me, takes away from the product design a little too much for my personal taste.
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I think you have to define me who are “they”… students, designers who are just interesting to see my sketching skill. I’m more looking at showing to potential clients, finalized products that have successfully rich the shelves. For them it’s the most reliable characteristic of a good designer. None of the customer with who i have worked and I’m working has never asking me about my sketches. This is a personal process and they are not interested to see it. I’m not dealing with designer but with marketing manager, products manager, projects manager… and they only care about the final design proposals. They need me to be efficient, fast and creative. Most of the time a project take few days, not weeks and they need to visualize how their products will look like in the shop. So my sketch process take few hours, just the time for me to understand the product, find relevant solution to their requests. After that I make my choices and work in 3D to build their future product.
Now, as ADD suggest it, maybe the purpose of the website is not enough clear so I will try to bring some changes and express myself more clearly.
Thanks Skinny for your understanding and explanation, this is exactly what I’m trying to achieve trough this website.
To all readers of this forum, that are mostly designers or future designers, i understand that you are curious and would like to see the whole creative process, but my website ,at first thought, has not been build for that purpose. Anyway i still need feedback to improve it. Also base on what have been said, i will try to show maybe for some projects, the different design step…from sketch to production.
I think you have to define me who are “they”… students, designers who are just interesting to see my sketching skill
I think you may have under estimated who reads this forum. This forum is read buy everyone from students, senior designers like myself, directors of design like Yo, freelancers, Marketers, entrepreneur, and anyone else that is interested in design. This is much more than a boys club that sits around discussing the next iPhone.
I’m more looking at showing to potential clients, finalized products that have successfully rich the shelves. For them it’s the most reliable characteristic of a good designer.
We all want to show clients products that rich the shelves and influence peoples live, but a finalized product is not what shows a good designer. What shows a good designer is a good finalized product that has a process and research to back it up. Like I mentioned before, producing what pops in you head when you get a brief and producing a pretty product does not solve a problem. That is what ID is solving well thought out problems.
This is a personal process and they are not interested to see it. I’m not dealing with designer but with marketing manager, products manager, projects manager… and they only care about the final design proposals.
Like most of us on this blog I work for a large corporate company and do freelance work for multiple different firms but our marketing managers will not trust your designs without seeing how you got there. They respond much better to sketches then final renderings and models. They are not naive and the process backs up your designs and shows that you truly know what the proper solution is. Like I mentioned in my last post your solutions look solid but if you have the skills for the process, why not show them. That point alone makes no sense to me. Even design firms show their process, so why wouldn’t you.
They need me to be efficient, fast and creative. Most of the time a project takes few days, not weeks and they need to visualize how their products will look like in the shop. So my sketch process take few hours, just the time for me to understand the product, find relevant solution to their requests. After that I make my choices and work in 3D to build their future product.
I don’t really know how to respond to this. Is this only sketching or is it the whole up front exploratory process, meaning research, mood boards, observation, etc…If you are only spending a few hours on all of this than I do not see how you come to the best solution. We need to understand the problem and explore the problem before solving the problem. This can not be done in just a few hours and exploring it in 3D does not work. We have had this argument before.
To all readers of this forum, that are mostly designers or future designers, I understand that you are curious and would like to see the whole creative process, but my website ,at first thought, has not been build for that purpose.
I will point this back to my first comment.
I guess what I am really trying to point out here is that I can tell by your designs have had some thought and exploration behind them. If that is the case and all the early posts about your exploratory work are true, then why not show how your work. There is nothing to loose, if anything there much to gain. Showing your process shows how you think and how you think show how great of a designer you are. Do a search on different design firms and you will notice that all of them show how they work and what their process is, even the ones in China.
I like the work, the website is a bit to flashy for my personal taste, Im of the opnion the flash bug as gone now and just seems a bit to try hard. To add to the whole sketching in or out discussion. I didn’t see them last time around but if they are as good as the earlier replies imply then pop em up. Even big name consultancies like PDD, Van Berlo, Kiska, Astro, Seymour Powell to name a few have sketches on their sites, you could argue that this is for prosepective students but I think its more to do with showing of the studios capabilities (they also show how they gather and translate insights etc…) Even if you pop up just one sketch it reveals more about you. As they say if you’ve got it flaunt it!