Hey all, I just created a new website to serve as my online portfolio. Take a look and let me know what you think.
The slideshow is nice, but I find the loading bar to be very distracting. Overall I think your front page is too busy, and I’m not really a fan of that menu bar. It feels very “stock”.
That toolbar that pops off the bottom of the window is kind of annoying and puts me off staying on your website.
I looked through some of your projects. I think you need to curate your process work a bit more for the projects. Right now it seems like you’ve just basically included a bit of everything you did in that project. But maybe you need to think about how you’re telling the story and what parts are actually interesting and useful to the viewer to get a sense of the development of the project.
The way your sketches are presented looks very tacky and really distracts me from the actual sketches.
Overall I think the website has way way too much text. Its nice to have a short blurb for some stuff, but you basically have a long paragraph for everything, which I don’t think many people will be bothered to read. Your section about design thinking seems very lofty and somewhat unnecessary. Nobody will be bothered to read that page, your process should be shown through your work, rather than a tacked on written section. Also, with all the backlash against the “design thinking” buzz word lately, I think it might put some people off.
The navigation of your site needs some work. I clicked on a few of the pages, and have a hard time remembering where I saw what, and what was under what title. The pages with all your work are buried in the same hierarchy as the “inspiration” and “design thinking” bits, which makes them get a bit lost. Really the work is the most important thing for me to see so make it easy for me to access it.
Checked out your “me” section as well. There is way too much stuff there! I only really want a short bio about you to make your site more personal, not really a detailed look into who you are as a person. Your “Santa’s New Sled” story is a nice way to start off your about me, but the image is clearly mirrored horizontally (a result of the scanner?). Its easy just to flip it in photoshop, but the fact that you uploaded it the way it is kind of implies that you don’t pay attention to detail. Whether or not that is true I can’t be sure but little things like that can say a lot about you when people are looking at your site!
My apologies if any of this seems harsh, just trying to be constructive! Hope this helps!
EDIT: I looked through your site again. I really like your bamboo furniture stuff. The process shots are great and I think it tells the story a lot better than some of the other projects. It just seems clearer and keeps my interest better. The finished pieces look really good as well.