Snarkpit Forum Index » General Banter » Website portfolio
Website portfolio
1
2 next page »
Post Reply
Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by ReNo on Tue Oct 18th at 7:24pm 2005

I'm working on a website portfolio for myself at the moment, and would appreciate any feedback you guys might have. Some of you have seen earlier versions of this in IRC, so comments on whether its better or worse than before are welcome also. Obviously there isn't much in the way of content there (unless you LOVE thumbnails with no larger versions) but your thoughts on the layout and style would be great.

http://www.snarkpit.net/pits/reno/index.html




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by rs6 on Tue Oct 18th at 7:34pm 2005

Looks pretty cool, I like the layout.



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Andrei on Tue Oct 18th at 8:18pm 2005

The style and color theme look great. I'm loving that logo. <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif">





Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Captain P on Tue Oct 18th at 8:32pm 2005

I like the style, to some extend though. Some things don't fit well with each other, mainly the circular logo and the pixelated title.
The art is quickly accessible and the menu is easy to navigate. You may want to put your best work more up so it's immediatly visible which would make a better first impression. Stuff lower on a page get less hits usually, for my portfolio the top images get about 4 times more hits.



Create-ivity - a game development blog



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Tue Oct 18th at 8:42pm 2005

Looks good, so far. I like the images. The thumbs look sexy. I kind of wish there were more pages though. Interested to see more text etc.




Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by ReNo on Tue Oct 18th at 8:48pm 2005

Good point Captain. At the moment I'm just sorting by date really, which makes it nice and easy to update by perhaps isn't going to be showing off my best stuff if the new stuff is heavily WIP. I'll consider a reshuffle <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">

Your point about the icon clashing with the title font is noted, I'll see if I can find something more fitting.




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Wild Card on Tue Oct 18th at 9:43pm 2005

The colours arent you at all ReNo.

That bright orange at the top just doesnt seem to work. I'd see you in more of a Snarkpit greenish colour rather than that orange. I tend to dislike bright flashy websites, which is why I love the layout of Snarkpit.

Level design is all about inspiration and creativity. Your website should reflect this. Just about every website on the planet follows the scheme you're using. Main menu at the very top, and contents on the bottom. Why not try frames? Perhaps the menu on the right hand side.

For each of your maps, its good how you've devided them and given them their own little space. However, I'd try to make that space blend in a little more with the background of the website. Like I said, the orange doesnt work. Your maps are all dark and gloomy, your website should be the same, IMO.

So to recap, blend in the aspects of your page a little more, and try to get some more "ReNo" colours. Light and dark brown, dark green, dark red, hints of dark blue...

Makes me jelous that I cant seem to make any decent maps when compared to your work. Especially with HL2 upon us. Im still stuck in the good ol days of Worldcraft and HL1.




Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Campaignjunkie on Tue Oct 18th at 10:04pm 2005

I disagree. The goal is to present your work effectively, not reinvent web-design paradigms. Plus, I don't think a gloomy, muted website would really interest a potential employer... Only real problem I have is with this "uppercase" style for everything - it really screws up readability.

But I really like the thumbnail sizes though - don't change those no matter what. It's a lot better than those "artsy" thumbnails that some people do, where they crop it to a random piece of the map and you have no idea what you're clicking on.




Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by G4MER on Tue Oct 18th at 10:15pm 2005

They say when you can sum it up pretty quickly, that you did it right..

So Yeah man it looks damn nice, simple, sleek and to the point. Good work reno.

Clickable Images would be nice, with more info or more images of that map or aea on the page.




Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Adam Hawkins on Tue Oct 18th at 10:46pm 2005

Looks great. Nice and clean design with colours that don't clash <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif"> Now get the rest finished!

And Wildcard...those colours are more ReNo than you would think....way back in the day, ReNo had a mapping website called 'Evolution' which used the same colour scheme <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">




You Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want But You Got To Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Wild Card on Tue Oct 18th at 10:51pm 2005

Yea I remember Evolution. I guess it is just me. But I would have rather seen a website layout that represents his works in the site's design.




Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Crono on Wed Oct 19th at 12:12am 2005

Try to compact the entire thing. Use the space better without cluttering, not that it's cluttered now, but that's because everything is so spread out. The upper title picture nav thing is far too big.

The colors are pretty ugly, but that's just my opinion, I don't think it looks bad though. Does that make sense?

As CJ said, don't use small caps. Please.

The only thing is. I don't want to be offensive or anything, but that general design, which I noticed on your watermarked screen shots too, is fairly generic. I've seen it so many times, I've lost count.
I really think you should invest some time into finding a new 'design' technique. Not that it should change much, just something that seems a little more unique.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by ReNo on Wed Oct 19th at 12:15am 2005

Surprised you remember that site design Adam, I barely do myself As Adam said, orange is actually very much me. My desktop wallpaper is orange, my mobile phone wallpaper is orange, and two of my maps feature nothing BUT bright colours I can see why you would think a more grungy style would suit given most of my maps however

Uppercase map comments are gone in favour of more traditional tahoma or verdana standard fonts. Thumbnails will be linked up with full sized images as soon as I've added my watermark to them all. I also have those "info" buttons that will probably take you to a page with more specific info on each map. Initially I was using images alone on the portfolio page, but if I don't have more than one image of a map, it just looks silly Obviously there is also a significant lack of content (ie. more than one page), but I wanted to get your thoughts on the design before I committed to bulking up content.

Wild Card, while I do hear your comments about being a bit more creative with the design (and my first layout idea was definately unorthodox!) I've been following this article about creating a good portfolio site...

http://www.mapcore.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3433

I suggest anybody interested in creating their own portfolios check it out, as it certainly made me rethink how I present my work.

Thanks for your comments guys.

EDIT: The title stuff is only 150 pixels Crono :P I'll have a shot at making it take up less space, but don't hold your breath <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif"> I had a play with a more subdued tone in place of the orange (#8A9ABB if you are curious) but I ddn't feel it suited as well. I dunno where else I can really use the space better (have you SEEN the intense thumbnail gallery? I couldn't squeeze more in if tried <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif">) without losing the segmentation that I have going...unless that is what you are suggesting of course. On the issue of uniqueness of design, I was playing with the idea of circles but doing so often leads to rather contrived page layouts with lots of cut up images and what have you.




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by ReNo on Wed Oct 19th at 12:59am 2005

Updated a little - new title image ("new" meaning a new icon and slightly different text spacing) and a new font for the text content. IE screws up the page layout a bit, been trying to fix it for a long time without success <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/sad.gif">




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Crono on Wed Oct 19th at 1:10am 2005

The only thing different in IE is the indent.gif image right hand side gets overwritten somehow.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by ReNo on Wed Oct 19th at 1:20am 2005

Couple of other minor issues - the links at the top and the copyright thing at the bottom both sit too high, and for some reason the bottom bar's background is repeated a bit. No idea what's causing these issues - it's WORKED fine in IE, and all the code seems acceptable to me. If anybody looks at the source and sees the problem, I'd appreciate it if you let me know <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Crono on Wed Oct 19th at 1:45am 2005

The one thing I know that is always moronic about the difference between the browsers is that IE has an extra pixel count on the vertical (not sure about horizontal)

So, that can annoyingly misalign things.

It count's percentages differently.

There's some other stuff.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Wed Oct 19th at 1:47am 2005

Reno, I was looking at the gray layout behind... and while I usually like simple things... it seems a little too simple. Maybe it would look nicer with a little bit more color variation... like subtle color changes (like a little darker gray with lighter gray highlights?).

I don't know... it seems a little flat now that I look it over again.




Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by satchmo on Wed Oct 19th at 4:02am 2005

I like the color-scheme. It makes everything look very clear and concise, and the format presents your work well.

However, I think each thumbnail deserves some succinct text description. You might be getting to that later anyway, but I want to mention it just in case.

You're one of the most creative mappers out there, and your portfolio shows.




"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge



Quote
 Re: Website portfolio
Posted by BlisTer on Wed Oct 19th at 10:29am 2005

i was surprised at the colors but i wouldn't say it's bad. I like how you make a miscelaneous section for your older work (which is equally beautiful btw), but i would do more then just link those tumbnails to their lager version, i would link them to map info etc (If you can't be bothered to make seperate sections for them, maybe link them to their snarkpit profile?)


These words are my diaries screaming out loud




1
2 next page »
Post Reply