My portfolio website: BEGINNING STAGES

This is currently how my portfolio website looks. I am trying to arrange the elements to look as i want them to before i start putting content in! This method worked before!

this is how it looks a few hours later with the banner completed. It is very similar to my fashion website, which i designed 2 years ago, and have constantly been making small changes to. I like the clean-ness of the logo, but it looks too sharp against a white background. I also have to remember to do a favicon for the site!!

I am still using netbeans and pixlr to design the website, and filezilla to upload it to the server.



I have added some detail to the banner. I love the greyscale colourcheme, and crisp font (Adobe Caslon Pro).. It means that the focus will be on the content. Although there is not a huge amount of colour, i feel that the website does reflect me as a designer in the same way that my fashion website design reflects me as a designer!

I have had a slight u-turn and decided that the website looks too much like a shopping site. I want to keep the site clean and neutral, but i am going to change it and invert the colour on the banner. I want to have a colourful animation grow at the bottom though to add a bit of life to the site.

I am also going to have a look at existing design portfolios for some inspiration. Although i do essentially know what i want to do, i want to have a look at others. In my last project, i looked at graduate portfolios, or those of people already in the industry, but i want to see if i can find any examples of design student portfolios to see what kind of things they have included.

University hosted student portfolio: http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.com/portfolios/vancouver/681479/ Examples of finished work only, no additonal information. Seems that the purpose of it is to encourage students to come to the university. There are ony titles.

Advantages: Quick access to 'list' of completed work. Very slick and easy to use.

Problems:  No understanding of the process behind it, or their range of skills.

 Another university hosted portfolio: http://www.sessions.edu/for-students/student-gallery

Again, very slick, but contains no contact information about the individuals or their individual strengths. 

http://www.joannamorgan.co.uk/
There is an introductory page. With a welcome message, quick links to the cv. Navigation is at the bottom, with all projects listed by category.

Problems: slight information overload, no particular focus on one project/set of projects over another.  


Bottom navigation means having to scroll to the bottom of the page. In a way this forces users to look over everything, but at the same time perhaps they dont want to and would leave the website, frustrated.

http://vimeo.com/10731856 Casey Defay Sound Design Portfolio-video, hosted by  Vimeo. Contains contact details at the start. Almost a series of short ads put together. High quality video.


Problems: Very slow to load, frame-jumping and slows me browser down. Difficult to skip between different portfolios.

 I have made the decision to have four main sections, and to include an overview of my research and process, but to this time not include the actual sketches, as it would only be for the examiners/teachers benefit, who would also have access to my sketchbooks. Potential employers/placement companies would also have access to my physical sketchbooks, so an overview would be enough.

Having too many images on a website causes slow loading issues, and could cause problems for other potential users.