Website redesign

[N D Hill]

Hey

another benefit of being out of school for the summer, besides getting to post here, is finally getting time to redesign my website. I was wondering if any of you would mind helping me out with a few general questions as now, having spent a long time leaving it to collect dust, i can look at it with a more objective eye. Aside from doing away with simplistic black with mapped Jpegs which i find a little amaturish, I was wondering what you guys generally like to see in a good online portolios. If possible, I'd really appreciate any feedback anyone might have on my old site.

Thanks... let the spring cleaning begin.
Noel

[steve kim]

i'd emphasize the "clean" part of "spring cleaning"

i love checking out artist's portfolios but glord sweet mother mary do i hate navigating through them.

things i like:

clean, simple design.
minimal graphics
quick loading
thumbnails that don't crop things to hell (more on that later)
fairly large but well compressed images
artist information: bio, history, etc (i like to know this kind of stuff, though i have to admit most of it incredibly poorly written/cheesey/wouldn't touch with a 10-foot-pole-ish/crap about how much they like cs and that one time at band camp they touched a boobie)


things i dislike:

splash pages
flash
sounds
music
things moving around (often accompanied by 'phat beats')
those javascript popup menu/links thingies
popups (arggg)
menus that take me 10 seconds to decipher
too many: images, buttons, menus, submenus
itty bitty thumbnails that crop everything to hell to the point where you have no idea what the actual image looks like and you can't remember if you've clicked on it before cause it's so freakin abstract and looks the same as every other thumbnail.
thumbnails that aren't technically thumbnails cause they don't show anything cept little dots or squares or whatever, it's even less information than some lame text link!
writing about yourself in the third person (only acceptable for really professional fellas who obviously have other people working on their site)
anything especially pretentious looking/sounding (like some fancy signature plastered over the site)
java/javascript anything (well almost rollovers are sorta ok)
itty bitty main images (sometimes unavoidable due to people that like to rip you off but still annoying)
obvious compression artifacts or aliasing
photos of themselves. it's just wrong. extra points off if picture is extra angsty, sullen, melancholy, angry, high-school prom photo-ish, ugly, or pimply. (exception: very attractive females)
anything with black text on a blue background ARGGHGHGH HULK SMASH AHROGHGHGORHAR

holy crap my comp went bonkers there, almost had lost everything i wrote :)

looking at your old site i think it's got simplicity/ease of use going for it. those thumbnails are kinda big though (for my tastes) and pretty heavily cropped.

the chicken scratch writing/font is not exactly novel and in your case more distracting than anything else.

in any case as long as the work is sweet it doesn't matter what your site is like*. i'm just in a ranting kinda mood :).

cheers,
steve

*unless your work is mediocre/slightly above average in which case bad design will scare visitors away... after all the content must be pretty compelling if people are willing to wade through a crappy website.

[steve kim]

oh and i almost forgot

i'm not too sure how wise it is to include too much personal information and/or journals/blogs. do you really want future employers/buyers/fans/sycophants reading about your time at old navy and that great 2 for 1 sale on stonewashed carpenter jeans?

in fact i'd like some other opinions on this matter. i'd like to include more personal info such as this or even keep a journal or blog (my ego cries for it) but i question how appropriate it is.

perhaps a small link for the 'journal', or none at all, just keep the two sites seperate. shrug.

cheers,
steve

[N D Hill]

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate. Off to work for me then. Thanks.

P.S. Black text on a blue background...Yeah. I'd say that makes me go into a murderous rage every time i see that too.