portfolio project for uni

[stu_t]

http://www.stuart-twigger.co.uk/pronew1/

what do people think of this?

the flash itself is going to be quite cool and different but wanted it to sit in a professional looking enviroment!

any suggestions etc all welcome!!

cheers

stu

[CreationsCentre]

Looks ok. By that I mean it should look ok once it's done. ;) But this kind of site has been done a few times now... and the novelty is wearing out a bit for me. But it's a good way to present a portfolio site though.

[Reggie_Schultz]

Some of the items are a bit out of scale for me, but it looks like you could have some fun with it. Move forward and post again so we have more we can say.

[hybrid101]

not bad, a bit overused, but works ok.
lose the vertical scroll btw;)

[Pasquale]

^ it's a mockup :P - of course there won't be scroooooooool

[RabBell]

agree with reggie, take this design and go with it.

creations is right that this is not unique and has been done before but to be honest I don't think that matters that much especially in your case because this is for a uni course. Try something new with a familar concept but I think you have a good start and I'm interested to see where you go from here.

Also I'd either lose the masking tape in the 2 corners or make the interface a bit more damaged...scratches, coffee rings, and add a curl to the edge of one of the corners.

[duncanhall]

This is probably going to be quite frustrating to hear, but to me it feels like there's two different ideas involved where there should be just one.

I do actually like the way it looks (which is nice, because I'm quite picky), and I saw a brief demo of the swf in another post, so I'm quite confident you can make a good result of the video. However, I don't think the video works as well as it could, given the current design.

As others have said, the "desktop from above" idea has been done before, but that's not to say you can't make your own. But, when I see that kind of site (and as is the form for all the others), you assume you are going to interact with items that are on the desktop in front of you. Perhaps the mouse animates and takes you to the next section, or paperclips dance about while things are loading; you get the idea.

But in your case, you have a nicely put together image of your desktop, but then have used the desktop space to present video. To me that doesn't quite fit properly. I guess what I'm trying to say is "it doesn't make sense to have a video on your desktop", but that doesn't quite sum it all up.

My tentative guess is that from the initial introduction video of you on the sofa, you'll be able to navigate some kind of menu which will then load different sections onto the white paper area. If that is the case then what you'll end up with is basically a nice looking clean flash site in the middle of your browser, surrounded by a nice looking picture of your dekstop. This is where I think the two ideas clash.
In my opinion, I think you could do something that looked cleaner, more professional, and more original if you dropped the desktop altogether. I think browsing to a website that was a clean white page, on which a dude appeared on a sofa, would be a lot more striking then the impression your video leaves at the moment. It would give more life and depth to the video than having it on a "flat" piece of paper as it is now.
I realise you're probably reluctant to drop the desktop image, and you probably wont. I just think you could make something awesome with some really good video and transparent swfs, and I don't think it would affect your current swf too much.

Apologies for excessive typing.

[bcline]

my thoughts exactly.


This is probably going to be quite frustrating to hear, but to me it feels like there's two different ideas involved where there should be just one.

I do actually like the way it looks (which is nice, because I'm quite picky), and I saw a brief demo of the swf in another post, so I'm quite confident you can make a good result of the video. However, I don't think the video works as well as it could, given the current design.

As others have said, the "desktop from above" idea has been done before, but that's not to say you can't make your own. But, when I see that kind of site (and as is the form for all the others), you assume you are going to interact with items that are on the desktop in front of you. Perhaps the mouse animates and takes you to the next section, or paperclips dance about while things are loading; you get the idea.

But in your case, you have a nicely put together image of your desktop, but then have used the desktop space to present video. To me that doesn't quite fit properly. I guess what I'm trying to say is "it doesn't make sense to have a video on your desktop", but that doesn't quite sum it all up.

My tentative guess is that from the initial introduction video of you on the sofa, you'll be able to navigate some kind of menu which will then load different sections onto the white paper area. If that is the case then what you'll end up with is basically a nice looking clean flash site in the middle of your browser, surrounded by a nice looking picture of your dekstop. This is where I think the two ideas clash.
In my opinion, I think you could do something that looked cleaner, more professional, and more original if you dropped the desktop altogether. I think browsing to a website that was a clean white page, on which a dude appeared on a sofa, would be a lot more striking then the impression your video leaves at the moment. It would give more life and depth to the video than having it on a "flat" piece of paper as it is now.
I realise you're probably reluctant to drop the desktop image, and you probably wont. I just think you could make something awesome with some really good video and transparent swfs, and I don't think it would affect your current swf too much.

Apologies for excessive typing.