portfolio site for review

[byte4byte]

Hi,

I've been been a lurker for a while and gained great information from the Kirupa tutorials and all of your comments in the forum, and I just want to thank all of you for your generosity of knowledge.

I've just created my first real flash site, and I'm not sure if it's kosher to post the link here for review being that I haven't contributed to your forum, but here it is (http://www.tbytegraphics.com/flash/index_flash.htm). All comments are welcome. I wanted to post it as a 'thanks' to all of you, and now that I know there's this critique section, I don't expect any reviews until I take some time and review your sites.

But just so you know, the champagne cork has been popped for all of you!
Thanks,
Terre

[hybrid101]

not bad dude, it looked cool for me the first time. but meh, that green arrow kills it:P

[RabBell]

not bad, nice style, nide idea

a lot of cotent to read for an agency site. Just a warning some people might not read all your content and just dismiss the site as easily. Actually you got a lot of menu options as well. I'd have a serious think about the amount of nav choices you have and the amount of content. Look around at other agencies, most of them have no more than 6 pages. A hello page, a who we are page, a contact us page, a gallery page and maybe a couple more bespoke...compared to others you got a lot of choices and a lot of content.

My advice would be to browse other agency sites and try to get an idea of the amount of content thats generally expected (the norm). And agreed with hybrid, that green arrows gotta go

but it's a nice site, I like :cool:

[byte4byte]

Thanks hybrid101 and RabBell, I really appreciate your responses.

I have viewed other design agency sites, but the amount of content is a response to client requests; they have wanted to know what I do upfront without having to read through one single page of text, thus I divided the services up for easy pickin'. Same with the portfolio. I also had responses to my previous site to have short descriptions for each piece, I made them as innocuous as possible but present for those that want the info. I do agree with you that there is more info than other sites, but I suppose if I were a bigger agency I could stand on my name... right now I have to cater to the smaller businesses that are a little pickier of how they spend their $$. But I'll go back through it, wait for more client response and then maybe adjust the material if need be.

As for the arrow... any suggestions of a revision? Without it, some people that tested the site didn't know they were supposed to use the nav below? I suppose maybe just keeping the text would suffice.

I've been researching flash and working on it for the last 4 months inbetween my regular work -- some designers/artists (me being at the top of the list) are notorious for never having time to work on their own site... so this has been a long time coming for me. And because of it, I really appreciate your comments since flash is all really new to me but I'm addicted to it and want to work with it more.

[pixelSnobbery]

I agree with Hybrid regarding the huge green arrow! Really doesn't fit in with the rest of the site. I don't even see why you need it - why can't you just bring the work up straighaway??

Agree with RabBell too - there's a whole lotta stuff on there that just isn't going to get read!

Also, considering this is your first flash site, don't you think you're overselling yourself a tad by offering people "Flash sites that soar above your competitors"?

Do like the site though, good job!

[RabBell]

Thanks hybrid101 and RabBell, I really appreciate your responses.

I have viewed other design agency sites, but the amount of content is a response to client requests; they have wanted to know what I do upfront without having to read through one single page of text, thus I divided the services up for easy pickin'. Same with the portfolio. I also had responses to my previous site to have short descriptions for each piece, I made them as innocuous as possible but present for those that want the info. I do agree with you that there is more info than other sites, but I suppose if I were a bigger agency I could stand on my name... right now I have to cater to the smaller businesses that are a little pickier of how they spend their $$. But I'll go back through it, wait for more client response and then maybe adjust the material if need be.

Yeah I think trimming this down or maybe presenting the options in a different way is key for you. Look at this site for instance

http://www.lewis.co.uk/

This is one of the most successful agencies in Edinburgh. And how many navigation choices do they have in their site. 6. Oh they have other links in those pages obviously...but in terms of their site and the amount of navigation changes they've kept it simple and easy to use. If you look through the pages as well you'll see the content is kept small, some pages only have 3 sentences, but the way the font is formatted it looks like 3 small paragraphs.

How about this site

http://www.elmwood.co.uk/

Again their in Edinburgh but they do have offices in London and Melbourne. The front page of their site has 10 navigation links but because they've split it in 2, because they have 2 navigations of 5 it's not overwhelming. They actually have a lot of content on the site but again because of the way they've presented it and split up the site and how it's structured all make it very easy to not just read but browse as well.

I'm not saying rip off these 2 sites. Please don't do that. But do browse them and write down what they're doing (not in terms of design) but structure and language and then browse some other agencies and do the same for them. Make a list of the ones you found easy to browse and the ones that were difficult and then go back and browse your site with fresh eyes. Be honest, be harsh on your own site, where did you find problems...does it really have the things you wrote on your list. And from this you'll see yourself where you can make improvements on your site.


As for the arrow... any suggestions of a revision? Without it, some people that tested the site didn't know they were supposed to use the nav below? I suppose maybe just keeping the text would suffice.

Again going back to those 2 sites. Look how they present their galleries

http://www.lewis.co.uk/our_work.asp
http://www.elmwood.co.uk/casestudy.asp?id=69

Easy isn't it. No need for any arrows, the elmwood one doesn't even require text to tell you what you need to do. This is the kinda simplicity you should be aiming for. Keep us posted on how it goes.

Best of luck :cool:

[byte4byte]

Thanks so much for taking the time to make these comments RabBell; you've given me much to think about. I'll chew it all over. Was there anything you liked about the site?

Again, I really appreciate your time and responses... very helpful.