Web design portfolio

[Alex-Grim]

Ha, i think that i've finally got a good design, and to make things better, i have my entire portfolio up now. What do you guys think:
http://design.ionisis.com/?a=SELF_Portfolio

Thanx

[HalfDog]

It might be better if you can roll over one image of a project and it expands the rest of the images, vs showing them all at once. It's rather cluttered.

[Alex-Grim]

That, or maybe have it so that the projects are collapsed to show only their names, and then you click on the project name to expand it.

[shane-c]

^ :lol: Are you critiquing your own project?

I think the screenshots of your projects aren't very effective right now. The way you've got them cropped, like 50% of the image is just the side margins. Don't be afraid to zoom in on just the strongest parts of the design, and show them in a more interesting way (check out http://squaredeye.com/ as an example of what I'm talking about).

There is also absolutely no need for you to be showing that many shots of each project. One is usually enough, and sometimes two or three at the most. Nobody wants to look at all of those, especially when they all appear to be 90% similar to the others. People would much rather be able to see one really interesting image, then click to view the actual site to explore it for themselves. It kind of looks like you're showing a bunch of different iterations of the same project - I'm not sure, but if that's the case I'd recommend showing only the final version.

I'm also a little confused as to your organization. Some of your categories refer to specific clients, and some are more general. It usually makes a lot more sense to just organize them by client, starting at the top with either the most recent ones, or the ones you're most proud of.

[Alex-Grim]

Ha, yeah, some "after the fact" observations.

I agree with most of your points. I guess that my idea was to say "we can try until we come up with something you like". But i don't really like that philosophy, either.

One reason that i would like to show more than 1 screenshot of each project is that sometimes the client will choose a design that is not as good as one that you had proposed. So i'd at least be able to say "here's what the site looks like, but here's what it could have looked like". Also, i would want to keep each unique proposal, for future clients to possibly use. For example, if i propse X, Y, and Z, and you choose Y, then i'd still like to show X and Z so that the next client can say "I think that i liked that one better"...


I dunno, only time will tell which approach is best; but i do agree that right now there is too much on the page.

[shane-c]

I totally understand that sometimes clients make some very unfortunate decisions regarding design. But I do think that prospective clients want to see polished finished projects that you're proud of. A history of completed projects that are currently live and continuing to be effective for their respective businesses is the most important thing to them, and with good reason. They want to know that if they choose you, they'll get a great final product, and they'll be assessing that based on your past final projects, not a bunch of designs that never really went anywhere.

Remember that you're ultimately selling your ability to improve their business - your design abilities are just a means to that end.