My portfolio is up for a critique

Hey guys my portfolio page is now live.

Please bear in mind that I'm a print designer primarily (I have other talented people to do my coding for me) and this is my first ever attempt at coding up a site.

It's super-simple with a select few logos and some print and web stuff but feel free to go to town! I'll take it like a man :D

There's a couple things I've spotted that I'm trying to work out but they're not big issues.

So there you have it, fire away! I'm looking forward to your comments.

endofgeneric - graphic design // art direction // illustration - UK
 
some nice work there mate, My only comment at this stage is to readdress your print-photography - most of the showcases have blurred areas - you'd be better off shooting some blank cards and photoshopping content into it.

also with the t shirt featured, it looks pretty blatantly shopped imo (appologies if it isnt) but the wrinkles, or lack of are a give away - change the layer to an overlay style and perhaps add some noise.
 
Cheers man :)

There's no photography at all, it's all 'shopped (with fake camera blur).

Yeah I'm with you on the t-shirt, I'm not that bothered by it though. Thanks for the feedback, appreciated!
 
I dont think any of joe public would spot the t shirt thing though, but I'd definately try and change the business card images, reguardless of how well the fake-camera-shot technique is applied :p
 
I think those shots of your work are spot on mate. The blur is subtle enough to not look totally wrong - and its a little bit different.

Well done mate.
 
Hi Michael,

I really like the background and overall site style, portfolio images are nice and big, I would personally lean towards losing the blur or taking it back a bit like Brendan mentioned, but I guess that just comes down to personal preference as jHouse is liking it :)

Also noticed the title styling on the blog with the 'coming soon' notice is different to that of the portfolio, I actually prefer the Georgia/Serif in italic to the Helvetica/Sans-Serif on the portfolio title, I just think it works better with the background image.

Nice work :)
Greg
 
I like it.

An easy to use - well designed portfoilo site with nice work.

Keep it up.

The blurs? Up to you - if you like em - keep em in. My eyes went to the work not the blur.
 
Greg said:
Hi Michael,
Also noticed the title styling on the blog with the 'coming soon' notice is different to that of the portfolio, I actually prefer the Georgia/Serif in italic to the Helvetica/Sans-Serif on the portfolio title, I just think it works better with the background image.
Greg

Yeah I originally had the page headings in Italic Georgia, think I might revert as it would go with the background better. Thanks for the input!

The blurs? Up to you - if you like em - keep em in. My eyes went to the work not the blur.

It's interesting that the 'blur' thing has come up a few times, didn't expect that :)

Thanks for the compliment Ross, looks like we've gone down similar roads portfolio-layout-wise :) you got some nice work up there, keep it up!
 
endofgeneric said:
Thanks for the compliment Ross, looks like we've gone down similar roads portfolio-layout-wise :) you got some nice work up there, keep it up!


Ha - i didn't mean 'Keep It Up' as well done, pat on the head little lad.

i meant - keep the site up as it is - its good i like it!
 
rossnorthernunion said:
Ha - i didn't mean 'Keep It Up' as well done, pat on the head little lad.

i meant - keep the site up as it is - its good i like it!

Sorry if that came across sarcastic! I was genuinely meaning keep up the good work, didn't even click that you'd said that to me too!

Sorry about the confusion :)
 
I would maybe make your navigation stand out a little more. Liking the work, liking the site... good job :)
 
endofgeneric said:
Please bear in mind that I'm a print designer primarily (I have other talented people to do my coding for me) and this is my first ever attempt at coding up a site.

It's super-simple with a select few logos and some print and web stuff but feel free to go to town! I'll take it like a man :D

ttp://www.endofgeneric.com]endofgeneric - graphic design // art direction // illustration - UK[/url][/COLOR]


Nice work.....some Left field advice tho. ( and take it like a man!)

Print based is great, and stick to design first and application second. Let the 'design' do the work, the hands on application is a limitation that anyone could do, so degrade the showcasing of work by the limitation of your ability. If someone can do it better, then pay them to make you shine. Always find the shortest most expedient route to the objective. Then you wont be working 18 hours a day. Be careful you don't get distracted between 'doing' and 'getting it done' Great start - but always ask 'Who's the BEST person to do the job. get the drift? This is constructive not destructive advice.
 
You sir, have a nice portfolio there. Really love your work, I especially like the recent work...cool look.

The site is great too, really interesting backdrop and what I like about it is you didn't put too much "stuff" to take the attention away from your work, just a subdued, unique background with a very basic design...looks good!

Only thing I would do is maybe make the navigation stand out a bit more, it is small for one and also needs some kind of frame or at least some sort of separation, a simple line in between the links or a dot...just something to add more to it.

By the way, how come you happen to have the same name as the movie Michael Clayton? That's pretty funny.
 
Code wise I wouldn't beat your self up TBH the way you where saying it made me think it was a total mess, it is very clean, extremely semantically correct, maybe a bit ott on the comments and too much spacing removing those would reduce the page size, but they are very minor. the coding is close to exceptional IMO.

SEO wise though ~
Create a plain file and call it .htaccess in their place this code and upload it to your root directory.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.endofgeneric\.com [nc]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.endofgeneric.com/$1 [R=301,L]

As you currently have 2 versions of your site, 1 under www. and the other under the non www. version these will get you penalized in the search engines unless you redirect them, that code will do that.

Your title element is TBH pointless though.
Change it to
<title>Endofgeneric ~ professional UK based graphic designer</title>

Notice no hyphen in between graphic and designer, but that will stand you a better chance at ranking than your current one does.

You need to place proper JS comments just after your JS though to be inline with inline JS under the strict doctype so ~
<script type="text/javascript">
<![CDATA[
//js goes in here
]]>
</script>

Apart from that change your html element to ~
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" dir="ltr">

As that states the language of the page plus the text direction, which is better for user agents.

Hope it helps.
Jaz

Key ~
Purple ~ XHTML
Red ~ Mod_rewrite
Orange ~ Comment, leave out of code.
 
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