Please critique my design for my portfolio-website.

the_fat_fox

New Member
Hey all,

The image of the design

I'd love to hear some good critique about the website I'm working on. I want to make this website as perfect as I possible can.

I want to say to people visiting my site that I'm still a student but like to work for them for extra experience. It's still in the design phase, so I only have a png to show.
The text is in Dutch, but the header says: “hey, I'm studying graphic design with much love and I like to work beside to develop my skills”. Then in the yellow it says: “And I'm also looking for an internship”.
With the birds and the pterodactyl I want to show them my personality.

My target audience are Art/creative-directors. And small business owners who I can help with their visual identity.
 
It's hard to fairly judge based just off a single page/image. The main thing I'd want to see is how you're going to display your work. I'm not really a fan of the cropped thumbnails, art/creative directors want to see work as easily and as quickly as they can, so I'd look to make your work the focus of the site (it is a portfolio after all).

The layout of the form is clunky too, having an input field aligned with the submit button (which also looks like an input field) is somewhat confusing. It's a little thing, but you should be on the look out for little flaws like this that an experienced designer might comment on. I'd do something more like below, though I think this whole form could do with more work. This is the end point of your page, it's where you want someone to take action and it doesn't really stand out due to the yellow on white.

Screen Shot 2018-03-26 at 12.17.58.png
 
Thanks for the response! I think you are very right about the UX problems of the form. The cropped images was to make it sort of "mysterious" so they wont judge the work on the tumbnail. But I think you make a fair point.

I'm currently working on the pages for the cases but here is where I'm now: img

I need to make new photographs of the work. But this is the lay-out I think will work.
 
If it's a portfolio site to show to prospective employers/clients then the only tihng that matters is your portfolio. nobody cares about you or your personality. That comes later is they like your work.

If you want to build a website don't start with a mockup. This is pointless. Get the content sorted first, organise your navigation and calls to action and then work on the styling.

Agree with the contact form. If a field is optional don't use it. Only have the fields you need.

Note: what are you planning to use to build the site? Will it be a CMS or will you hand code?

And lastly, don't use gmail as your email address, it doesn't look professional.
 
If it's a portfolio site to show to prospective employers/clients then the only tihng that matters is your portfolio. nobody cares about you or your personality. That comes later is they like your work.

If you want to build a website don't start with a mockup. This is pointless. Get the content sorted first, organise your navigation and calls to action and then work on the styling.

Agree with the contact form. If a field is optional don't use it. Only have the fields you need.

Note: what are you planning to use to build the site? Will it be a CMS or will you hand code?

And lastly, don't use gmail as your email address, it doesn't look professional.


Thanks! I agree with the fact that showing personality isn't the main goal for my site. But I don't think it is bad to personalize your work. I want to show that I love to work.

You are right, I need to have the text and images good, before I need to think about layout or something.

CMS, I will use Wordpress with the Avada plugins. Do you have better recommendations?

Thanks for the response, it's really helpful!
 
Well for starters don't use Avada, Divi or any other page builder theme. They are slow and bloated and google doesn't like them very much. Go for a very simple minimal theme, there are loads of freebies you can use. I build my own themes from scratch, that way I get the exact layout I want.

Show you love your work by linking each portfolio image to a case study where you can explain your thinking, show your sketches and mockups and most importantly the testimonial from the client.
 
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