My newly redesigned website!

Hi Louise, I admire your passion for creativity and your motivation to go University to study Graphic Design and Illustration. However I don't believe your website is ready yet - I know you can do better!

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How would an employer or prospect client react when they visit your website for the first-time?
What attributes would a Creative Director look to see in a website design?

What do you want to achieve with your website?
What is the difference between 'Projects' and 'Work'? Could a 'Case Study' page be suitable?
Would you say your blog post is more important than your projects on the homepage?
If you had a Facebook icon, where should this link to?
Do you feel your website has a slight feminine colour scheme and does it work?

What is your reason to use the same font as your logo and website headings?
Do you feel this helps your logo stand out distinctively?

Do you believe that all pieces of work is your best work?
Do you feel you have too many examples of work?

Should your copyright year say "2015"?
Does your "About/Contact" navigation link work?

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I truly apologise if I am harsh but I do believe that you can better your logo and website - you have the right spirit - be critical but creative! There's a population of portfolios on the web, so you need to be in front!
 
Hi Priyesh, I have taken on board your comments and redesigned my website, take a look and let me know what you think (fyi the image on the front page is only temporary, I was going to do some hand-drawn text here)..

In response to some of your questions:
'Projects' were what I did in University whereas 'work' was work that I did while working volutarily at a design firm, these have been put together in 'portfolio'

I do have facebook, but I don't really use it - its mostly for keeping in touch with a few people from Uni. I have linked my pinterest and twitter accounts, I don't use any accounts for things clients might find innapropriate.

I have simplified the colour scheme using the turquoise as the main colour, it should look less feminine now.

All the pieces on the site are my best works.

About/ contact link did work, though they are now separate links controlled by anchors.

What do you feel is wrong with my logo? This is the first negative comment I've had on it!
 
I had another look at your website and I'm glad to see the necessary changes - good job!

There is a quick change of your website title from "The Graphic Design Portfolio of ..." to "Louise ... Graphic Design" - you may need to find out how this is happening or reconfigure your SEO.

I think you would be an 'Integrated Designer' specialising in digital, print, books, etc. You may also want to briefly introduce yourself.

Why do you feel your age is important in your 'About' section?

Your 'portfolio' is better placed with client work and self-initiated work. But I can't see an overview of your work like your 'Recent Work' section, I'm immediately into a slideshow.

The reason why I asked about your 'About/Contact' navigation is because the link did not work on my tablet. And oddly your 'About' and 'Contact' links still does not work on my tablet. However I am able to access your 'Blog' page. Would having separate pages fix this?

With regards to your logo, I like your choice of colour and the pencil spark graphic art but I'm not too keen on the font used, it's over-used and I think an alternative font would be best.

"Lobster is the new Comic Sans!"
 
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Thanks :icon_smile:
I'll fix the few remaining problems tomorrow (as well as check it displays properly in the mobile version) and add a slideshow of my most recent work.

Not sure why the contact and about links don't work for you, what device and browser are you using? I tested them on both mine and dad's android tablets (default browser, UC Browser and firefox for android) and on a Kindle and they seem to work, though some have a few seconds delay.

The font I would normally use (like on my business card for example) is Designio which is a nice modern sans-serif font, but the web buider I used to create the site cannot import fonts and has only a short list of fonts available, few I feel are very good.

I have previously tried to import my title as an image, but I could not get it to display in good quality no matter what quality or format I saved the image in.


I'll have another look through the available fonts and see if I can find one that will look good.
 
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Hi Louise. I am not the biggest fan of Wix websites (to say the least) just disable the javascript in your web browser and revisit your site to find out why. But, that aside, there are some issues with layout, usability and how your work is displayed. Wix doesn't deem my Nexus 7 to be a mobile device so I am served the desktop version, this isn't good as I do a lot of surfing on my tablet and your site is hard to navigate on a 7" screen and the text is a little too small to be read comfortably at arms length.

On the 'mobile' version (HTC One M8, Chrome Browser) there are some quite random display issues like the words 'Graphic Design' doubled up under your name and I think the text with the drop shadow is meant to sit over the image below it.

Your work is great but the ghosting on the images is horrendous on mobile, almost unviewable, so that isn't doing your talent justice.

Underneath your images on mobile there is a massive turqoise box with nothing in it! What is that for?

Also Wix commits one of my top three 'crimes' on mobile which is fixing my viewport so that I can't pinch and zoom. I hate that.

Back to the desktop version I'm guessing you may have built this on a computer with a good size screen. I'm on my 15" laptop and when I click on the portfolio pieces I only get to see the top third of your work before having to scroll down. Some of them I can't see the whole piece at once on my screen at all so I never get the full impact of your work. I'm sure this isn't how you intend people to see and review your creations. Also some of the images are poor quality. Spotty Cars for instance is very grainy.

Sorry if this seems a bit picky but I think your work deserves better. I really like what you do but am also passionate about good quality websites and UX and I don't think this really hits the mark.
 
Ok made more more changes, this should be much better. I've left the about and contact where it is for now until I can figure out which device /browser it doesn't work in.

Corrosive:
I know wix isn't the best in the world, but I was limited to what I could afford and wix offers a lot for its price. It's definately 1000 times better than GoDaddy who hosted me before.

I cannot add any buttons to switch between the mobile and desktop versions, this problem only affects certain devices (since there are multiple tablets, phones and ipods in this house to test it out on) but it might be better either viewed portrait or landscape on your device.

As for the display on the mobile site, wix managed to totally screw up the appearance when I made the changed to the desktop view. This has now been fixed and should view much better.

I have made it so if you click on the image it will go into expand mode, this should adjust itself to your screen size and show the descriptions, which will solve any monitor size and mouseover problems.

I have also replaced any images I found had quality issues, let me know if you identify any more.
 
That's looking better, the mobile version is definitely much improved and your portfolio is easier to navigate through. Good job. Still not keen on Wix but understand the need when budgets are tight. If you ever get the budget would love to put something bespoke and fully responsive together for you :)
 
All the changes you suggested for the websitehave been made and the homepage image has been replaced with some hand-drawn typography as well.

Let me know if there is anything else I can do to improve it.
 
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