Portfolio

D

designer01

Member
Hi,

I'd really appreciate some opinions on my portfolio. Positive and Negative!
I currently design book cover's so they take up half of the showcase. I'm aiming to produce some freelance work and make my portfolio more varied.

Gregory Harris Graphic Designer


Thanks


Greg
 
Hi Greg. Welcome to the forums.

On the positive side, it's quite a bold design. If tweaked around it could be a respectable portfolio page. The layout is pretty good, although does it display properly width wise (not have a horizontal scrolling bar) on 1024x768? As that's pretty essential.

Personally, I'm not a massive fan of the border and choice of hover change. That's just my personal taste though, and might be totally different for the next person. Something worth considering though. I personally prefer something more subtle for hover changes, that just adds a little something extra to the image that's hovered to distinguish itself from the rest.

The only other thing would be the header, which I think looks very much like that fancy text you used to get on Microsoft Word. I think it could be improved although I'm not sure how. Possibly lessen the gap between the header and the red box, to the same size as gap between the red box and the portfolio images.

I've been nitpicky on perpous, as constructive criticism is needed in all design. Keep at it, I'm in no way saying I'd do better, or that I'm right with the above opinions. Let me know your thoughts on what I've said and if you change anything definitely let us know.
 
Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

My initial aim is to showcase my designs. I've just kept it simple for the time being. I'd like to know what you think of my designs. I'm aiming to get as much feedback as I can. I usually get good praise from the authors and editors but I'd like to know what my fellow designers think. In interviews what I come up against is a lack of variety in my portfolio because I work in book cover design so the majority is cover design. Ultimately I'm looking for some varied freelance work to build up a more varied portfolio. Any tips on how to get going would be much appreciated!


Greg
 
Hi again Greg.

I really like this book cover, it works really well in my opinion

market-led.jpg


And this CD cover does the job perfectly too.

music-tech-black.jpg


Nice work. Agreed that variety would be welcome but those that are on show are good efforts.
 
Hi,

I really appreciate your comments. I'm looking to get many more comments from fellow graphic designers hence putting up a new thread! Ideally I'd really appreciate some feedback on my designs. I find that's a great way to progress in graphic design and it's very useful to know what people think of my work!

Thanks


Greg
 
Hi Greg,

Just a couple of things really, the layout works for me as it showcases your work straight away. I just think it could maybe be refined a little.

The page is a little flat, why not try some solid block colour at the top? Put your logo and contact details up there since they're more important than anything else. Secondly, mirror the top header at the foot of the page. Having the central contents in a slightly darker colour than the header and footer will frame the page a little better, it also introduces a slightly more defined hierarchy. The colours don't have to be too different and would probably work quite nicely if the header was maybe something like #343535 and the central contents #000000, you could make the image borders the same colour as the header and footer.

Decrease the size of the words 'Graphic Designer' so they're around 2/3 the size of your name, the most important thing on the page. Maybe put your name in an ever so slightly bolder typeface and decrease the leading.

I don't think I'm too sure about the borders either. I think it's because as I scroll down to the footer, then back up again, I expect the rounded red box at the top to be blue. I hope that makes sense.

You have the domain designer01 but your email address is talk21. You'd come across as a lot more professional if you set up an email address using your domain name. You can set up a forwarding mailbox if you like so all emails sent to you still come through to your talk21 mailbox. Maybe setting up something friendly like me@designer01 or hello@designer01.

Your work's great though. How about you have a jpg version that opens in lightbox and maybe a pdf link under each thumbnail? That way as many people as possible can see the fruits of your labours.

Hopefully that's not come across as being too negative, it's a nice clean site.

Pete
 
Thanks Pete.

That's really useful to me. I really appreciate your comments. I'm working on the site in stages but my main idea was to have something in place so I could showcase my work. Your ideas are sound, in fact the one about mirroring the top cylindrical shape is one I thought of but decided against it because I wanted the focal point to be the designs and I thought it might be too distracting. I could improve on this though and make the designs stand out even more. Good point about using another email address. Most people have said it's not a good idea to have the PDF's to download as it takes time because they are high res. My idea was to do it this way so the viewer could see all the detail of my designs! I've looked at many sites and most embed their designs. Do you design websites? I worked on this with a website designer. I created the typography and colour scheme and he put it all together. You have good knowledge of web site design. If you have a portfolio of designs/websites I'll take a look!

Thanks


Greg
 
No worries Greg,

I work as a designer for a studio in Lancashire, I do have a portfolio but I'm redesigning it as we speak. I had to throw it up in 5 hours because I was applying for the job I'm in now, it's not been touched in over a year which pretty much makes it ancient by web standards :icon_biggrin: Still, it's here if you want tot take a look, my more recent work (branding, websites etc.) is on my work's portfolio www.door4.co.uk.

Pete
 
Hey Greg. What have you changed? Sorry, that came accross as blunt, I just wondered what the changes are you have made.

The links to images take way too long to load at the moment though mate, 9mb download just to view it closer seems excessive to me. I'd look at other ways of showcasing it.

Just my two pence.
 
Cheers. I appreciate that you're looking at my designs. I'm trying to get other people to look as well! I asked someone at GDF how best to do this and they suggested writing something in the reply to make me top of the list. Otherwise my showcase will probably go unnoticed! I'm looking to get as many comments as I can. Spread the word!

I agree with you about the big files. It was the web designer's idea but I also thought it would be good to see the high res artwork but I now think that I'll have the designs embedded into a web page.


Thanks


Greg
 
That's cool Greg. I'm sure you've heard it before, but definitely consider learning the basics of HTML & CSS, it gives you so much more freedom, and of course will save you money.
 
In terms of your actual content - excellent - some really great work there. I would agree with loading times for the enlarged images.

And yea as said learn the basics of html/css as it really helps you see whats happening in your code even if someone else has coded it for you.
 
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