Website design for personal portfolio

OK let's start from the top...

1. The branding is a bit bland and unoriginal. You're a designer and creative so every element on your website should prove this to a potential client.
2. I would increase the size of the navigation a bit, the subtitles are too small to read easily so certainly make these larger.
3. The alignment doesn't work for me. The left of the branding should align with the left of the main content (with the boxes of images). I would increase the size of each box so that everything aligns vertically.
4. The footer layout would look better following the layout of your main content. Split the information you have in the footer in to three separate columns and align with the content above.
5. Black is such a dead 'colour'. It sucks the life out of everything... Not that you have much colour on the page anyway...
6. ADD SOME COLOUR! You're taking away so much from your designs by showing them in black and white... they aren't black and white so why show them in black and white? Just makes them look dull.
7. I also don't really like the limey green colour, it's not strong enough to balance with the amount of black.
8. Finally, I'd consider setting up a personal twitter and business/professional twitter - your clients aren't going to want to know about your likes and dislikes, social going on etc.

Hope at least some of these points help.

Hi David

Nice work. Personally, I'm a big fan of this kind of simple, clean, minimalist layout style. Granted, it's not strikingly original, but you can't have everything, can you! It should work well for a target audience of small business owners and/or prospective agency employers.

I suggest moving your vertical grid over to the left a little, so the left edge of the text panel aligns with the H of the logotype. Align the footer text to the same vertical. On the right hand side, align the CONTACT nav button with the right hand edge of the sample panel. Adjust the spacing of the nav buttons so HOME is ranged left with the centre line of the Primrose sample panel etc.

Make the sample panels change to colour as roll-overs.

Make the footer slate grey. The black is a little too heavy.

The green parenthesis conflicts with the similar one in the Platform sample.

Final comment on the identity symbol: I don't get why you've used the J. Other than it being your name, is there a hidden meaning? If not, consider something a bit more "design-y", befitting your fresh, clean style. Or alternatively, draw a whimsical but cleverly stylised interpretation of the literal meaning of your name - a hob.

Overall, this is an impressive start. Hope this helps.

I like the clean and minimalist layout overall. I think it speaks to a practicality in your design work, so I don't agree you should work hard to change that aspect.

I would like to see a color rollover of the black and white images. That way you stay clean, but add spice as your visitor mouses over your sections. However, all of your links seem to lead to the same page of recent examples, and here, it's a little too spare. I want you to tell me a story here - what was the project about, what specific hurdles did you overcome, all of which would indicate why you're the right designer for me....

Also, when I click on the images, the link takes me away from your page to the live site. I'd rather see a pop-up of a static image that you control or otherwise lives on your site, and then provide a link to "see live site."

I would make your logo and name clickable back to your home page, and for me, I'd get rid of text below "Home" "About" etc, since we all pretty much know what these are anyway. And put your work before your about link.

In your about link, I'd like to learn more about you. If I'm going to potentially select you to work with....what are you like? What are your design ethics and rules? What kind of projects float your boat? Are you slow and boring, or on-time and fun? Fine art or mass production? I'd like to see more personality in that section and more invitation on your contact form, like "I'm really looking forward to speaking with you about YOUR project..."

good, clean, nice. Needs more pop of color to give it more of an edge. maybe try and more clearly define what those boxes on the body of the website are.

My main point would be to add color. There is very little else that turns me away faster than black and white. You're selling design, show it. Vibrant color gets attention, it is what clients want, so show that you know how to use it.

Links on the header could be increased in size, probably to the size you have "DAVID" in on the logo. The footer could also mirror the grid from your main section. Having a black background is okay, but you may want to change it to match color from other areas.

Otherwise, it is a clean design. Increasing font size will allow for easier reading and color will stand out much more. Before release, do make business accounts for Twitter and Facebook though.

This is very clean, simple, and cool. It shows your personality quiet well.

Cheers!

i like the clean and simple layout. the footer could use some work.

I like the division of the website in 6 equal parts. This is something we don't see too often.

The choice of color (mostly black & white) is beautifull, aesthetic and contrasts nicely with the "green".

I am afraid thought that with a wider screen, the content will be "floating".

Nice site - really like it - love the layout of the content when you go further into the site too

The one thing I really dont liek is the footer - This is way too big and three lines of info in that isn't doing any of the content in it any justice - I think you need to break that down a bit

overall really nice though

It seems like your alignments are a little off, not by much though. I think your chosen colors work great for this style, pretty memorable. Love the breathing room and simple use of typography to give the site character. I'd spread the center grid out just a little more too...

I like the minimalist design but there is almost too much white space.

The navigation is too small and the sub-text font is ever harder to read.

The logo could be bigger as well.

You mix screenshots and actual text in the center section. I would move the "Welcome" text above the screenshots, pull out the Twitter feed and add two more images that on hover, turn to color to make them pop off the page.

There some easy quite changes that I think it ill help you. In my opinion there is too much whitespace you don't need. Your even making me scroll when there is no need to scroll.

Try to be consistent on everything. Actually as you can see on the attached file right and left side aren't actually the same.

My opinion is that instead aligning center(that right now isn't well aligned) you should go for a full width on content area. You can try making elements more big. Also I think you should use color on images. As most of them are your works. This ill help you to pop out more your works and give some live to your design!

The contact page I think you should try some lightbox effect! The contact form seems to be so lonely!

You have something good to work on! Keep yourself working on it. Final result will be really great!

• alignments alignments alignments - fix it.
  • colors, why just black and white, give us the real colors for these screen shots..
  • 'welcome to my..' box looks like one of the portfolio items- treat it differently, remove the "}"
  • may be rewrite- welcome to.. is a very old overused style.. also, for me 'i'm creative, techie type..' sounds cheesy.

Aesthetically this design is really nice, but I am not sure it acheives the desired outcome.

You say you want to sell yourself as a designer. Show off your work etc, but it's not clear that this is what your website is doing.

You have the curly bracket that points to your work, but until you click on them it's not clear those photos are examples of websites you have built. I totally understand the idea behind the site, and if it wasn't a portfolio I would say it works great, but I'm not convinced the black and white look is the best for this purpose.

One simple solution for this is to add some sort of call to action to one or more of those images. A green button saying 'view website' or something similar would help tie in the green and black theme, and would make it much clearer what you are selling.

Another idea would be to make the website screenshots change to colour when you mouseover them, which would also help reinforce the design qualities.

Talking of what you are selling - you need a tag line or mission statement. The intro text is too long. A really simple message 'I make websites' would also help with clarity and understanding and would let people know what your site is about without lots of reading. From an SEO point of view it would be good to get websites and web design on the page as well.

As someone else said the black footer is rather overwhelming. It's the darkest thing on a very light page so has the strongest visual weight and instantly draws the eye.

Not sure about the purpose of the Twitter block on a portfolio site? Might be worth reconsidering that and moving the twitter info to somewhere else?

Hi David, I think you have some of the good points that go into a good clean minimalist web site, but you have a lot of the wrong stuff. Here is an article I wrote on minimalist web design that should help, http://free-web-design.co.cc/guidelines-for-minimalistic-web-design.html

Now Here are the main areas I think you need to work on:

• Your gird/layout structure. The only thing I think should stay is the squared sections. But they should be made bigger and spaced out more to fill the page.

• Your footer. It honestly is simply horrible. You have all that space and aren't using it. For starters only put the valuable info and none of the fluff. Just some links, contact info, copy right info, and the standards compliant statement can stay too. Also, try to make it one line.

  • Let it be known what you do. I have no idea what it is that you are doing by looking at this site, unless i view the tiny info box you have. Try to implement more brand identity.

  • Remove the black background in the footer. That is a horrible decisions that goes against your design. You already implemented the use of borders in the main information section of your site, use it for your footer too. Just put a simple border above your footer and your good.

Those are the main points I think you should work on, hope my comments and article help.