Joseph Cohen - UX Design

Hi Joseph

Love this approach. Illustration style is a winner. Palette is attractive. Benefits are clear to employers, written in appropriate language.

Minor quibbles: Lighten the pale blue background for better legibility. Make the header a shade less grey and a touch more denim blue. I don't know why the "o" is coloured in the logotype.

Bigger issues: Change to 3rd person and lose the "I" from the beginning of each para. Either put on a shirt with a collar, or change the one you're wearing to a freshly laundered garment. This one looks like you slept in it – sweat-stained and dirty. An agency manager might be very wary about putting this persona in front of "stakeholders and users" in an interview situation.

It's charming and personable. Hope it succeeds.

Hey Joseph,

Nice concept and great style. I really like the style you're after on this design. I have just a few criticisms...

1. Center your layout in the browser. Your design could work just as well as a centered layout. This is not a big deal, just personal preference. Left aligned layouts were all the rage 10+ years ago, but now they have moved on and just a few good examples remain. Why not ride the tide into the future. ;-P

2. Texture your denim a little. Illustrating textured denim is quite an easy thing to do and would make for a very nice touch. Heck, even using an image of real denim and creating a tile out of it is quite doable. Another that to me is not a big sticking point, but could be a nice touch. I could also see it working well as is, since it matches your illustration style.

3. (BIG DEAL) You need to feature your work on your homepage, not yourself. Yourself is OK and makes a very nice illustration, but you're selling your portfolio first. Make sure you put it first on the site. Especially since you're a web designer, not an illusrator.

An alternative way you could handle this is to move the large version of you onto the About page (I think the illustration is much nicer than the b&w isolation), and keep just a bust version of the illustration in the footer of every page that links to your about page.

Also, the services bit is good, but seems like a mix of services and process, and would make for a good page of it's own with further description, or a secondary piece to the main page, under your work.

1. Your Work page needs a little help too - just in how you've handled the images. I think you could do a better background effect than just the gray border. Even a dashed border to match your footer top would be nice. But something jean related would be cool.

And you also need more items in your work page than just two. That's kind of a big deal to me also.

1. I like your footer. The Star of David is a nice personal touch.

FYI - I don't really have any problems with your shirt or the illustration of you. You are a freelancer, so I think you get some freedom to be casual, especially in the tech world.

very good work. New approach of designing...nice use of illustrations. Few suggesstion wud like to give : Name (logo), u can make it better, may be use of some other designer font?? I think you can use footer portion in better way. dotted line is good but still there s not a feeling of completion. Also, can use lighter shade of pale blue to match up with gray. Over all its a nice attempt. good luck :)

Hey Joseph,

I really like your website! Awesome! The illustration are really cool!

I like to color pallet, it's like jeans :P, and the header graphic is nice as well!
Maybe make it a little bit more smaller in height, it's kind of too big!
And another thing try lighten up the background, that it will be much more easier to read!

But really cool Design! Keep doing the great work!

Joseph

This is a truly inspiring design...

Nicely done the only thing that I would do is make the header less over powering, maybe smaller, and center it, but that's just my opinion...

I did a quick hack to give you a visual... I hope you don't mind...

I love the background, I don't think it's too dark.

Great work!

Hello Joseph - I absolutely love it... This concept is so personal, fun, creative, original and professional. The verbiage in your copy doesn't come across as too techie or egotistical which is somewhat common lately in freelance websites.

minor suggestions:

1. I have to agree on the comment given regarding the 'dirty shirt' in one of the reviews. A polo, collared, or button down shirt would have better appeal to potential clients.
2. It may or may not be relevant to potential clients, but perhaps mentioning the tools of choice for your trade? For example: you use balsamic for story boarding etc...
3. I think the placement of your copyright info should be moved. Having it centered between your bio paragraph and contact information breaks the flow. I would position it under them.
4. I like the color scheme, typography, pretty much everything..... well done!

Josef,I absolutly love your site!

few minor things i noticed browsing it:

1. Line-height on all pages exept home page is too small. Home page content reads beautifully, on the rest of the pages lines clumpted together;
2. on contact page legend text overlaps dashed border, i dont know if you did it on purpose, but it looks sloppy to me, espetially in IE.
3. on about page, the b/w photo of your handsome self needs a little bit of contrast/lightening up (the face part mostly)

just my humble opinion.

Great job on the overall look. You've got this a lot, but it warrants repeating: the illustration is damn neat, as is the concise, yet fairly detailed introduction.

I think you can actually lighten the base grey. Will make the header stand out a bit more, and more important, make skin tones on the illustration pop a bit; may even make your shirt look cleaner :P

The texture in the back is very weak and doesn't really come across as anything specific. Try and find something crisp but subtle to keep the feel you want but be more committed to the material it's trying to be. The stitching also has the same problem: it looks roughly right, but isn't really tactile. You could go either route: illustration of texture, or tactile texture, but I think you need to commit a bit more to the direction you decide.

Lastly, and this has been mentioned before, the line height everywhere but the homepage is too small to be comfortable. This is especially noticeable on the 'About' page where there's a big chunk of text. Line length are bordering on difficult to follow lines, but I could be an exception.

Cheers!

Generally a nice, neat look. The thing I would change is that creepy, dark grey shadow threatening to swallow you up. It also makes it look like you're popping up out of a pillow. It doesn't add anything good.

Perhaps a "User Experience Professional" tagline or other short bio above "Requirements gathering" would help set the stage for what you do.

Joseph. Very nice work. It drew me in because you dared to display a casual image in association with a discipline that doesn't typically allow itself much originality.

As I delved in, I was thinking "Phew, it's kinda gloomy in here. Feels like when you wash your whites and forget to remove a colored item that now tainted the entire load".

I could use some light coming from your T-shirt and from the overall palette. "Just gimme the light..."

BTW, nicely presented work on the inside too.

Kai

I think most of this is effective and it grabs the reader. The mood is friendly which draws us in. I agree with the comments regarding the shading on the shirt; it just ends up appearing dirty. Just go with the natural way the shirt would fold on someone standing in that pose. Less is more in this case. The hat is a great touch as it makes you an individual.

But the stitching across the top and on the flap undermine some of the individual because I've just seen too many web sites with it lately. It's almost a cliché in my mind, which the rest of the design and copy isn't.

Hope something I've said helps. Good luck with this!

Great Work! It really captures Origionality and personality, and the navigation and useability had no probloems i could think of. I did find myself going to click the four Titles on the homepage; they were very well written and i wanted to read more about your approach. Would it work to make these link to the About Page, to encourage readers who are interested in those 4 points to carry on through the site and not bail?

On your laundry, I personally did not find the shirt off-putting, but I can see that many professionals might. i think it would be worth the time trying out another shirt illustration and seeing how people like it on here.

Love the work Page, great layout and type. If you have more good examples to put on this page i think it would benefit the site greatly.

About outer Opinions: I personally like the Illustration over some Work on the homepage. Logo: The O is a bit distracting, some may even think it was a mistake? Background Color: could be stronger white, although it does look fine as it is.

Really nice Design, Great Work.

Hey Joseph, absolutely love it! Really good work.

The one thing that is gettin on my goat is the copyright square. I just find it looks out of place when it's next to your bio.

Dunno, hope that helps. Love it!

5 stars on every aspect.

One page that shows you, what you do, and how to contact you wrapped up in a simple, stylish and original design. Many underestimate how hard it is to reach this kind of balance between simplicity, content and style.

Just one question...is that a religious symbol in the bottom left? It gave me that impression. Personally I could care less, but with client work you can't be too careful.

nice website Joseph, Just couple things Center your layout, Give a spot to showcase your work at the home page.

Hi Joseph,

I really like the site. I like this layout mainly for the colors you used. Are the same also for me. It 's all well balanced and I think it is a good job. Congratulations.

Very simple, but still perfect.

I'm not a designer of anything, and i'm sure you can get better professional reviews here, but still - your site and business card is one of the best i've seen. I can say that if i was looking for one of the services you're providing, and bumped into your site - I would contact you immediatly.

For some reason you have an error when I try to check your contact section (HTTP/1.1 New Application Failed) if I add de X missing in the address link (instead of asp-aspx) and this is the error: "XML Parsing Error: no element found Location: http://www.joseph-cohen.co.uk/contact-joseph-cohen.aspx Line Number 1, Column 1:"

I like it simple and straight to the point but you have to fix that error quick specially being the contact section of your website. the only thing is that because is not center I have a huge empty right side of background.

Happy new year!