Personal Website and Freelance

Many random trends are going around the web recently, such as artistic headers, simplicity, twitter inclusion, and gradients. You have bunched all these up into 1 website.

The header is nice, and although simple and small, I saw the subtitle work out nicely with it.

The nav is a complete miss, with (what looks like) varying distances between one nav item and another. Also, it is dark blue on white, but the font is a thing font which makes it a pain for reading. Give some grayer background to isolate the text (globally, so on p text too!) and then get a wider font.

Get more advanced with Current Projects, and get some whitespace there, seeing as it is touching the top headslap. Try reading some jquery tutorials out there!

Lose the gradient on portfolio, and get some basic stuff going there, no grand images, but thumbnails with a lightbox gallery or something. You're designing it, but still....

Lastly, I like it. All you have to do is make it work together, but then again, you look like you've got style!

Nice rainbow-like roof :-). But the rest isn't integral with top (i.e. portfolio box). Try to find idea for your site.

ben, your name is looking better than the jamin thing you had before! i agree that the current projects bubble and the portfolio window need to match. the portfolio box has a cool effect, and the current projects bubble is also a neat style.. but you need to go with one or the other. i would like to see evidence of you drawing this out on paper, instead of just constructing it on the computer. it seems very digitally driven. its good sometimes to completely draw it out on paper. your navigation bar seems like it could follow the uphill slant of the roof, instead of creating another angled line at the top. also, i think the "follow me on twitter" should stay on the about me page, and not clutter up the main menu. its good to have a simplistic website, so people can focus and really get a good look at your work. i like your effort, keep going with it

I agree with some others that the overall concept needs work, and it seems to really be lacking any type of unifying theme. There are alot of separate design elements that really seem to struggle to tie together. For example, you used a thick blue stroked talk box for your current projects area, which is cool and retro/minimalistic, but then right next to it you have a totally different style of box with an inner shadow and no stroke for your portfolio box. The really "fight" each other when you want them to compliment each other.

Sorry, just not feeling it.

I don't mean that in a bad way, but i can't help but read the word charity and actually think of a charity organization. Maybe use your middle name instead?

I think you have a good concept and idea of what you want out of your design, you just need to refine it.

I would simple call this a retro design.

Now lets improve on that, the navigation needs a complete overhaul, there is nothing going on there and it looks lost compared to all the big things around it.

The portfolio and current projects separate spaces look so non-connected its scary. You need to make it more uniform.

Finally, I would personally fix up the typography a bit and stop squishing into design elements. It makes it hard to read current projects when the letters are touching the outside of the quote box, etc...

I do think you should embrace your name though, because it's all you got, so who cares.

I really think this is a great start to an awesome design. As far as colors go, it looks great. I really like the header as well.

The header is what draws me in to the design, and acts as sort of a precursor to what I should expect, falling past the header though the design starts to fade.

On first glance, the chat bubble put off the inference that it was your twitter feed (which if it was, it would be too big. Then I realized that it was your current projects.

The border on the current projects is definitely a good size though, I just think that having it in a chat bubble is a little deceiving.

The navigation needs to pop a little more (I think, I'm not actually on the site.) The placement for it is good though, maybe you have some rollover state that isn't up here. If there is a noticeable rollover state, that may suffice.

I definitely get why you placed that follow icon up in the right corner. It filled in that empty space, and also put your e-socialness right out there, which is always a good thing. I just think that it might be too big, or something, I'm not quite sure. I like the icon though.

Last, but not least is the portfolio section. I like the vibe of your site a lot, but having that bevel on the portfolio section throws off the whole minimalist look that the site has going for it. It doesn't look bad, but it doesn't seem to fit quite right into the page.

Also, the image in the portfolio section looks a little awkward, possibly because of it's sharp and jagged corners not matching it's containing elements neat and pretty round corners.

Well, that's all I got. This is definitely going somewhere though, just a few things (that I think) could be tweaked here and there.

I really, really, really like that header, by the way.

Good usage of white space but needs little more contrast in colors and i feel inner shadow in portfolio place does not look professional

There are way to many different fonts used,. Try to simplyfy and use less different fonts. So many fonts makes the page look messy, and it s hard to scan the text. I also thought the shite was about charity work because of your last name.