Web Design Portfolios

Wow! Your work is stunning! I love your layout, and the crow :) haha. a little creepy, and gives me flashbacks of the first episode of Vampire Diaries.. but I still love it :) haha

If you don't mind me saying - perhaps you could add a little style to the pages in your portfolio - when you click on an image for more information about it.. coz it's all aligned to the left, and doesn't look very exciting. Other than that, not much to say.

I love how you've explained what each piece was for :) I think my faves are the second one (it's blue...) and the wolf one for the forums :)

My Portfolio is http://aashni.me - it's got a lot of the layouts that I like on there, though I still haven't added up any of the layous that I have on my sites, which are (in some ways) more "professional" than the examples I have up. I guess I should do that too...
I also have more examples at my resource site (http://www.enchantmenot.org/category/premade-layouts/) but a lot of the layouts on there are pretty simple

Ah, I need to get working on my portfolio. It's nonexistent currently, and I keep meaning to get it up and then forgetting. Sheesh, I have enough trouble staying focused long enough to change my site layout. Distracting Glee is distracting.

Anyhow, the point to this comment is that I took a little look at both of your portfolios, and my main comment for Aashni is that it takes way too long to see a larger version of your works. I have to click on the image, then click again to get it in a larger version. Perhaps you could play around with scripts and see if you could get something happening where hovering a thumbnail displays the larger design, so a visitor can flick through at random without having to browse to the information page if they don't want to? While the description is important, for me, the most crucial element of a portfolio is the visual one. I want to visit a portfolio and be greeted with easily accessed eye-candy designs, not gorgeous designs I get bored clicking through to see.

As for Leah, your portfolio's going really well, but it needs something more on the front page. There needs to be some kind of hook to draw the viewer in, and if you can't think of anything to pad out the front page without spewing superfluous nonsense everywhere, then I'd recommend just cutting to the chase and making the gallery page the first page.

Just opinions ;) Catch y'all later.

I'm currently in the process of constructing my portfolio.

I really enjoy looking at other peoples portfolios. You both have wonderful portfolios!

Wow Leah! I love your work! I think My favorites would have to be the blue one (2nd one) and the purple one (last one)! They're so pretty and colorful! :D

I like how you click on a picture and you see some information about the design and stuff. But how about trying a script to make it a bit more... clean? I can't think of the right word. But what I'm thinking of is like lightbox or lytebox or fancybox or something like that. Those are the only ones I can think of at the moment. D:

Aashni, I love your portfolio as well! But it does take quite some time to load all of the images. But I do like how you allow people to comment on your designs. I love the cupcake design!! :D So cute!!

I have a portfolio as well, but I still have a few things to tweak (favicon, adding stuff, etc...). http://savannahguerrero.com/ Excuse the long name. ;__;

@Sam - the reason I had it set up that way is so that people could glance through, and get a better idea of the layouts.. but I like your idea about the hover/expand thing - i'll look into it :)

@shadowedwolf - thanks so much :) x haha. the cupcake layout is one of my favorite - i intend to code a few more like that soonish

@Leah - thanks so much :) x

I like Savannah's portfolio layout :)! It's simple and clean :O!! Nothing is ever complicated (:

I just started out with my portfolio
http://pacificity.net

I'm quite stuck on the layout for a while '~'. Yesterday, Aashni gave me some cool tips on making it a bit spiffy. I think I'm done for now XD!

Though-- Leah's link is broken '~'.

Thanks Nancy! ^___^

I like your portfolio as well! I like how there's the clever word play in the header. I also love how its so colorful! I can never find the right way to use colors. ;__; The way you present your designs, layouts, and stuff is quite interesting. Live previews are always good to do!!

Thank you (:! And no problem XD! I'm like the worst person when it comes to creativity.

It was Aashni who pushed me into attempting to improve my layout :}. But I don't feel complete :(

Nancy! I'm finally getting time to do this again :) hehe

as I told you, I love the changes! The layout looks a lot better now, and I love the little red banner type things you're using everywhere :)

I'll just add my suggestions as I glance through your site :)

- the footer needs a bit more space underneath it, it's a pretty design but I feel that the layout is cut short with the footer located where it is.
- on the index page, I feel that the "welcome to pacificity" has too much space above and below it... on other pages the header spacing seems fine, but on the index I suggest reducing it
- The Gaga Clams - is that a post? Will you be updating your site form there? If yes, then maybe put a little header saying "latest updates" or "latest additions"? this might just be me, but I prefer the Read More button on the right... lol. it's your choice tho :P
- I really like the colors you've used throughout your site! the blues/reds/grey all work really well together :)
- I love that you're using light/fancy box :) it makes it easier to see your work without having to open it up in a new page :)
- I like your About page. I would like to know more about you on there, like when you started etc. but it's your choice - whatever you do, make sure you keep an "elegant" attitude about it (you have that now :) )
- The links on your Gallery page are way too big, and spaced out too much! I really like how you've done banners for your tutorials page on satisromance - why don't you implement something similar for your gallery page? Use screenshots of examples of your work as the background :)
- For your gallery, add some padding to the images - the Layouts example page the samples look too close in my opinion...
- I like your services page - professional, direct, clear. One grammatical change - the first sentence doesn't sound right. Perhaps try: [b]All services that I currently provide are free of charge[/b]
- your contact page looks great! Perhaps add a note that people should remove the { and } from your email? (people are stupid. believe me!) Also, consider styling your "message" box so that it's the same as the other textfields. Maybe align them a little better so that you have the three textfields on the left, and then the text box on the right? This is probably the best way to get it to fit in your layout. One thing I really like is having multiple ways to contact a person - why don't you provide your twitter username as well?

Ok done :) I hope this was helpful! It really does look amazing - a MILLION times better than the other layout you had up :) x

Thank you Aashni for the pointers for my portfolio (:! Hmmm. I fixed most of the issues you have pointed out except for a couple because I need to look into that situation :'(!

And you have a nice portfolio, Leah! :)! I like the beach layout (:!

Guess who just spent a solid two hours working on their portfolio? Me! :)
Guess who still isn't finished despite that work? Yeah, me. :( I even worked on the two hour train journey back from Heathrow. I actually felt so kick-ass and business like coding on a train.

If you remember by old portfolio help thread back on the Old IC, it still looks a lot similar since then (i.e still no clue what I'm supposed to do with navigation). However, I've gotten Coda Slider working (which is the image slider you see on the right hand side).

Since there are a larger amount of people on IC now, I think I'll ask the same question again. Any ideas for navigation? And anything else of course. By the way, keep in mind that the Coda Slider's navigation isn't styled yet so ignore that. It looks stupid, I know. I'm sorry. And I still have yet to fix the background image problem for larger resolutions, Aashni. A seamlessly repeating background doesn't work well.

http://i736.photobucket.com/albums/xx9/thinkjenny/portprv.jpg

@ohnoesnancy - no problem :) i'm glad they helped :) :) If you need more help, just ask :)

@jenny - You WORKED? haha. I'm glad you got the slider working :) I'm assuming you're still styling it, coz if not the 1 2 3 4 below the slider looks kinda.. ugly. lol.

For the background, make a new document in PS that's double the height of the background, then paste the background into two different layers. For the first bg layer, move it so that the bg is at the top of the "page" as it normally would be in a layout. For the second, go to [b]Transform > Flip Vertically[/b] then position it at the bottom of the page. Then paly around with adding/removing noise etc. until the top and bottom half of the background flow seemlessy into each other... Does that help? or make any sense?

For the navigation, my vote is to use the style you've got on the "Portfolio" below Jenny Aster, and use that for your navigation buttons. Put them all beside the "Portfolio" so it's a line across.. Or you can be creative and have them hanging off strings from the top of the page on the right hand side... but still use the same style as your "portfolio"

Me too!

Thank you Leah and Aashni!

haha, Aashni. Yeah I was surprised at myself working too. But there were loads of business-y people about on their iPads and laptops and I was like "hey, I'm one of you". I don't think they accepted me...

Thank you Aashni for the tip. I'm just afraid of ruining the gradient of the background image if I do that (since it goes from dark to light vertically).

I tried your idea for the navigation but I didn't like it. It's hard to code the navigation using CSS to look like the bit that says "portfolio". It just comes out looking to sharp and graphic.

An no, haha, I haven't styled the coda slider's navigation yet.

Oh and also I bought a separate domain for my upcoming portfolio (www.jennyaster.somethingicantquiterecall) so I need a host. Suggestions?

@jenny - For my portfolio, I used inmotionhosting. I think they're a pretty good hosting site ^__^ My mom's boss has it for their law firm site, and they've been happy with it. I am too, you could say. I haven't had any problems with downtime or anything like that. Plus, it took maybe 5 minutes for them to call me to set it up and everything.

I also love the portfolio design~! I can't wait to see it when it's finished!! :3

@Jenny - I dunno.. The best host I've ever used is www.emnhosting.com... but IDK :P

Ya, I noticed that about the background, and wasn't sure if it was just my old eyes playing tricks on me. Lol. You could cut out a portion from the left that's about 150px/200px and then have it repeat across so as to avoid that problem? other than that, I can only really suggest that you make the background gradient fade into a white color at the bottom, then set the background of the rest of the page as white.

for the navigation - do what I do and cheat. Make the navigation button as images... it might work. :)

That hosting company you recommended Aashni sounds pretty shady, haha. :)

Nope, your old eyes told you right. Yeah, I'll figure a way to work it out. Stupid Macs have to be so pretentiously huge. I'm joking....

I don't like using images as navigation because they load more slowly. I like having the nav "BAM" right there rather than loading one pixel at a time. I'm also not sure whether I want to keep the portfolio text unique. I might but navigation in that little empty space in the bottom-right hand corner. I need to shove something there.

It might "sound" shady, but darn it, they're good!

you could just add text below and beside the background design you've got, saying "your screen is too big fool. get a smaller screen" :)

for the nav - i was thinking something like this: http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz190/enchantmenot/jenny.png

but it's very hard to describe that using words.. lol

Yeah, so was I but it looks slightly erratic. Oh, navigation I wish it would sort itself out.

*ahem* aren't you slightly erratic? *ahem* lol

You can also make it "neater" by having them all align... other than that, i'm outta ideas :P

I have never in my life been "erratic". haha what a lie.

I think I know what I'm going to do for the navigation yet but I'm not saying just in case my ideas are dead horrible and it's embarrassing. For now, you can watch this page: http://windymill.net/portfolio/test.php for anymore updates. I just realized that I didn't "formally" release the link on this thread but on some other random thread...

Do you think the empty DIV below the scrolly image thing looks odd? I wanted it all rectangular and to do that I needed to a filler box.

Oh and Aashni. You and your shady hosting company can host me! I am a very shady person after all. I'm going to go send in an application as soon as possible but just to warn you I probably will not be able to work on anything anytime soon. I hope you don't boot me off because of immediate inactivity! :)

What makes you think me and my shady hosting company would even ACCEPT you? Haha. Send it in whenever you're ready :)

And I'm not gonna comment on the layout for now, I will say that it does some FUNKY things on a phone... Like the J is cut off, the background isn't aligned... Strange.

Jenny, you can probably expand the div for the featured content and get rid of the empty div by making your numbered rotation buttons slightly bigger. It would also make them easier to click if they were bigger, perhaps making the links inside small rectangles.

Yeah, the links will be in rectangles. I just need to transport the CSS into the Coda slider's CSS file. I've that all coded. Okay, Haily! Also what is your screen resolution? Because in mine, I want to avoid making the layout any wider or else it will look like a fat blob. xD

Aashni, yeah, I was playing around with the coding last minute yesterday just to see what would be more compatible with more resolutions and screwed some things up in the process.

Fine! You are your shady company can't have my "business". Sure, I'll send it as soon as I get enough time.

My screen resolution is 1280x800. Aashni seems to be of great help lately when testing your site for mobile. :P

Now Jenny, on your portfolio, are you actually combining serif and san-serif fonts? I mean, it's the cleanest that combination has EVER looked, but consider choosing one...

2 more days, and Aashni and Stan go off mobile mode... 2 more days... ;)