Hi, if you have the time I would just like to get your opinions/feedback on my student portfolio:

http://www.alundavey.com/

Cheers, Alun

Very very nice work!

I love it. Only thing I can think of that can be improved on. The pagination between the different profile items needs something a bit more to call attention to it I think. It took me a little while to realize they were there.

Okay, one ore thing. I'd like to see something more in the contact area, like a small form or a link to a form.

Fantastic work though!

The right alignment is really weird on screens. On a mac it's half the screen and on the right hand side....

It's nice. It's clear that this is a portfolio and as such using jQuery to move those divs around is a nice touch allowing quick access to your designs.

I would really drop the right alignment though; both of the site as a whole and also the About paragraph. The justified text in the description of each site works well and makes the small sidebar text standout and appear 'amateurish'

My suggestion would be to set your site up in the middle of the page as I feel like I'm falling sideways as it currently stands (either that or think maybe you coded it incorrectly causing a display glitch, neither of these options are good things )

Your header image is effective and also clever the way it drops out of the border at the top, this last fact won't be altered by moving your content into the center.

From a useability point of view, it's obvious that your portfolio site needs to be slick and show your skills but if I really liked one of your designs, why is it I have to load your page and remember a number to see it again? The numbers don't immediately say anything and there is potential that they won't be clicked at all by some users. Consider using small thumnails to represent each design and when clicked, the larger content div will slide into view. This way, if I did come to the site again, I would have a clear visual clue of how to see my favourite design again.

Apart from that, I do like it and think it's complementing your design abilities nicely. (I won't mention the dark background -- oops, already did -- but remember that this is to sell yourself as a designer and your portfolio has the most impact, not the designs housed within. A black portfolio may scare a potential client who is looking for a site where black wouldn't be suitable)

Thanks for your input guys, just a few comments about your ideas:



Just asked a friend on the computer next to me to have a look to see if he noticed the navigation and he made the same comment as you, so I will try and think of a way to draw more attention to it, thanks



I agree, I didn't spend much time on it, but I will probably create a link to a form that will appear in the main content area.





I agree with the sidebar, I've never been that happy with how it looked, although I do personally like it being aligned to the right, (not a coding error, I did mean for it to be that way ) as it's different from any usual site design, which would hopefully mean it's memorable. That said I would like your feedback on how it looks centred, see here: http://www.alundavey.com/?align=center, at first I didn't like how it looked, but it's starting to grow on me, though I think it would require a few design tweaks for me to be happy with it.



Here I was hoping to try and draw the viewer's attention to my actual portfolio work, since the black creates a contrast with it. I've noticed a lot of website and photography showcase sites seem to use a black background so I assume that that was their thinking behind it.

Thanks again for the feedback

Different designs and colors are going to attract different audiences for sure.

Judging by what's in the portfolio, I don't think the white on black is a bad choice. The design you have now is definitely more appealing to a younger crowd.

Aligning the website to the right... Usually I don't like it, but I really think this one pulls it off well. I think it works well with the porfolio pieces sliding in from the right. Aligning it in the middle though I don't think would be a bad idea, but I think right works well too.

I do like Rakuli's idea of ditching the "mystery meat" navigation for the individual portfolio pieces in favor of small screen shots. Though, I think that would take away from the cleanliness of the overall layout.

One other thing that I found that is bothering me... Clicking into the individual portfolio items is not reflected in the address bad. So, if someone were to bookmark a specific piece they're going to land back at the homepage, not that piece. Something like http://www.alundavey.com/#renegad_studioz would work.

Very nice design, and valid code too. Well done!

I much prefer your new centre-aligned version. As for the right-aligned "About" text -- this is less readable than left-aligned, but in this case it's a small amount of text and it complements the design well. I would keep it.

About the colour scheme: although everyone has different preferences, there are some general trends. Designers often like black; users generally don't. For purely pragmatic reasons, therefore, I suggest you try a more "conventional" colour scheme, with dark text on a light background. With such a black site, I think many users will feel that they've stumbled into an "underground" part of the web -- a part of the web they don't understand, where things are meant for hardcore techy people and not for them.

Your first portfolio item is a great example of user-friendly aesthetics. The colours and the grass image combine to give a safe, welcoming impression. I think your own portfolio should be more like that. Don't design your portfolio for designers, because they are not your customers; design it for users.

The mystery meat navigation -- your portfolio numbering -- needs to change. Many users will miss this completely. The slide effect is very nice; keep that if you can.

Your code is excellent on the whole, but I did see this:



Never do that. Your spacing should be controlled by CSS, not by empty paragraphs and non-breaking spaces. By all means add <div>s and <span>s whenever you need them; these are semantically neutral and therefore may be used for formatting without harming the document structure.

Interesting to read several comments about the black site with white lettering. It reminds me quite a bit of a art gallery of black and white photography.

My initial thought to a white site with black lettering (reverse of what is there now) would be the appearance of a template. This feels nice to me. I'd be curious to know what consumers think about the black.

I like what you did. I think it is clean, clear and your work is shown well. Love the jquery. I do agree with others that the dots would benefit from being a tiny thumbnail. If I wanted to review a design for the second time, I'd like to visually identify it rather than hunt.

Overall, it's simple however very stylish. Great job!

I quite like that idea, the jquery bit should be relatively straightforward, I'm pretty sure I remember reading a discussion about someone trying to do something similar, though I'm just thinking how the actual browser would handle it, I'll need to try it.



I think for the time being I will stick with the right-aligned version, I just personally prefer it and it was the way I designed the site from the beginning, after I spent a while looking at the new centre-aligned version I started making a few tweaks and got to the point where it was turning it into a completely different design, which is something I'm not entirely ready to do, since I'm relatively happy with the layout for the moment (and from past experience it usual ends with me destroying the design entirely).



I will try it out, though I will need to think of a way to combine the thumbnails with the jquery, since that is what generates the navigation.

Cheers, 4lun

I love the site. Very very good and thought out. I like the theme and your name was pretty clever. BRAVO!

I've been gone for awhile and have spent the day catching up. This is the first post I've made in a long while. lol

I like the right justified version

Bit late, but why not have clients sites open in a new window then people stay on your site

I'm considering it, though I know alot of people are starting to say it's bad practice to do so, personally I like to choose for myself whether a web page should open in a new window and not leave up to the guy who coded the actual website to decide for me.

But I can understand your reason and I suppose as they're external sites, opening them in a new window is probably justifiable.