DescentBB

I had posted this link in another topic on this forum in relation to Online Portfolio's but I think it would get more exposure in its own place.

I just put the site up under a week ago through the advice of a professional in the field. Basically, a constantly updated portfolio of my artistic accomplishments. Right now I am focusing on three sectors, Graphic art, Web design and Video production. I am taking on any small jobs that anyone would like me to do, but taking those requests in the form of submitted forms via the website.

Right now, I am looking for some constructive criticism on the site, I will keep an open mind and as I have stated on the site, it is constantly being updated, overall, for the better.

Without further ado, the website:
http://www.mikkellproductions.com

EDIT: Website name has been change and updated

pick another domain name before google indexes it.

that isn't going to endear potential employers to the portfolio's there.

Drop the Times New Roman and use a non-print font like Tahoma, Arial or something in a Serif flavor.

Your top logo's text (Kahn's Crusade) is cut off on the bottom.

There are a lot of elements that serve no purpose, and don't seem integrated to the design at all (The three sets of three squares)

Stop with the embossing/glows. Employers will skip right over you, as they are overcliche in general and way overused here.

Don't fix the page at a specific resolution, it looks bad if the browser is wider than the page. You should take a 1-3 pixel wide piece of the horizontal section of the main bounding box and use it in a TD and stretch it 100%, so that the area where the text is can expand to fill the whole browser. I can't really describe it, but if you go to www.metallisoft.com and check out the top and bottom bars, you'll see they stretch as far as the browser goes. the code for the bottom bar is It's a 1x3 piece thats stretched, you can do the same with yours if you dump the excessive glow/embossing stuff.

The green background should be a page background, as it just...stops on the right side. Or lose it altogether, as if you fix the bounding box, you won't have a use for it.

The angled edges and the curved surround do not go well together, besides the fact that the curved part goes behind the top and around the bottom, looks misplaced.

The orange is not in the same, um..what's the word, color index, palette as the rest of the page (it's an off color, whatever artists call that). Pick an orange that is present in your little rainbow separator.

I only looked at the home page, I didn't notice the links worked.

I'm going to be harsh. As an artist to another artist, you should have skin thick enough to take a critique. So brace yourself, it's all in good intention. :)


1) Change the domain. It is too hard to remember, thus won't get you jobs. (my domain, for example is www.PerfectPencil.com , very very easy to remember) If your domain rolls off the tongue easy, then people are more inclined to talk about it in person, and if it can be easily taken from sound to text without requiring someone write it down, you'll get more visits (thus more jobs).

2) Watermarks gotta go. Back off them. the odds of your work being stolen is LOW and is easily remedied by putting a reduced version online. All of my drawings exist on my home computer at about 5000x5000 px or larger. Draw big, but present online small, people don't need to see it big anyhow. When your work is being stolen you'll be of a professional level and probably be well known.

3) Simplify that site. it's way too busy. From my experience, potential employers are more inclined towards websites straight to the point. No mysterious links or decorative flash films. When they are looking through portfolios, they don't want to have to spend 5 minutes trying to *find* your art before they know if you are worth their time or not. MOST will simply skip over you.

4) Get rid of that google search. What... are you trying to give employers a quick escape route? The google search is not nessesary at all and does more to hurt you then help.

5) NO ADS. Your site won't ever get enough hits to justify the loss of revenue based on scaring away employers. Lose the google adds and clean that up.

6) \"ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT......\" is way too big. Way too in the face of the surfer. make it a size 12 font at the bottom of your page. it is there for LEGAL reasons, not to be in the face of the people who visit.

7) The life story? Not required. Trim it down. Don't pack unessesary content into a website simply for the sake of adding content, remember \"the simpler the better\".

edit:

8) What? A contact request form? No employer will deal with this. It is tedius and most people prefer to simply have your email adress. Make your email an image and not inline text so spiders won't see it and let them email you like they do every other professional.



Thats my 2 bits.

More spinny icons!

I, too, am going to be blunt. If you don't want my unabridged and somewhat harsh comments, stop reading now.

...

\"To perform and always produce to the best of my creative abilities\" is not a job objective, it's supposed to be a given. From your resume, I have no clue what you are trying to tell me. Your objective must clearly state what you are pursuing. A wishy-washy, vague answer is the fastest way into the rejection bin. You have to WANT the job. It is YOUR passion. It is YOUR pursuit.

\"Khan's Crusade,\" as a name, doesn't really work either. Is it an RPG? Is it some kind of story? I don't know. It conjures up images of Genghis Khan, not images and web design. Take it from someone with a completely incomprehensible on-line name.

The general look of the site appears stuck in the late 1990s. To be blunt, it looks more like a Geocities template than a handcrafted web page. The button design is inefficient and confusing since it is nothing more than a collection of bookmarks. There is a lot of clicking to get at very little information. You spend most of the web site talking about your personal life when employers only want one thing, my friend - experience, experience, experience. Where's the beef? Get to the point!

The Google search makes no sense. There is too little on the page to be worthy of searching and no point in offering this link.

There are the three blocks in the upper-left that don't go anywhere.

The watermark is hideous. I won't comment on the images they are protecting, but suffice it to say, you shouldn't be so concerned about someone stealing an abstract computer rendering.

The form page linking off to another site is disorienting and pointless. All I want is an e-mail through which I may contact you.

In the US, we have these art trade schools. They are the kind that takes anyone with enough money and gives them a degree regardless of their aptitude at anything. Often times, I have no clue how to respond politely to such candidates. They usually lack passion and talent. They behave as if this \"college\" has taught them everything they need to know about the subject, so they must deserve a job. The point is, they advertise on low-budget midday television all the time and show off these pages from their \"web design students.\"

Your page looks EXACTLY like one of those, and that's not flattering.

All of this negativity would be for naught if there wasn't something constructive here, so here's what I think. First, you have got to simplify this page. You aren't going to impress anyone with this inconsistent and wasteful navigation scheme. Get rid of the frames (a big part of what dates this site). Get rid of the myriad of buttons and go with a basic sidebar. Go with a clearer font like Arial or Verdana. Be careful about the art you choose to showcase. If this site is meant for potential employers (instead of, say, my furry art dump), you want to display only the best of the best - ideally showcasing both your unique talents and also your versatility within your field. Don't go for breadth, go for depth. Just because you've done a half-dozen computer renders doesn't mean you need to show all of them. Use the pages for each piece to describe your process. Employers love hearing about candid process.

But please, take this seriously. Because as someone who looks at candidate sites rather frequently, I would have passed yours up from page one, regardless of what you are advertising.

Nice Points made above.

Needs to lean and mean, not too busy get to the point make it fun, and most of all you need to put a work right in front to peak interest to continue. I looked at the first page and I was already bored.

I asked for the feedback and I got it. Not too harsh like the ones who gave it though actually, thanks for keeping it civil guys. Most importantly, thanks to those in the field that actually took the time to write all the points they did, I'll hopefully become a better designer overall because of it

One question though, what else besides iframes? I have been looking at the code of web pages that 'seem' to have a setup like they have frames however it looks like they have something called 'layers'? I will do my research on the net for alternative ways but if someone could redirect me in the correct path for this procedure on these forums it would be greatly appreciated.

Deathwinger wrote:
One question though, what else besides iframes? I have been looking at the code of web pages that 'seem' to have a setup like they have frames however it looks like they have something called 'layers'? I will do my research on the net for alternative ways but if someone could redirect me in the correct path for this procedure on these forums it would be greatly appreciated.

layout done via Cascading Style Sheets and AJAX, thats what you are looking for.

At the very least, lots of formatting tricks using tables instead of frames or iframes goes a long way.

Web standards Nazis look down on tables for that. But it's used so much for the purpose nobody really minds anyway.

If you absolutely have to do things the \"correct\" way, you can do pretty much anything you need to with layout in CSS2...

You know, tables were standards in HTML 4.0 transitional. So long as a web page passes that test, it doesn't matter what the standard zealots say. You're already going well beyond most corporate web sites.

Although I can appreciate CSS as being powerful, I tend to think it is more complicated to use than old-fashioned HTML. But then I'm not a professional designer who needs to know those things.

Using CSS for layout is more complicated - especially because the main browsers don't necessarily agree on how to treat it. Trying to figure out why something works differently in one than the other is quite exhausting at times.

CSS makes doing something one time a little more complicated, but makes doing the same thing 10 times a lot simpler.

Tables are in the HTML 4.0 and XHTML Strict specs too. However, in any of these specs, tables should be used for tabular data. They should not be used purely for content layout. \"Passing the test\" i.e. passing the W3C's HTML validator doesn't ensure that your Web page is compliant to whatever spec you're validating against. All it does is check for markup validity, despite the button it invites you to put on your page if you pass. Markup validity is a large part of designing spec-compliant HTML pages, but it's only half of the story.

Consider another example: the XHTML spec requires that all img tags have an alt attribute that describes the contents of the image for cases like the image being missing, user agents without image support, accessibility, and so on. The W3C markup validator knows this, so it will call you out if you have img tags without alt attributes. You could pass the test by filling in junk or non-descriptive alt text for all your images, but that's still so far from being spec-compliant XHTML.

And then of course Firefox expects the TITLE parameter in images to provide the helper text, instead of just using the ALT tag. Heh.

As I said, I'm not a web page developer (thankfully).

Safari and Opera have the same behavior. The alt attribute is alternative text for visual elements, whereas title is the tooltip and can be used for virtually any element (try it out on a div, for example). With an image, the alt text is supposed to describe it in the event it's not visible, whereas with the title, you can assume it's visible and perhaps put in something more witty. Internet Explorer uses the alt text for the tooltip because, well, for the same reason that Internet Explorer does any of the things that it does.

Alright, got a new page up. Been learning CSS and javascript in the process.

http://www.mikkellproductions.com

All I see is ads.

If you're trying to sell your talents, don't let google compete with you. Get rid of the ads.

Try to not make the page that wide. The blank white space makes it look unprofessional. Also, instead of using plain orange and black text in things like to explain things like solutions, make a banner for that. The google adsense box in the middle of the page is killing the image of your page. Finally for my opinion on this, if you need help in doing stuff like Maya, 3D Studio Max, Quark Xpress, InDesign, Flash, Director, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Final Cut Pro, my teacher knows this guy and he is really good with that stuff. And he can make the page anything you want. his site is here: http://www.ajefferism.com/ . and also notice the top of the page and the rest of the page. If you know most of that stuff, take the ideas off of him.

Decent stuff Defender, the guy obviously knows his stuff. And he looks like the only person I know who has full aptitude in the entire Creative Suite

I would like to learn this stuff, but I think it would defeat the purpose if I had him 'do it for me'. I'd rather know what to do than have it done for me. Been burnt in the past relying on people to do stuff.

However, I'll contact him about the best ways to learn this stuff.

You might want to research some manner of pre-loading the hover images via Javascript... it's always a bit nicer when you don't have to wait for them to show up. It can be done, and if you have Dreamweaver I believe it has in-built scripts for it or something to that effect.

And the K suggests to me \"flat-shaded vector-drawn layer with a bevel and texture map slapped on\". Not sure it should be that easy to work out how you did it.

FYI, your site isn't working right with IE6. It's pushing the body content to below where all your Google advertising stuff is.

A small suggestion (unrelated to your actual design) would be to remove your price charts in your \"solutions.htm\" page. I would just turn them into listings of service you offer and then have a link at the bottom to your email address so you can quote each piece individually. You'll find every project is different and every client is different. Only quote your price after you find out what the project requires. Right now, your prices for \"graphical art\" don't even cover the initial client contact in the real world. $10-$30 for an advertising banner makes you sound like a 13 year old willing to do this for lunch money. If I were you I'd research a little more on industry standards for pricing of what you are selling.

In relation to the content, I have to agree with every other person that has left you a comment... Loose the Google ads!!! Why would you even consider this? If I was a perspective client, why would you give me optional links to other Graphic Designers and logo designers? These ads are actually competing with what you are trying to sell.

Radman wrote:FYI, your site isn't working right with IE6. It's pushing the body content to below where all your Google advertising stuff is.

Could you post a picture of exactly what you are seeing?