Portfolio site

[RubenRemus]

First - I'm not sure I'm posting this at the right place, but I couldn't figure out the proper forum.

To the point - I've made my two first flash sites (feel free to comment, btw). One for the local film festival (www.filmfestival.nu) and one for my company (www.phosforos.com - posted here before). I'm not 100% pleased with phosforos.com, but it'll have to do for now since I'm quite tired of it and need to think a little about the content. My company do lighting design, if those of you who don't speak Swedish wonder. But I also do some homepages, and was thinking about doing a portfolio page as a new project (got to have something to do in my spare time).

So, my question is: What should a portfolio site contain? What shall one think about when creating it? I guess some of you guys has been in this buisness for some time and have some great advice...

I also wonder how those of you who make a living out of this get your clients. Do the clients just drop by your site and say: "That's the guy/girl!" or do you sell yourself by calling/e-mailing and so on. I guess the best promotion is a happy client telling his friend?

Wow.. this got quite long. Thankful for any answers.

Regards!

[RubenRemus]

I was hoping for someone to reply...

[Brainiac]

Well first off. A portfolio site should contain:

1) A portfolio
2) Designed in your personal style
3) Real information

Basicly your hands are free when it comes to portfolio sites. But I would still recommend sticking to basic rules, maintain typography, user-friendliness, optical centre and all the "basics" (which btw seems to either have been forgotten or just ignored by many). Sometimes knowing the basics is just as impressive as being able to make your website dance.

Also keep information handy. If they would like to contact you it shouldn't be hard, so keep a downloadable .pdf of your resumé, a real e-mail form or e-mail adress and other means of taking contact (not too much though).

And about promotion...many bosses DO surf around, so it's not all about friend-2-friend. Sometimes it's acctually you-2-CEO.

[Jammin-D]

Brainiac going by what you just said how does my site look? its a portfolio site of me.. http://www.jammin-designs.com

[KnownStranger]

Originally posted by Brainiac
Sometimes knowing the basics is just as impressive as being able to make your website dance.

ohne of the smartness things i read in here

[RubenRemus]

Originally posted by Brainiac

Also keep information handy. If they would like to contact you it shouldn't be hard, so keep a downloadable .pdf of your resumé, a real e-mail form or e-mail adress and other means of taking contact (not too much though).

The idea with the .pdf is one I never thought about, and it's a good one!

[KnownStranger]

Originally posted by Jammin-D
Brainiac going by what you just said how does my site look? its a portfolio site of me.. http://www.jammin-designs.com

ok, this was not adressed to me, but anyway... heres what i think

1- the 'about' should become 'about me' since its a portfolio/personnal site...
2- funny, the main reason why i would hire you, if i had to, are in the last paragraph of your 'about' section...
3- links, theres a lot of em (read too much here), and we dont even know why you like them...
4- gallery, why dont you choose only your 2-3 best... and hum, add a little desc below title, while at it... we might see progress you made just by seeing the dd/mm/yy next to the titles...

[Jammin-D]

Originally posted by KnownStranger

Originally posted by Jammin-D
Brainiac going by what you just said how does my site look? its a portfolio site of me.. http://www.jammin-designs.com

ok, this was not adressed to me, but anyway... heres what i think

1- the 'about' should become 'about me' since its a portfolio/personnal site...
2- funny, the main reason why i would hire you, if i had to, are in the last paragraph of your 'about' section...
3- links, theres a lot of em (read too much here), and we dont even know why you like them...
4- gallery, why dont you choose only your 2-3 best... and hum, add a little desc below title, while at it... we might see progress you made just by seeing the dd/mm/yy next to the titles...

well,
1- The reason i have it as 'about' is so all the titles only have one word each otherwise its going to have to be, home, about me, my gallery, my favourite links, contact me (doesnt work with my design)
2- not sure if i see what you mean,
3- well i didnt intend to put why i just wanted to put across some traffic to these sites and i just wanted to show the viewer where i get my inspiration / knowledge from
4- my gallery is only showing a teeny weeny ickle bit of my work, these are the 2/3 best things except theres a tad more than 2 or 3, for instance the cartoons of my mates i did are 3 of about 70 odd that i did for a school newsletter, and the websites hygiene solvers etc, theres about 10 or 11 more i could put in there but i put in those in becuase they are either a) new , b) my favourite, c) my earliest work (precise was one of the first flash things i did) the music compositions lol, ive got about 80 compositions on my computer of mine but i put these on because the others are like , show music i composed for school productions etc, i couldnt see the need to put that in. and print ,, theres heaps of print work too .. my portfolio on cd is actually 7 Cd's just to put it into perspective.. thanks for the comments though.

[joost_5]

...the basics would include site functionality and user-friendliness. Good parts of your site include easy navigational tabs in the top navigation & clear cut design. To make the site even more "usable", I would somehow highlight or destiguish the linked from non-linked text in some way, such as a different color or underscore. The gallery Titles like "Print" get lost in the rest of the text - differentiate those headings somehow.

Also try thinking of yourself as a product you are trying to market. If I were selling myself on Amazon, I'd want a clear "call to action" - something that would prompt the user to take a positive step toward buying my product. So I'd want many attractive buttons or links to "Buy now!". In your case you may want people to download a pdf or word doc of your resume and to contact you about employing you. So in your resume, try hyperlinking your email address; In the Contact area add an attractive button to email you; On your home page add a link like "Learn more about how I can improve your web presence!" with a link or button etc.

[KnownStranger]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jammin-D

well,
1- The reason i have it as 'about' is so all the titles only have one word each otherwise its going to have to be, home, about me, my gallery, my favourite links, contact me (doesnt work with my design)
2- not sure if i see what you mean,
3- well i didnt intend to put why i just wanted to put across some traffic to these sites and i just wanted to show the viewer where i get my inspiration / knowledge from
4- my gallery is only showing a teeny weeny ickle bit of my work, these are the 2/3 best things except theres a tad more than 2 or 3, for instance the cartoons of my mates i did are 3 of about 70 odd that i did for a school newsletter, and the websites hygiene solvers etc, theres about 10 or 11 more i could put in there but i put in those in becuase they are either a) new , b) my favourite, c) my earliest work (precise was one of the first flash things i did) the music compositions lol, ive got about 80 compositions on my computer of mine but i put these on because the others are like , show music i composed for school productions etc, i couldnt see the need to put that in. and print ,, theres heaps of print work too .. my portfolio on cd is actually 7 Cd's just to put it into perspective.. thanks for the comments though.

ok, good, at least you have reasons to do XYZ in details what i meant in those 1,2,3..., since i hire people (freelancers) once in a while... (this doesnt mean im totally right, neither that my point of view is same as every employers )
1- first thing that cross my mind when i saw the 'about' was : about what ?
2- 90% of your text in 'about' is irrelevant : i'll see what you master in your gallery anyway... and reading about technique (those you mention in the text) is damn boring... now that you bored me & that you threw me useless text will i feel like reading the last par. where it says that you're an artist (are you doin' music too?) and (this is the most important part of your text) that you WANT TO LEARN, more more more... will i feel like it ? nope, not at all
3- well, how can we know what those links are 'for you' if you dont say so ?
4- decision to hire you or not will be made in the first what... 30, 40 seconds... 7 CD, dont ever send them to me man... i know perfectly where to 'lose' em...

[Brainiac]

http://www.jammin-designs.com/

First off, the splash is useless, but it doesn't fall into the category off being stupid. You have acctually made the logo clickable, which is really good, because the enter button itself is quite unnoticable.

Otherwise, I like it. Flash might not have been the best tool though. The motion kind of distracts you from reading the text and the animations aren't that extreme.

Also, the About section is, sad to say it, a horrible example of Flash and text. Flash isn't meant to display long chunks of text from up to down. You could have separated it, animated transitions and made it a little slide show instead.

Otherwise it's definetly good basics, you definetly have the focus right.

Good luck with future work, Jammin-D.

[Jammin-D]

well thanks.... i guess. i couldnt really be that bothered as i did the site in like under a day or so lol, it was for a job interview and no i didnt get the job cos of my age, 66 went for it, i came in the top 3! not bad going huh?

thanks for the speech but i aint gonna do anything to the site as well frankly i dont need the site that much. word of mouth is good enough!

[joost_5]

Word of mouth is definately key to getting more work. But it's also important to have a portfolio site that showcases your work.

If you didn't need the site or "aint gonna do anything to the site" after we've poured over it, why ask for feedback?

[Brainiac]

Originally posted by joost_5
...the basics would include site functionality and user-friendliness.

And these consists of: The Optical Centre, the Golden Section and Ockhams Razor. Plus a damn good knowledge off typography, lay-out and preferably compatibility.

Once you know these rules above, you are free to break them. Because if you know the rules you can break them, if you don't know the rules you're just ignorant who haven't learned them.