OT Questions

[Prasad, Ramit]

David Hutto wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 2:06 AM, Demian Brecht <demianbrecht at gmail.com> wrote:
> > * Your strength is not design. Using bevel and emboss (and a pattern here and there) does not constitute good
> design.
> 
> It's simplicity within a symbolism, and now that I need money for
> medical reasons, the work I've done isn't perfect, but it's on par.
> 
> I know when I see something aesthetically pleasing, and if I like what
> I have, I'm using the same mindset.
> 
> If you're showcasing logo work, I hope you're ready to supply
> variations that can be used cross-medium.
> 
> These are all portfolio sites of my own, and I'm slowly revising them,
> just like any other rough draft, and as you can tell I'm asking other
> people to critique it.
> 

Aesthetics and web design are relative to the eye of the beholder.
The question is whose opinion matters. Yours? Mine? Others? Personally,
I heartily second the recommendation to get professional advice on site
design. Your site reminds me of something I would create in the '90s
with FrontPage (do people even use that anymore?) as an amateur or 
hobbyist; not something I would create as a professional attempting
to market my services.

Now I do not say this in order to be mean, but to provide constructive
criticism. Not because I do not like the site; but because I think
*other* people will not like the site layout and ultimately my opinion
does not matter; it matters what your prospective clients think. That
is unless you can afford to turn away business by sticking to your 
design principles.

Several top level links did not work and that is a bad sign for a 
portfolio. At the very least, take a few minutes to setup a blank page
so the visitor does not get a 404 error. The background of your logo
page should match the color scheme of the rest of the website. Oh,
and your logo for your main page is incomprehensible to me. I am not
sure if it is a artistic design or some text, but it is too hard to make
out.

It is hard to say much more since the site is so bare. I will reiterate
what others have said regarding background sounds (especially ones that 
start by default). If you take a look at some famous websites and you will
notice that they rarely have sound and for good reason. 

Another thing to note is wasted space. Network bandwidth is a commodity. 
You pay for it and your visitor pays for it. You pay for it in terms of 
hosting or internet service while the visitor pays for it in internet 
service and possibly even in their data cap. I cannot imagine loading 
your website from a phone (nor would I ever try to).

You want to be as efficient as possible. Have you ever taken a look at Google's home page source? Now they are an extreme example of keeping a site lean, but maybe that will give you an idea of how important it is. An overly giant GIF and sound files are poor choices. It should be easy to compress the GIF to a *much* smaller file size while keeping the animation. You can probably use a midi file for the same effect with regards to sounds. 

I hope that helps,
Ramit


This email is confidential and subject to important disclaimers and
conditions including on offers for the purchase or sale of
securities, accuracy and completeness of information, viruses,
confidentiality, legal privilege, and legal entity disclaimers,
available at http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/disclosures/email.