OT Questions

[Dwight Hutto]

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Prasad, Ramit
<ramit.prasad at jpmorgan.com> wrote:
> 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.

Well, all of these are my domain names, and works in
progress/revision. The client would get several versions, and know
what they want me to do, I just have to be able to do it for them, and
add in a little extra to show my worth to them.

>>
>> 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.

It's a statistic. I see things that lots of others like, so when I
design, I say tomyself do I like that enough? But it's always in
revision for perfection of the piece being worked on, just like apps
have revisions, so do logos and artwork.

> 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.
>
I'm moving toward the smaller devices, but I'm a desktop guy, and so
are a lot of others. And what site doesn't have a frontpage?

> 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 goes back to stats. You might not be the demographic I attract,
but others will like it...hopefully

That
> is unless you can afford to turn away business by sticking to your
> design principles.

No, the client is the main opinionator. If they like some of my stuff,
and have an idea they need implemented, I just showcae I can do it.

>
> 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

I thought there were blank pages, and within the next week or so,
there will be more. I'm looking toward other programmers for peer
review to refine my main site.


> 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.
>
It's more of a commercial to me. In the end it doesn't show the
webcrawlers for SEO my text, and it's a rough draft. It'll eventually
be just a banner ad, and there will be a more static design.

> 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'm working on the reduction right now, and that's the reason for
asking for reviews.
.
>
> I hope that helps,

Don't worry, it does.

-- 
Best Regards,
David Hutto
CEO: http://www.hitwebdevelopment.com