Please critique my web portfolio

designMcGee

http://www.webgoblin.net/

I am a recent college grad, majored in user-interface design and web development. In terms of my skill level, I was a putz and was really lazy for my last two years, so my skills atrophied a bit. I mention this only because I want to know how I can bring my portfolio up to the level where it "should" be after 3 years of formal classroom training on it.

Specifically, how can I bring down the weight of the site. It's very image heavy, and I know this is a problem from a usability perspective.

I tried to keep a close eye on my gird and alignment, do I make good use of space?

From a content perspective, I want to try and convey a bit of informality in my tone and design. Is this ok or is it too informal a tone?

My idea of treating the portfolio pieces like a resume, and only listing a selected 4-5... what are your thoughts on that?

Any other critique or advice would be greatly appreciated.

*Fixed image link.

Thanks in advance.

RFX

I'd just like to point out that your last sample (endAnalysis) links to the same image as the first sample (Schostak).

FirstComradeStalin

Maybe you should show the websites as they are fully functioning. As it is, the websites seem like just a bunch of class projects (Latin everywhere, no attempt to put seemingly real announcements in). Even if they really were all just class projects, you should still just put something in there that seems real.

Maybe also put multiple pages from each website in, too?

Pheezer

If you want to work on your skills and get some good resume fodder, look for local non-profit organizations with shitty or non-existent websites. Yes it's a lot of work for no pay but if you pull it off you can put it on a resume as volunteer experience, and get a very positive job reference out of it.

Lewisham

I liked your designs, I'm no designer so can't really comment (although a higher contrast between the white text and the background on webgoblin would be good), but as a programmer, try and get your page to validate:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webgoblin.net%2F

12gauge

Lewisham wrote: »

I liked your designs, I'm no designer so can't really comment (although a higher contrast between the white text and the background on webgoblin would be good), but as a programmer, try and get your page to validate:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webgoblin.net%2F

Basically, move your javascript to its own file and link it.

ZeeBeeKay

Your designs look really good, and were I looking for someone to do a professional-looking website your designs would be right up there. There're only two things, and they're pretty small.

The first is that on the bottom of the display that pops up when you click the first example it says 'my caption here' or something along those lines, which I don't think is supposed to be there.

The second is that you sound like a bit of a narcissistic ass in your introduction on the home page. It's not a huge deal, and I can see that you're trying to go for a conversational-yet-professional tone, but stuff like 'unless you speak spanish you probably can't pronounce my name' just makes you sound full of yourself and snotty. Does not make me want to work with you, despite very nice designs.

That said, keep up the good work!

designMcGee

Very fair.

I am a bit of a narcissistic ass, but you're point is spot on. I'll work on the content and address the issues that have been brought up.

Thanks all!

Jasconius

Only thing I have to say is don't use light box. Every web and graphic design student on the planet is using that now, and it's not good to be "part of the crowd." If you can write you're own, I'd recommend it, or at least modify Light Box from it's default settings and look.