research
my research for this project included looking at successful websites and what parts of what i saw that i liked. Another thing that i had to research was what types of pieces that i wanted to show in my website. i decided to show the pieces that show my best work and my diversity as a designer.
Research for this was interesting,
I enjoyed looking at other sites and seeing how they worked. One of the best ways i found for researching this was not only looking at other sites, but also see what how others are accomplishing their own sites. I have also found that see what other designers are trying to fix and what kinds of things they are posting about online. I also have looked in to other books such as Don’t make me Think a book on basic web usability.
The research stage of my portfolio website.
What do you want to say?
I want to tell and show people my photography in hopes that I will get a job or an interest in my photography. I want to inform people what I offer. In the future I will add my graphic design work and portfolio to the website as well. I want it to be obvious when you enter the site that I am a photographer and not to leave people wondering where they are.
Who do you want to say it to?
Future employers, clients, anyone who happens across my page, family members. The portfolio is for anyone who is interested in my photography, or just wants to look at it. Family members will most likely look at my blog to see whats going on with me, and in my life. The Photography section will also double as a a portfolio for future clients who would like to hire me.
How do you want to say it?
I will make it obvious with lots of photos and images. I do not want them to be confused as to where they are. There will be opening paragraphs explaining where they are and what the site is about.
Ideas that I am stealing from other people’s portfolio websites…
This was something I did much earlier and it is a continual process as I keep finding new inspiration.
As mentioned in a previous post, I reviewed many different sites. I would like to share some of them that I had found here.
Design Company 45 Degrees
The 45 degree Design Company has a nice site because it is interesting and the site doesn’t distract from their work. Granted, it was done in flash which makes it less navigable for search engines. But I was drawn to their simplicity.
Inspiration
Another site I found interesting is this next one. It has a different and understandable movement to it. The colors do make it dark, however red, black and white are usually always striking. I liked their use of shape and placement.
My work/portfolio is the star of my site, so I want to construct something that allows my work to be accessed & viewed easily & enjoyably.
With this in mind, I took off to look at minimalist style websites that made the content the draw of the site, not flashy graphics. Plus a lot of photoshop filters/effects just isn’t my style.
A couple of the many sites that effectively pull of the “minimalist” look are these two:
Things I notice about each of these websites is the importance of typographic hierarchy. Without using a lot of other tools in your arsenal, type treatment is more important than ever.
I also noticed that a minimal design could easily be a boring design unless the design is treated carefully, with just the right amount of visual interest and typographic wayfinding.
While searching the web for some inspiration, I found a lot of awesome sites. But I did notice that most of the sites broke down into two categories: 1- Look at the cool stuff I can do with flash! 2- Look at all the awesome thing that I’ve done. I tried to stick to looking at the second for obvious reasons.
Sushi and Robots
The first site I ran into was call sushi and robots, I was expecting the whole site to be theme this way, but to my surprise it was a fairly clean site. I really liked how accessible everything and it really seemed to focus and her work and not the site itself. The other two sites I liked, also seemed to take their work and make it the emphasis.
After looking around the web, I found some cool site and they taught me quite a bit. I learned that just because a site does a lot of cool thing with flash and they seem be outside the box in terms of organization, it doesn’t mean it was effective. There were a lot of sites that looked really cool and they were fun to look around in, but in the end I couldn’t tell you what half of them were even really about. So this is what I have to take into consideration when doing my own site.
leihu
Dino Latoga
This is actually the third personal website I have designed, so the content has been gathered.
During the research process I watched the video of a designer explaining important elements of a portfolio site, and looked at existing design sites. I saw a lot of portfolio sites used flash, scrolling blogs, or had a lot of type that I got lost in.
Through the research process I came up with these goals:
In the thumbnails I focused on these goals and how I could find a solution for all of them. After many a sketch I do believe I came up with a good solution. The idea I started with was completely different than what I ended up working the best.
Thumbnail Sketches
I did a lot of research for this project and found a lot of Websites that I really liked.
I think I can know what I can do in Dreamweaver. I really don’t know that much and I don’t want to try something that I know I have no idea how to do. After doing my research I found that I really like the simple websites. I am going to post a couple of them. Some are portfolio websites and some are just some websites that I like the design.
site 1
I like the typography on this page. I like the navigation and how it is simple but not boring. I like the way it shows what page you are on also.
Site 2
I really like the simplicity of this site. A lot of white space is very appealing to me. This site is very easy to navigate but it also caught my attention with her big type on the first page saying “HELLO…”
site 3
This is not a portfolio site but I really like the simple, gray background. imagery and typography. I like the simple use of color and not too much.
The Monograph is required reading before the first day of class, but you may also be interested in the 30+ interviews from international web professionals and other resources that the site offers.
