My new websites are now online!

Post by **Gambit37** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 6:28 pm

Hi all. After some protracted development, I have my new portfolio online:

http://www.friskdesign.com/

And I have also started a blog. I decided to make it separate from the portfolio site as I don't necessarily want all my journal stuff associated with my work!

http://www.palemovie.com/

My old resonantedge.com is still active but will eventually be demised and auto-redirect to one of the above. If I was hosting anything for you, please remind me so it doesn't get deleted!

MitchB1990 · Post by **MitchB1990** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 6:53 am

I had no Idea you were into Graphic Design/Web Design

. Sites look good, I think I'll subscribe to your blog too.

I better get working on my own folio

ian_scho · Post by **ian_scho** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:23 am

Great stuff, Gambit.
I'm listening to your taste in music now (its linked off the blog).

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:07 am

oooh the site is nice, but you could change that pink colour to something different..

green, red or so..

Joramun · Post by **Joramun** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:27 am

Hehe, I haven't the same tastes in music as you do AT ALL... but I like the PINK

BTW : nice link about "To Blog or Not To Blog" !

I'm personally a thorough non-blogging person

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 10:48 am

Adamo wrote:oooh the site is nice, but you could change that pink colour to something different.. green, red or so..

Why? I like it.

ian_scho · Post by **ian_scho** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:19 pm

Is pink 'corporate'? It's soft so Why Not! I thought the use of the colours give it more of a 'designer' background.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 5:11 pm

It's that time when I really need to update my site as it's simply not functioning properly as a portfolio. It currently has no visual impact and it takes too many clicks to get to the folio pages. I also am trying to get an identity that will translate to print for business cards, etc.

So after several months of trying different things, I've finally got the focus sorted and have a design that I like.

The issue now is colour scheme. This is tricky. I wanted something quite bright and bold, but this simply gets in the way of the portfolio imagery which is what the focus of the site should be. It's daft for the interface to drown out the content. Having said that, a very neutral scheme simply looks dull.

With that in mind, I've tried a few variations. I started with fairly neutral, then did a few brighter ones. I would be keen to receive any input.

The pages are simulated and just images -- nothing works yet.

http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/olive.html
http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/greyblue.html
http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/green.html
http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/red.html
http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/orange.html
http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/blue.html

I'm very keen on the Olive one as it's neutral enough to allow both bright and neutral portfolio imagery to present well. It's also a good classic colour and complement for the blue incidental colour and I can see this translating well to business cards, etc.

I also like the intensity of the red, but it drowns out the imagery.

Thoughts?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 5:54 pm

Probably the olive or blue one, after all it's the website construction not the visuals as much that customers would surely want to see

If they want to see flashy websites, they can view ones you've already created to know you have that string to your bow

Post by **Ameena** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:05 pm

I find the red a bit harsh, the orange I somehow don't like, or the blue, but the first three look alright to me

.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:36 pm

Cheers for the input guys, yeah, I agree the red is harsh and the orange is just downright ugly!

What do you think of the overall layout / structure?

This is the homepage by the way, lower pages will be different. The large image shown will cycle through a few of the portfolio entries. When hovered over a small description appears and when clicked, you're taken to the full portfolio entry -- the same as I've done on my TRX site: http://www.tombraiderxtra.com/

I'll be designing all the lower pages over the next week and will post those up too for feedback. If you don't mind.

Post by **Ameena** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 7:09 pm

Well, there's nothing in particular about it that makes me think "Omg that's so crap" (I did spot one little typo, actually, but...). I don't know much about website design but from the looks of it, it does what it's supposed to - tells whoever's visiting it what the point of the site is. Which is probably the point of a website homepage, really, isn't it

.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 8:00 pm

Ameena wrote:(I did spot one little typo, actually, but...).

If I had a quid for every time a client had said that instead of commenting on the design, I wouldn't need to work anymore!

Seriously, you wouldn't believe how many people get hung up on that stuff. It's not relevant at this stage. That's why it's better to use dummy text in mockups. I didn't in this case as I wanted to see what it would look like with some typical content.

As for not knowing much about web design, you don't need to. A good design will work even if you don't know why it works.

I'm a bit worried about the tone of the responses though. They suggest that something is still not quite right with this design -- I'm not going for all out "wow" but given that this design hasn't elicited quite the positive response I would have hoped for, I'm wondering if I need to change it?

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 8:35 pm

http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/red.html
red is beautifull and fits well to the "postcard wiev"

Post by **linflas** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 8:54 pm

red too !

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 9:00 pm

The websided is fine, you want it to look good and then let people move on to the content.

It is very usable, seems good, and dif you get a flash of inspiration in the future then all good - but hopefully pursuit of perfection isn't blocking you from finishing a work related site?

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 2:35 am

The websided?

Really, Beo, what exactly do you smoke?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:14 am

It's the name for a multi-faceted website. Really, don't you know the cool young people lingo?

*runs*

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:19 am

http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/red.html
something new , bold style
reminds me of raspberries and then of metallic car colour
http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/blue.html
this is in line with frisk, somehow I connect it with ice.

Each color induces some kind of emotion.
in short red makes you feel warm, stands for aggression,
strong emotion, blood
blue is cold,far away,clean..you generally find blue lables on bath equipment,
like shampoo and medicial items are blue coloured.

this is only a scratch on the surface of colour meanings.
And remember, it is different for chinese people ..
in China white stands for death.. over here it is commonly
black.

as for opposing colours in various colour wheels your
websites all do fine. There could be an issue with the
photos, though (at some point too many colours on screen)

as for layout:
i think it is fine.
what thoughts have you put into it?
why is the links where it is?
it would probably help for evaluating the design.
you tell what you wanted to convey to the visitiors,
we tell whether it has succeeded.

Post by **linflas** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:19 am

first, that was hard to understand beo with -normal- ultra-speed-talking english. but now that he invents new words, what am i gonna do ?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:30 am

You'll just have to ecomalogicate your festidulous responsibilities like the rest of the preems

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:37 am

zoom wrote:Each color induces some kind of emotion.

Indeed! Deep reds are my favourite bold colour and I love the attention that it commands, but in large quantities it can be too dominating. But that doesn't fulfil my desire to have something fairly classic and neutral...

zoom wrote:There could be an issue with the photos, though (at some point too many colours on screen)

Yes, this is the biggest issue. The example picture displayed is one of the most colourful, others are more neutral. It's difficult for you to judge unless I do examples with lots of different types of images.

zoom wrote:what thoughts have you put into it? why is the links where it is?

What thoughts have I not put in to it! This design has come out of several months of experimenting. My first designs had a smaller introductory image with my contact details higher up and on the right, to encourage people to get in touch.

However, the decided that the most important thing is for people to be able to see a good quality, good sized example of my work. That's the purpose of my site -- to show off the work then to get people to call me. So I made the images much bigger. The image area will rotate through several images and they will click through to a more detailed portfolio entry for that project. What's missing from that demo is a larger link to the portfolio.

The rest of the layout is pretty straightforward: The list of services is important to appear first, then my contact details so that people can get in touch quickly. (On lower pages all this information will be in a sidebar). The other main thing you need to establish on a home page is trust -- so that's why the quotes from happy clients will be there too.

The secondary information in the black area is all connected to the blog which I will be spending more time on. I want to start writing better articles related to the web as this helps build up a reputation and it can help as a sales tool too. However, on the homepage it's less important, which is why it's lower down.

Finally, extra information about me can be found in the last line of links. It's extra information that rewards people for scrolling to the bottom of the page. Page ends are often dead and boring, this gives people something to do when the read to the end.

I'll do a design of a couple more pages this week, so you can see how things change as you move through the site.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:56 am

While the blog idea is good, I don't think the live comments are a good idea since anyone could comment before you see it. Plus while it is nice to show off your efforts with a personal site, do you not want a slight separation of your personal and business self on the web?

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:47 am

Not a worry. This blog is purely a tech blog and related only to my work/the web/design etc. I also moderate comments. The current blog is here: http://www.friskdesign.com/blog/

My personal blog is over at palemovie.com. I made the choice to keep these separate a long time ago, that's always been the case.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:52 am

Ah, i misubderstod

In that case, it's all good and a good idea *flawless 180 victory!*

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 5:47 pm

Changed the olive a bit ( a bit stronger now and a better complement for the blue) and have tied a few different fonts too for different 'feelings'. Still think I prefer the clean font of the original one though, more professional overall.

http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/olive.html
http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/olive2.html
http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/olive3.html
http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/olive4.html

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:36 pm

prefer 1 or 2

Post by **linflas** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 8:17 pm

2 is the best

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 8:26 pm

Cool, thanks for the input guys.

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 8:42 pm

in number 2 the logo looks best. It is very concise. and well
proportioned.

Just a sidenote:
you want to do something about the spacing in the text.
the "I specialise" is not looking good! probably it is mockup, but
spacing should be correct!

Do you really wanna go for the (to me)complicated slogan in the logo?
I don't know , it probably would look better to have just
working websites
or
building working websites
instead of building websites that work.

I know it is common to have the pronounce of the sentence in the last word, but somehow it came to my mind to being more
easily readable when shortened. Anyway, don't let yourself be
confused or whatever by my suggestion, the site is nice overall indeed!

edit:
i really have to add:
number 2 is f**king brilliant !! WELL DONE