A Matching Tragedy

I recently did a portfolio review, searching for ten sites that I particularly liked, and what, specifically, I liked about them, with an eye to using the things I liked as a guide as I did a redesign of my own site. I found some interesting things, which, conceptually, have changed how I design, given the contrast between the current version of my site and the one that I’m working on to launch later this week.

Ten portfolio sites I’ve found that I like:

1. Henry Jones
On this site, I liked that the navigation was narrower and at the top. There wasn’t a large splash image to deal with, keeping me from content. The featured project has both the image and some explanatory text to use it. The colours aren’t grating and there’s not a big background image. The portfolio link was the second one I saw, next to the Home button, which I felt would be useful for quickly scanning the site to find out whether I wanted to work with this person.

2. Zee the Designer
Another case of a simple design that doesn’t focus on the background or the designer’s ability to use Javascript tricks, this site replaces a splash image with splash text. The thumbnail on wellmedicated.com clearly showed the size of the text (the designer’s called out keywords in a larger, red font) and I could read the keywords even in the screenshot. I know from that what this designer does. I also know what this designer wants to do (“a particularly interesting project”) which is not a sell, but at least I know there’s a personality behind the site, and that’s not always a bad thing – it only is if you piss off your potential customers.

3. Kubca
Since I don’t read French, I have no idea what this designer is saying, but because he or she chose to represent their skills through a star rating, ranging through five stars for Photoshop to two stars for Final Cut, the language barrier doesn’t matter, because I know whether they would be suited to the work I’m interested in having done even though I don’t know that I share a language. I’m also inclined to assume that anyone who would rank themselves at two stars on something is probably honest. They might also be a liar all over, but my first inclination is that they’re honest.

4. Superlover
This is a photography portfolio. I liked it a lot, though, since it showed off the photographer’s style immediately – the thumbnails were large, the colours were very rich, and the style seems to be very consistent; I would know, looking at this artist’s work, what I was likely to get as a result, and I personally like his gritty aesthetic.

5. E Is For Effort
The thumbnails here aren’t nearly as large as I might like, but I can see that this person’s worked on a lot of very prestigious accounts, with names that I know – Apple doesn’t hire just anyone. In cases where the branding isn’t immediately obvious, or might be unfamiliar to the viewer, the label underneath each image, uncluttered by colour or background design, is useful, and another scan – there’s not a lot to pick between Old Navy, Gap, and Banana Republic’s brand identity at this size – of just the names confirms that suspicion that this guy is top-notch in the design world.

6. Marius Roosendaal
I like the streamlined, clean feel, but more, I like the “description” button on each project. The page is uncluttered by text, but it’s there if the project catches my eye, and I’m not feeling so harrassed by the site that I want to do a swoop-and-go. I’m willing to spend a minute or two unfolding the accordion navigation and checking the projects out.

7. 13 Creative
The titles of the links in this site (“whereabouts & correspondence”) are familiar enough to be translatable – that one’s presumably about and contact – but catchy enough to fit the theme of a wedding designer. I don’t even care if they’re not a wedding planner agency, I want them to be. The site sells me on the idea that they are, by their choice of graphics. And now I want to get married.

8. Rusty George Creative
I like the navigation of this site. I also like that there’s some fun content – everything from Weird Holidays to an employee listing that looks like the old doll game where you choose different portions of the outfit. And I really like that they use a very swish intro graphic, but it doesn’t start moving until you mouseover it, and it’s limited in duration.

9. You And I Graphics
Everything I need in this site is easily visible when the home page opens. I like that she’s got a downloadable CV and lots of contact information. Her project thumbnails are reasonably sized. I also really like the background of the site – a combination “big background” and not, the knit texture is odd for a design site, but the swirls of gas keep it from being plain.

10. Alessandro Cavallo
The colour contrast could be a bit better, but the site is clear and uses space well – I don’t even have my browser at full width and nothing’s going off the page – and the graphics are cute, which caught my eye when I was scanning a portfolio site.