May I impose for a moment to get your opinion?

[Deja Q]

Poll question: May I impose for a moment to get your opinion?

I am redesigning my website, making it career-relevant only as I am looking into photography, journalism, and maybe even (entry level) graphics design jobs.

(I'm removing the 'other' category) and basically keeping it as an online photo gallery and bio/resume.

Which base style looks better to you?

A) Old style


B) New Style


Note: The new style has a picture window that rotates several pictures with a cool fade-in effect. It also features animated buttons, where moving the mouse on a button highlights it green. (this one has some alignment issues and I'm already working on re-doing the menu bar, but before I get too far involved in the polishing I'd love to get a concensus to see if it's worth the time.

Thank you so much!

[billyskank]

1. New style, but with one caveat

your buttons look a bit star trek. :)

[Deja Q]

4. Actually,

I got the font design from the Doctor Who credits sequence for the 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) era.

But the buttons do look trekkie now that you pointed it out. Maybe if I changed the font...

[billyskank]

8. I think it is indeed the tall thin font that does it.

[Deja Q]

10. I found a replacement; squarer and has more of a personality too.

I like the elegance of the tall thin one, but given its association with bermantrek, it also represents a type of stolidity.

[Missy M]

2. I like the new style much better...

it looks cleaner and easier to use.

[Hugin]

3. Old style by far.

It's more colorful. Says more about you.

The new style looks too much like the Windows(tm)
Media(tm) Player(tm).

I'm all for splashy colors!

[Deja Q]

5. Ah!

I do have other accents and section rule lines I will be putting in that are colorful (some of them are the same as the accents used in the old design; why give up a good thing? :-) ). The end result is still more austere, but it will have plenty of color in it.

As for Winbloat Media Player, I haven't used it in years. MS doesn't need to know I listen to Abba or James Bond movie soundtracks. I use XMMS (Linux) these days. If there is a similarity, I am ignorant of it.

[Hugin]

6. Cool!

"I do have other accents and section rule lines I will be putting in that are colorful." By all means!

I just discovered a shading function I added to the GUI I've been
working on which allows a user to shade the background in different
tints (to match their desktop decor or preference). I've arranged the pattern of the shading to make the controls stand out and it changes as the function of the GUI changes.

I'm like you... I like a darker background. Everything in Winbloat has
black on white as the default and I find that tiring on the eyes.

No offense taken on the WMP... It's way too intrusive for my tastes
also. Next thing you know they'll be building it into the OS like
IE... "Oh, it's an integral part of the OS." Bleh!

:)

[hyphenate]

7. I hope you don't mind a couple of critique points for you

The typeface you're using for your logo--how attached to it are you? It obscures the "r" in the title, and for potential clients or employers, it might tend to turn them off. Most design professionals find simplicity far more compelling than complex designs, and regardless of content, a fast loading page is a selling point more important than many other things.

Most professional sites prefer (don't ask me why) a white page with black typeset. It's probably because it's easier on the eyes. On the other hand, younger designers tend to gravitate toward a "grunge" style, which I feel ruins their chances for design jobs with older and more established companies. I would say go with white as a test, and see if it makes a difference.

Most non-pro sites like to be complex, with the latest Java, Javascript, php, asp, Cold Fusion, Shockware and other fare. It's great to showcase talents, but prospective employees are looking for the elegance of a non-complex site, that still manages to convey some of the designer's personality. There are enough professionals--and talented amateurs--out there who are vying for jobs to the point of overload for the designers, and to the glee of employers. It allows them to be choosy in their selection, and what helps them is your ability to work FOR them, without too much independent thought, unless you intend to freelance as a contractor. Working for a company puts the ball in their court, because they want people to do as they're told, not create anything contrary to either the company's image or to the boss's satisfaction. Remember, when you work for a company, any designs you make while there are THEIRS and not yours.

A few bells and whistles are okay, but try to make them simple: mouseover is mostly cool, animated gifs are not. A long, slow-loading shockwave file opening your site is not okay--managing to stick some small elements of CSS into the page for a more personal experience is okay. Remember to check out your design on different browsers. Different standards for IE, Opera, AOL, Firefox, and any old versions of these exist, and often look very different. Part of that comes from many Java applets don't work well in IE, but work perfectly in Firefox. There are many factors in those differences, and a professional will make sure that all their sites and pages have consistent quality.

Spelling--I can't stress how much this is of supreme importance. Sloppy proofreading, the inability to know the difference between various homonyms and allowing such things to slip by will get a big fat rejection from many potential employers.

Frames are pretty much on their way out, unless you can integrate a seamless inside frame into the design. A lot of sites that use flash to do final page composition do it and it looks good, but it needs to be stressed that you want it to load quickly and without complication. If you want to create a sidebar or top nav bar, use DHTML menu style, because it carries over to all the browsers.

Hope you don't mind the suggestions--good luck with it at any rate, and let us know how it works out.

[Deja Q]

9. Thank you MUCH!

I read your post with great interest and have taken it to heart. I appreciate your suggestions immensely.

(the animation was javaascript, but you're definitely right in that the excess glitz would stress loading time too far. The page graphics alone tallied up to 106kb.)

I am now re-thinking the design, using a 'conservative' yet gutsy design. :-)

I definitely agree that anything a worker makes for a company is the company's properrty. Hence the decent wages designers get paid. (of course, ask me to comment on amazon.com's desire to copyright everyone's review submissions as their property even though we don't work from them but buy from them and I'll spend a day ranting. :D )

[hyphenate]

12. One thing which might be of immense help

is Xat's Image Optimizer. It strips a lot of excess info from graphics, and shrinks the file size without damage to the graphic. I love it for JPEGs myself, because I can work on a PSD in Photoshop and optimize it to a relatively decent size, and then further reduce it through the image optimize. One of the things it does is if you have a GIF that is 50K that has a limited palette, it will take that graphic and take all the unnessary color info from the file, and bring the size down accordingly. With JPEGs, it essentially does the same thing, but results are a little more lossy. This is okay, though, because you control the extent you want to reduce it, and how much loss you are willing to do work with. One of the reasons I like this is that there are so many people out there snagging graphics and often claiming them as their own, and by putting a slightly reduced quality up keeps the photograph from getting too far astray.

What you might consider is taking a small portion of your site and make a Powerpoint presentation for perspective employers with a specific location. Several years ago, I went to a job fair and took folders with information on me and my company, and ran a minidisk with the presentation on it, as well as a PDF copy of my resume. Then, to assure that those who got the folders were able to read the enclosed materials and the presentation, I included both Acrobat Reader and the Powerpoint viewer on the disk. I also put some original graphics on the disk for free, to encourage them to think of me if they were going to use graphics. Unfortunately, the job fair was only looking for blue-collar and pink-collar workers, and the idea fizzled for the most part. But it's still a good idea if you are actively searching for a position.

[NashVegas]

11. It Depends on Who You Want to Appeal To

Those are both very well-designed, very clean, and they look like they're intended for a young male viewer or gamer-types.

If you want a broader appeal, you'll need to use simpler design elements, IMO.

With that in mind, I prefer the new style, but would lose the "3D modeled" look of your layout, and try something that looks more of a suggestion of how the space is broken up than absolute borders. (Not sure if that will make sense)

On edit: I just read Hyphenate's post and there's a lot of wisdom in it.

I'm not a designer, I do back-ends, and his points are a perfect example of *why.* When you're working in a creative field, you're going to encounter two different 'management' models; those who will tell you what elements are required, then stand back and allow creative people to do their best job their own way and will simply approve or disapprove of what's submitted (so long as you have those elements), and those who will approve and then want you to make 500 minor changes that reflect the way they'd do it if they had the ability or time. (I'm not talking about flaws, I'm talking about their preferences.)