Inspirational Portfolio Websites

Since I have been working on my first website, which will serve as a digital portfolio/marketing tool, I have been browsing many others’ portfolio sites for inspiration, and “Wow” there are some great ones out there. Below are some of my favorites. They definitely give my something to shoot for!

• http://www.charliegentle.co.uk - I love, love, love this site, and I even tried to model my website after it. I like the design, the scrolling navigation, the pictures, and perhaps my favorite thing is that when you click on one of the navigation items, the others go out of focus.
• http://www.go-on-web.com/ - This site also has the scrolling navigation that I like so much. And I think it’s very neat that the background color changes on each page.
• http://www.rzmota.com/ - The homepage isn’t my favorite, but I like how the additional pages scroll up from the bottom. It’s something different that I haven’t seen before. I also like the clean and polished overall look.
• http://www.alexcohaniuc.com/ - This site is unique in that all of the information is displayed on one page. Sections that would typically receive their own page are instead assigned a corner and information expands and collapes. It’s an interesting use of space.
• http://www.gummisig.com/ - I like the overall look, especially the background image and the use of typography. Also, the designer’s attitude really shines through via content.

The Future Web

As Richard MacManus wrote in the article “10 Future Web Trends,” today’s era of the Web is commonly referred to Web 2.0, and current popular attractions include search features, social media, music, video, and content aggregation, to name a few. This three year-old article, made several predictions about the future of the Web: virtual worlds would become more mainstream, mobile Web would be the “Next Big Thing,” apps would become ubiquitous, video would serve a larger role, and personalization would be trendy. These forecasts have already been realized - with 7 years to go!

In a more recent article (2009), “The Future of the Web: Where will We be in Five Years?” I found some more interesting predictions about the future of the Web:

• More Horizontal Scrolling Content: I like the way horizontal scrolling content looks aesthetically and it makes sense because more people have larger computer monitors.
• More Collaborative and Real-Time Content: There are already some services in place for collaboration (ex: Google Docs), and they will only become easier and more efficient to use. This is exciting because many people’s jobs may become faster and easier.
• Better Adoption of Web Standards: As a new Web designer, mobile devices are one of my greatest fears. The widespread use of multiple mobile web browsers will force us to use standards-based design so that Web sites display properly on all platforms.
• Even More Social Apps: Is this possible?
• SEO Will Become Less Important: More Web users will instead rely on recommendations and social media.

I can already see the paths in motion for several of these predictions. It will be interesting to see how long (or should I say short?) it takes for these to become reality.

Project #2 Status Update

For Project #2, my plan is to create a 4 page personal web site that will highlight work experience and include a portfolio of work from DePaul University. I’m very excited about this project because this will be the first site that I've created, and I’m feeling much more confident about it since picking up a copy of Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML by Elisabeth Freeman & Eric Freeman. It is a great reference for the beginner!

My first goal with this project is to become familiar with HTML and CSS, and I’m well on my way to accomplishing this. I’ve created HTML files for the four pages (Home, Portfolio, Blog, and Contact Me) that will be included, and I have drafted the content. In addition, I drew a sketch of the site in Illustrator and picked the colors and fonts that I want to use (I think. I’ve changed my mind a few times already). I’ve also spent some time creating images that will be used for navigation in Illustrator and Photoshop.

The next challenge is to organize the content so that it appears in the proper locations on the pages, and I’m a little nervous about this part. There are two other concerns that I have: on the Contact Me page I want to create a form that people can access to send me an e-mail. I’m not sure how to create this, but I also haven’t spent much time researching yet. Also, on the Portfolio page I don’t have much production work to showcase, but I think this page will be nice to have so I can add to it in the future.

"Evaluating Existing Web Sites and Applications: Consistency," by Eric Hughes

Eric Hughes’ article, "Evaluating Existing Web Sites and Applications: Consistency," is interesting to me since we’ve just designed our own rubric for evaluating web sites in our last group project. My group didn’t include consistency as a specific criteria in our rubric, and I wish that we had. The criteria that we used for reviewing 20 national news sites were usability, design, content, currency, and interactivity. (To view my group’s evaluation page, click here). On some level, I’m sure that consistency affected our grading; for instance, web sites with a consistent design are generally more aesthetically pleasing, opposed to those that use random colors and fonts on each page. However, I know that I didn’t probe each site in this area - especially for consistency in results, process, and versioning. In fact, I hadn’t even thought of these subcategories prior to this reading.

In all, Hughes lists 11 areas of consistency that one should use when looking at sites. I mentioned consistency in results, process, and versioning earlier, and the others are consistency in: form, language and content, function, coding, labeling, design, error messaging, and in the reason a piece of content exists. I think that each of these are valid categories, but relating to our last project, the category that might have been a little tricky for my group would have been consistency in language and content. Although the news sites that we reviewed definitely have their own tone, there’s a variety of news stories ranging in areas from Politics to Health to Technology. Also, there are a variety of journalists reporting in their unique style, and most news sites have a section dedicated to blogs.

One other point that I find interesting in this article is that people will tell their friends about a bad experience at a restaurant, but they are less likely to tell their friends about a bad experience with a web site because they may not be able to articulate what it is that makes it bad. Therefore, it’s important to pay special attention to consistency on your site, since you may not hear negative feedback from your audience.

Personal Technology Toolkit

In terms of my technology toolkit, I have the most tools in my arsenal in the print and Web media, and multimedia is in a distant third place. (Although I’m hoping to close the gap soon!) Below is a breakdown of the tools by medium that I have used in the past, am currently learning, and hope to learn in the future.

Print

Past: I have used Photoshop to edit images that I have then placed into InDesign and Illustrator files. Last quarter, I took the class Principles of Graphic Design and learned so much about all three of these programs, as well as, the basic design principles, typography, and print output.

Present: I’m currently working on my biggest work assignment of the year, which involves laying out the print version of the university catalogs. I learned so many tricks in last quarter’s class, that this assignment is easier than it has been in past years, and I think that it will be the most aesthetically-pleasing catalog yet.

Future: Although I know the basics of Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, I’d like to sharpen these skills and become more proficient in each.

Web

Past: A large part of my job involves the management of the university’s Web site via the content management system, Ingeniux. I have experience with setting up workflows, training other employees, and I have also used Photoshop to edit images and banners for the site.

Present: I’m learning HTML/CSS, and I’m also becoming more familiar with all of the different browsers.

Future: I want to gain a basic understanding of SEO and Web analytics.

Multimedia

Past: I do have some video editing experience, but it’s been awhile since I’ve dabbled it. In undergrad. I took a video editing class, where I learned Final Cut Pro, and in the Proseminar class, we had an in-class video editing assignment, where I used Windows Movie Maker.

Present: I’m currently not doing much in terms of multimedia. These types of projects (departmental videos, virtual tours, etc.) are either handled by the Department of Media Resources or by an outside group.

Future: I would like to revisit Final Cut Pro, and I want to learn Flash. There have been a few projects that my office has been interested in doing involving Flash, but none of us know even the basics of this program, and that has been somewhat frustrating.

Personal Web Footprint

Part of my Web footprint, or trail of online information, consists of personal details that I voluntarily provide on popular social networking sites, such as, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I have these accounts for a number of reasons (below), even though I know that this information is searchable by anyone and that what I share is connected to me forever. For this reason I’m very careful about what I publicize, I use the privacy settings, and I don’t post anything controversial. I also don’t post my contact information because I don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.

• Facebook: Four years ago, I moved to the Chicago area from Ohio, and Facebook is a great way to stay connected with friends and family. We can view and comment on each others pictures and posts online at our leisure. Everyone is busy, and Facebook allows us to share information with all of our friends on our own time.
  
  In my profile, I post some photos and general information: interests, favorite movies/books, and hometown to name a few. I don’t post contact information or religious/political views because I don’t want all of my friends (like co-workers) to see this. Also, I know that these preferences may change over time, and I might not want my views today to be connected with me in 20 years.

• Twitter: The thing that I like about Twitter is that I can “follow” interesting people, like celebrities, artists, and journalists. However, I don’t like posting tweets because I’m a private person and can’t think of anything interesting to tweet most of the time. My account hasn’t gotten a lot of action lately - that’s something I’ll have to work on.

• LinkedIn: I have a LinkedIn account for networking purposes. This profile contains most of my employment and education history, connections, and a link to my Twitter account. I don’t post a picture or contact information.

In the Proseminar class that I took last Fall, our class read a PEW Internet Report called Digital Footprints, and we did a similar assignment. One of the things that I learned from this assignment was that it's important to periodically enter your name into a search engine to see if your profile information pops up - as this is what a potential employer would see. My name unfortunately is very common, and I don't show up at all in the results....I think that I just found my question for this week. How can I get my profile information to show up on the first page of Google search results?

In-Class Video/Audio Editing Assignment

It was a fun assignment composing a video and audio file (finished clips below) with the samples that you provided us in class – mainly because I don’t typically work with these media. I liked using the two media, video and audio, to create one project because it allowed me to create a certain feeling, or mood, to the final video. Below is a brief description of the approach that I used for this assignment.

I began the editing process by watching and listening all of the clips. Then, I imported the video clips into Windows Movie Maker in chronological order, and I also imported a song that I thought complimented it. After trimming this song to match the length of the video, I watched what I had so far, and it looked a bit rough. To make the scenes flow together more smoothly, I added a few transitions. This was a little challenging because I didn’t want to add too many different transitions, but I didn’t want to just use the traditional fade either. After finding a healthy balance, I added some opening and closing titles and watched the video again. Overall, I liked what I had, but I thought that it needed a little something extra. That’s when I started to experiment with different video effects, and I was very happy with “Film Age, Old” because I felt that it added to the nostalgic feeling of the video.

There were a few challenges that I ran into with the editing of this video, aside from the transitions. Although I liked the music that I layered behind the video, there were some scenes where the music wasn’t synching well. I overcame this to a degree by speeding up certain scenes, but overall the synching still isn’t great. Another constraint was that I wanted to split the sound from the video files that you gave us so that I could delete some of the background noise, but I wasn’t sure how to do that.

I also created an audio file by using Audacity, and I thought that this was more difficult than the video editing process. As with the video, I listened to all of the narrated clips, and I organized them into what I thought was the chronological order. Then, I imported them into Audacity, and listened to what I had so far. At this point, I realized that I needed to edit some of the silence out and some of the narration so that it transitioned better. I repeated the process of listening to the entire file and editing parts out until I was relatively happy with what I had.

Although I’m not used to working with these programs or media, the editing process wasn’t all that different than writing/editing a paper. For example, before I start a paper, I read the materials that my paper’s about, and then I organize my thoughts into chronological order. Once I have a draft, I read it over and edit it. Then I read it again, revise it further, and reread it until I’m happy with it.

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