Website Reaction 6

I found this portfolio website on a list of innovative sites – and I would agree that it is really cool, and also very simple. The artists information and about section is located to the left, then the middle section which almost looks like stack of books – are the portfolio pieces. When you click on a corresponding “spine” of the books the right side presents the full piece. I really like the way the portfolio navigation is set up with the “stacked books” it’s very creative and also very intuitive.

Another option for navigating through the portfolio pieces is to simply click the full size representation – it will rotate  through every piece. I also like how with many of the pieces there are multiple photos to show detail views.

There are only a couple of things I have complaints about – first, there is not enough space at the bottom of the page and the last “spine” is almost cut off, this feels really distracting and should be resolved. The second thing is that I want to see more… The information feels very sparse and like it’s just a preview – like the rest is just missing. I’m not sure of how one would go about changing this but maybe by just adding some more sections? Or it could also be the size of the text, it feels very small in comparison to the portfolio pieces.

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Website Reaction 5

The animation on this site is really cool and is formed by the words in the background. It took me a long time to even type anything into the question box because I was just watching the baby crawl around. This seems really advanced for the March of Dimes and I am really impressed by it. When you go to the question box and select a subject, it highlights a bunch of questions in the background while the baby is still continuing to play. When you click on one of the highlighted questions it links you to another March of Dimes site that will answer your questions on the selected subjects. You can also use the cursor to select a direct question from the background or you can type in your own specific question. I really like the way this site is set up but I wish instead of being directed to a different page to answer the questions that somehow they are answered within the background and that you don’t actually leave that page because the set up of it is really cool. That would be my only complaint about this site but overall I really like the concept and think this is very impressive for the March of Dimes and hope it helps them bring in more donations!

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Website Reaction 4

This is a really cool site – I have never seen anything like it! To enter the site you click on “Wally” who then gives you instructions on how to navigate the rest of the site. The navigation ends up being like a roadmap where you click and drag to follow the route to whatever section you want to see, and if you keep going you end back up at Wally. This may seem confusing but because everything is well labeled and concise it is actually very easy to navigate.

When you get to a section with work, the pictures are large enough to see detail so you are not able to click them to bring up a larger view – because his drawings are rather simple they also are not viewable in a larger format.

The contact information is presented under the main section of the page (under the character Wally) and this seems to be effective due to the fact that it is easy to follow the lines and navigate back to this section. Another thing I really like is that it is nearly impossible to get lost in the “road map” style navigation because there are boundaries where the cursor will stop.

The only major complaint I have about this site is that for how innovative the navigation is – there isn’t that much work in terms of portfolio pieces which I guess could be viewed as a good thing because it leaves you wanting more and willing to check back to see if there have been any updates.

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Website Reaction 3

This portfolio website is very engaging how the main page is visually set up including the location of the navigation on the writing pad. One feature that I also really like is how when you click on anything the whole page just slides but the navigation links stay with you (as well as the background and some design elements). There is also the option to just use the scroll bar but it’s not nearly as exciting. This is also applied in the portfolio section but instead of the work sliding vertically it does horizontally which again becomes very engaging for the fact it is different but still consistent with the overall concept. I also like the subtle hand written labels for links like “staying connected” and “follow on facebook” – having these links not be part of the main navigation is really effective and they seem like little afterthoughts that allow you to keep up with the designer if you end up liking his work. The only complaint I have is the lightbox method the designer uses when you click on his pieces- it just doesn’t feel like it goes with the overall theme of the website. Also the lightboxes take a moment to load which felt a little frustrating. A feature of the lightboxes that also could have been done better is that when you scroll over it the forwards and backwards arrows will appear out the sides, but they are so small they almost aren’t noticeable at first and if you don’t end up scrolling over the lightbox you would not be able to find them – it’s a good idea but it just wasn’t implemented well.

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Website Reaction 2

gummisig.com is an innovative website for the amount of actual design within the site. The heading text is all very well done and the navigation is simple and functional to use. The portfolio pages for websites are all presented in a very clean manner displaying all of the web pages he designed for a particular site. This site is very distinct and has a defined identity within itself that is working really well, many portfolio sites I have looked into are lacking in this area. Another aspect of this website that I really like is that on the bottom of the pages you have several links including his social networking sites, latest work, and publications that have featured his work – I like this approach rather than including separate sections for these links.
The only complaints I have are that one, when you scroll down through the work, in order to navigate to one of the main pages you have to scroll all the way back to the top. Because the pages are so long, it would be nice to have the navigation repeated at the bottom or at least a “back to top” option. The other complaint I have is the little “Hire Mig” sign on the homepage – everything looks really thought out and designed until you see this, it feels a little desperate and too unprofessional and the site would be better without it.

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Website Reaction 1

enila.fr is a very interesting and well thought out website that is also very user friendly (apart from being in French). The design of the homepage is very engaging and the visual elements work very nicely together – the only complaint I have is the vibrating effect when you mouse over the portfolio projects, it is kind of distracting. I also feel that the tree visual element seems to take away from the overall design and just clutters the portfolio project display. When selecting the type of projects one wishes to view (such as “print” or “identity”) I like how those projects appear within the main design element rather than navigating away to a different page. The animation that leads to a project page is very clever and effective, the pages do take a moment to load but not long enough to be really distracting. I also really like how the icon becomes the navigation point back to the home page (and uses the back arrow to emphasize its use). Overall I believe this is a very well thought out website that is both interesting and easy to use.

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