Introduction to Project

For my HND Graphic Design project I have been asked to create a website based on an area of my personal or professional interest linked to art and design.
The project must contain two separate areas


1)   Visual submission

My visual submission will be based on the creation of an online portfolio; I will consider all stages of development from target audiences to making one work in real life.  I will also create a homepage and logo that I can use for my actual portfolio.  I will use this blog to showcase the research for my visual piece.

Why use an online portfolio?

Pros and cons are arguments for or against a particular issue. Pros are arguments which aim to promote the issue, while cons suggest points against it. By analysing the pros and cons of an online portfolio I am able to understand what is important to consider when creating my own, this will hopefully help me to weed out any potential issues from the outset.

Pros

o   Can reach a wider audience

o   Modern way of communicating

o   Global – people can view your work all around the world

o   More likely to survive the economic downturn

o   Can be tailored and updated regularly making it flexible an always up to date

o   Allows clients to see your work & makes contact with designer easier

o   Great opportunity for a new designer to be seen

o   Can be used as an online CV available 24/7

Cons

o   Small fish in big pond & could get lost

o   Can be time consuming – needs regular review

o   Could be difficult to navigate

o   Not everybody has internet access

o   Internet servers are not always reliable

So what does this tell us?

By examining the Pros and Cons of an online portfolio it is clear how effective using one would be, the pros far outweigh the cons. I would say that the biggest strength for me would be the fact that I can get my work out there into the public domain, it is also a way of keeping my work centralised like an online CV accessible 24/7 to everybody. According to a recent study titled Career Portfolios: Proof of Performance, and conducted by Quintessential Careers, job-seekers learn more about themselves and their qualifications by preparing a career portfolio, therefore boosting their confidence and preparing them for job interviews regardless of how they actually use that portfolio.

I would also say that although I have identified some cons the only real issue would arise if I did not put enough energy into it resulting in outdated unprofessional work, I don’t think the fact that not everybody can use the internet would be a big concern, in the media industry these people are going to be few and far between.

Target Audience

One of the most important things that you can do when setting up an online portfolio is to identify the appropriate target audience to market your product to, not everybody will be interested in hearing what you have to say and it is crucial to make sure that your message is being seen and heard by the people most likely to use your services.  By targeting your message you are more likely to maximise the return on your efforts “ It’s almost like your trying to sell the best steak in the world, to a vegetarian, no matter what you do or say, they ain’t buying”.  More often than not the number one reason people don’t buy into your idea is because you are talking to the wrong person.

I will establish my target audience by considering different demographics these consist of:

Physical types: gender, age and health

Cultural types: economic status, employment, education level, social group and language.

By looking at the demographics I have decided that my target audience should be new businesses, professional, aged 25-40 and living in the North West.

What does my target audience mean for my online portfolio?

It means I need to consider things like the logo, layout, colours, font and the type of images I use, for example pink is often associated with being girly and feminine and a young male may find it difficult to relate when using this colour scheme.

Common mistakes of an Online Portfolio

“When it comes to creating online graphic design portfolios, there are many factors you should consider. Costly mistakes can lose you the client before you even know it. So what is it that builds that necessary appeal?

I think that when creating an online portfolio it is vital to look at your competitors and try to analysis any mistakes that they have made, this could really help me when looking at things to avoid in my own project.

Kyle Meyer of Astheria dedicated a blog entirely to this; in his post he looked at 200 online portfolios and identified 7 common mistakes:

1)    Bad navigation

2)    Zoomed and cropped thumbnails

3)    Mystery meat squares

4)    No phone number

5)    No email

6)    No contact info of any kind

7)    Background music

See below for actual post

Please Enjoy
My Last Portfolio Sucked, Yours Might Too

Last evening I was browsing a few portfolios after having a discussion with a friend who was redoing his own. I have to say it was a frustrating experience just looking through a few. In fact it was so frustrating, this post came as a result: after browsing 200 portfolios and keeping track of certain criteria I know I never want a job in human resources.

I hope this will be useful to those of you looking to create or reevaluate your portfolio. Yes I’m an opinionated bloke, but I think you’ll see my reasoning as relatively common sense items that people just overlook.

As a forward, I’d like to reinforce that this is hardly a scientific research project, but at 200 portfolios I’d say that things are fairly indicative of a more thorough census. As always, I’m not one to link specifically to the sites that I’m giving a negative opinion on, but there are screenshots to illustrate. The goals which each portfolio should strive for are relatively simple:

• Impress the viewer within the first 10 seconds visually
• Allow the viewer to succeed in their goals: viewing your work or contacting you

At any rate, let’s begin with the most grievous of errors:

32% had navigation problems

Figure 1: Clicking one of these zooms in, a little, but there’s no way to go to the live site and actually see and inspect it.

Quite a few people decided that their portfolio was a great place to try out the newest navigation trick they could come up with, even though it impedes the whole reason a user would visit the site: to see the work quickly, note down some contact information, and move on. The less thinking I have to do to accomplish my goal is a good thing. Unless you’re an experimental navigation designer, I wouldn’t advise it. Some of the weirdest ones I’ve seen have been a play on a rubix cube and 3D movement.

Some of the other ideas were pretty neat to play with, but they still hindered me from actually evaluating any portfolio pieces.

72% used thumbnails that forced me to view a larger image

Figure 2: This is tetris, right?

This is probably the most often overlooked problem with portfolios, and the research agrees. The criteria is relatively simple: if a user can not interpret what the design is by the thumbnail it fails. The problem with thumbnails is that it forces your portfolio’s design and initial impact to make me feel compelled to wade through clicking individual pieces of your work. Often I didn’t even have a clue what the thumbnail was of.

Zoomed in and cropped thumbnails seemed to be a rather large trend, and they’re a nasty bunch. Right up there with the 40 pixel square thumbnails that are more of spots of color on the page than previews of the piece of work. Put simply, if you show your work up front and don’t require action and effort on the part of the viewer, they’re more likely to look at more of your work and look a bit more in-depth on pieces that catch their interest. I can’t decide if something piques my interest from a thumbnail.

11% decided to make their portfolio a game of peek-a-boo surprises

Figure 3: Here’s a fun game, try and find the photo you really liked and bookmark it for future reference.

Even worse than thumbnails are the dreaded mystery meat squares. A surprising number of sites took this approach or used plain text links. Neither of which lets me scan any amount of work at a reasonable rate, or review pieces that I found interesting at a glance.

32% did not include a phone number
23% did not include a physical email
1% had no discernible contact information

Make it easy to get in touch, that is your goal and purpose for the portfolio. Phone numbers are very handy—not that I see them as a complete necessity—but having an email address to copy into an address book or note down is far more useful than a contact form. Many people are simply evaluating you, and won’t be making contact with you immediately. Not having any contact information they can take down and have available in their notes doesn’t make things any easier for them.

4% had music that automatically began playing when I viewed the site

Figure 4: Here’s how I feel about background music, I’m pretty sure nearly everyone feels the same.

For your own sake, don’t have music set to begin playing when a visitor arrives at your site. While browsing I currently had 28 or so portfolios open in tabs at once—something I’d expect from someone in HR. Suddenly, I had some odd atmospheric music clashing with my own.

Rather than reviewing portfolios the first thing I did was begin closing tabs until the music stopped. Your chance of getting a job in this situation? Zilch.

Conclusion

Hopefully some of this is information proves useful in your endeavors. I know my last portfolio was guilty of the thumbnails issue, but I’ve taken a wholly different approach this time around. But I’m curious about how others feel and what readers have done. Why not share your experiences?

Chanpory Rith, of Life Clever suggests three other portfolio mistakes:

·       Flash Animation

·       No project labels

·       No CV

He argues the most notable of these is the third mistake and points to the article written by Seth Godin - why bother having a resume?

“Great people should not have a CV, here’s why – A resume is an excuse to reject you.  Once you send me a resume, I can say, Oh they are missing this or that, and boom you’re out”

Development of Online Portfolio - Screen Shots & Analysis

Here is a selection of homepages from online portfolios, I have chosen to analyse these pages because they are effective and I feel they represent the artist well.

It is very important to consider what else is out there in order to make myself competitive.

Image 1 - http://allday.cc/

Likes :

Using own image on front page allows the viewer to “get to know you”

I like the use of monochrome colours creating the illusion of negative space

Use of font – makes most important information stand out

Artist using a phone suggests easy to get hold of/always available

Easy links to next page

Dislikes:

No colour – although I recognise that this is not a graphic design portfolio and so does not necessarily need colour

Image 2 - http://danjoedesign.com/

Likes:

Use of illustration

Use of colour

Professional page layout/structure

I like the use of 01,02 etc for the different sections

Contact details are clear

Dislikes:

Page size doesn’t fit all screen size (you have to scroll down to see the bottom)

Each part sectioned off by using lines

Image 3 - http://www.emotionslive.co.uk

Likes:

Colour scheme is bright, effective and creative

I like the use of shadows to bring everything to life

The white font really stands out against the background

Artist’s work is categorised clearly

Dislikes:

Use of hand written font is difficult to read

No structure to the use of fonts e.g. use of capitals and lower case, different styles

The “hi there” section is very small and hard to read

Image 4 - http://www.siscottstudio.com/

Likes:

Well structured

Like the way when you move the cursor over the images all the others fade out

Simple and effective

I like the way his logo is clear on the front page

Dislikes:

You have to move across 15 pages to see everything

Contact information not on front page

Image 5 - http://www.freelancegraphicdesigner.co.uk/

Likes:

Displays client history

Discusses previous experience, like an online CV

Clear contact information

Dislikes:

Don’t like the colour scheme

Too much information on front page – leaves nothing to the imagination

Images that are not needed displayed on homepage

Getting Heard - Marketing

In order for my online portfolio to be successful I need to look at marketing and promotion, this is important when trying to build customer relationships also when creating product awareness.  Without an effective marketing strategy I may not gain any customers therefore my business would fail. “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark.  You know what you are doing, but nobody else does”  Steuart Henderson Britt

5 Powerful tips for marketing a designers online portfolio

A collection of good tips which I consider as good advice if you’re starting out a as designer who is building an online portfolio or if your an experienced designer who’s looking to attract more visitors and clients to your online portfolio.

Note: The tips are not ascending in any particular order.

1. Submitting your sites to CSS Galleries

A great free and effective way to market your portfolio is to submit your website to online css galleries. This is an effective strategy for marketing your website because when ever CSS galleries showcase your site within their gallery they put link back referring to your website, this means that hundreds or even thousands of visitors will be going to site dependent upon how many CSS galleries your submit your website to. Bear in mind the fact they only accept good well designed sites. To find a list of CSS galleries just simply do a Google search and I’m sure your find a ton.

2. Building a strong social media presence

How do you build a strong social media presence? Its very simple to build a presence on social media sites all what’s required is for you to just become an active member on that site i.e. contributing and networking with other people.

These are few good social media sites where you can network with other like minded designers and web designers, making people aware people of your skills and knowledge as well as attracting them back to your portfolio site.

• Behance
• Twitter
• Design bump
• Deviant

There’s a ton of great sites out where you can network with designers and potentially find new clients as well as promote your design portfolio or design service at the same time.

3. Start a blog or Start freelance blogging

Whether your considering starting a personal blog where you talk about yourself and your day to day actives, or a design blog. Both types of blogs each have their perks, as long as you have something to say or to share such as a cool Photoshop trick, I’m more than certain people will choose read you blog. If your blog is extension off your portfolio visitors will then check out your whole site to learn more about you and to see your work which you have produced.

Blogging can be a tough challenge to maintain therefore alternative solutions instead of creating your own blog is to write for established blogs within your niche. Writing articles for other blogs will give you the opptunity to promote yourself on some of the biggest design blogs in the world, dependent upon if they allow you to write an article. Most design blogs offer the opptunity for their guest authors at the end of the article to promote their website alongside with a description about them self or company. If you have a good description within you bio at the end of the article people will more than certainly be persuade to give that link a click to learn more about the author’s site.

4. Google adsence keyword campaign

This is a powerful marketing tip because it allows you to bring exactly the perfect readers to your site who would be interested in the service which you offer or alliteratively checking out your website.

The downside to Google adsence is that it’s not a free marketing technique unfortunately it cost money in order to run a word ad campaign and in order to run a campaign which bring in ton of traffic it can be a fair bit of money.

5. Utilizing Flickr

Utilizing Flickr is free and is easy to do so all, what’s required is to upload your best design work. The key to marketing your portfolio through flick is to submit your designs to Flickr groups and put a message in the description something like “hey guys like my design check out more portfolio” if people like your designs they will instantly want check out your site.

Final words..

The hard work doesn’t stop after you build your portfolio. If you want to instantly attract a huge wave of clients simply because you’ve created a beautiful portfolio the chances are unlikely that this will happen but good marketing of your site will ensure people will be heading over to your website.

Standing Out From The Crowd

The current internet market is awash with new designers trying to break into the industry - for me as a new artist - I need to think about what is going to set me apart, what is unique about my online portfolio that sets me apart from everybody else?

A unique graphic or web design portfolio is the window to success!
In essence, you showcase your work in a unique way impressing the employer and cutting the competition with a sharp knife. A kickass graphic or web design portfolio is all about presentation – standing out of the crowd. The presentation of your work in an unusual way also enables the employer to see how creative you are because creativity is the essence of a graphic or web designer. 


The competition is tough...... You need some work!!!!
It is the foot in the door, or the foot booting you out. It is so important that you create a strong representation of your work. There is more than one way of presenting your work in this industry
It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner and you don’t have much work to flaunt. Create a few compelling designs for yourself. Create at least 7 to 8 compelling designs in a genre that suits the job description. For example, if you are applying as a logo designer, create 7 to 8 compelling logos of famous brands using your imagination. Be creative!!!!


Presenting your work.... Think about it first...
Make your best work visible from the start. If you are an illustrator, have your best piece clearly visible or at least easily accessible from the homepage.

Think about a unique presentation. You can print all your designs and put it in a folder to present, but they would be a common way to present. So think of something different.
Normally, there are 3 main ways to create graphic or web design portfolios: Print it out, create a website and put your portfolio online and create a DVD or CD of your work. To create the maximum impact, go for all three of them. But do it in a unique way. Consider the following tactic to create a kickass graphic or web design portfolio:

1. For each design, write a brief description telling about the design and how you were inspired to create it. Give a brief background.
2. Create a Headline for each design in the portfolio. The headline should be compelling. Provide details of the design like which software you used to create it and where it is been used.
3. Create a table of contents especially when you are putting it online or on CD/DVD. The table of contents should be in a logical order – date/year wise or design wise
4. For the online version, create a compelling webpage and use flash to showcase your work in a timeline or use thumbnails on the page with brief description. Be creative with the webpage hosting your portfolio. Use white and blue colors and a creative use of a brush and/or pencil on the page. Using flash will surely enhance the page design.

A note on flash - although I understand that by using flash you can make your online portfolio more 'unique" I would argue that unless your work is animation or motion picture there is not always a need for it, in reality a print or illustration artist should allow their work to do all the speaking, not a fancy slideshow.  Also Flash is not enabled on a large number of computers one in example is the iPad and we all know how popular that has become.  Imagine a potential client attempting to check out your website, only to be faced with the task of downloading Flash before he can view it.


How about making a site mobile phone compatible???

Viewing portfolios from a phone like an iPhone is becoming more and more prevalent. Companies quite often use the iPhone as a platform to view work on, and may skip over portfolios that don’t ride well in mobile format. 
One view on this "I’ve seen that generally they work better with blog-like layouts because thumbnails might end up being too small on the iPhone’s screen. I don’t have much experience with other mobile platforms, but most art directors I know have an iPhone
Creating an iPhone version of the site would enable you to stand out from the crowd, not everybody will have one and therefore more companies would see your site.  If your site has lots of thumbnails you could consider organising them in a list format so they are viewable on a mobile phone.