Freelance Portfolio

[thinkdan]

Hey Guys,

I'm new to these forum. I've now finished some projects and looking for some 'real' office web development / design jobs.
Do you mind having a look at my website and let me know if its good enough to put forward with my cv.

Thinkdan

Thanks

Dan

[Rubble]

Site took 15 seconds to load for me in IE and 27 seconds in Firefox but may be having a problem with broadband speeds tonight.
Interesting clean layout on the front page - I like the way you just show part of the site/magazine but what happens when you get more items to display? You are already lossing part of your index page off the screen; I would just put 9 items on the main page probably the latest or random items every tme te page loads.
Work link goes nowhere - probably the page I would put most of my projects on that do not fit on the index page.
Missing alt and image sizes for images, the doctype looks wrong.
Your introduction text on the index page is a rather long sentance; I would probably change the , after UK to a full stop and start a new sentance.
I nearly gave up waiting for Match Skateboards to load.
Any way my personal opinion and the speed could just be a problem with my broadband.

[Lieto]

Looks ok.
Problem is however "home" and "work" seem to be exactly the same.

As for the web development its hard to say atm since site says that you mostly do prints and branding.

[Unknown Man]

My very first impression, "oh Pinterest-like" of course with some further observation, it's got it's own unique feel to it. Here are some thoughts:

Chrome brwoser, btw

1. I don't feel like it's providing me with enough information about who YOU are and your work. Personally, if I were to hire someone, I'd like to know a bit more about them. Why not include a photo and a bit about your personal life, hobbies, etc? As an employer myself, we like to see that info. This probably means you'd need a dedicated "About Me" page. Of course if you have more projects to show off, that's a plus too.

2. This ties in a bit with 1: I think it'd be nice to see your areas of expertise (software you use, years of experience, etc).

3. Blogs by nature are much easier on the eyes if they have images. Especially since you're in the design industry, I'd suggest adding nice images with your blog posts.

4. I like the way the footer is laid out! Very clean and shows me all the important stuff.

[smftre]

Nice clean design and layout.
Easy to find contact details.
Crist graphics.

Overall looks good. You will obviously adding content as it grows I would imagine?

[dumitrumidon]

Hi!
I think you should use h1 tags in titles - just for SEO proposes. For the same, adding a picture in your blog posts can make it more readable. Overall i like it.

[thinkdan]

Thank you very much for the feedback, much appreciated it. Ill take it all into account and make the relevant changes.
It helps so much to get outside critiques!

Thanks Again

[connor4312]

Looks great! A few things I suggest:

• There's this really slick effect which I've seen on other websites, that has the images space "reserved" on the page before it loads, then when the image load, it fades in rather than entering scanline-style. This would really improve your homepage - it felt disjointed as the images were loading a moving around.
• On the icon hover, it would be nicer if the background was more opaque.
• On the blog and contact pages, I hear a screeching sound as your content rubs up against the top of my browser window. Add some padding/margin! I think a little extra space around the blog's post meta wouldn't hurt either.
• Make the last blog post have no bottom border. This can eaily be done with some CSS
• The light shadow hover on the copyright on the credits bar doesn't look very nice.
• A lightbox on the portfolio item pages would be good.
• Changing the color of highlighted text to match your theme is a simple way to finish up and to show the clients who are looking that you pay attention to details.

Looks great overall, though.

[thetxgirl]

I agree with most of the reviewers here that you've gotten off to an excellent start. I noticed a couple of little things that I wanted to mention:

1. In your description text in the sidebar (I'm a freelance web designer and developer...) I would change "focusing on building clean websites..." to "focused on building clean websites..." The present participle form (focusing) suggests that you haven't haven't had this focus in the past, but do now, which (at least to an English Nazi like me ;P) subtly degrades your experience. "Focused," however, suggests that you have been in the past, are still so now, and will be in the future. It's a stronger and more definitive form of the verb.

2. In your footer, your social and contact text is misaligned with the icons. I sneaked a peek at your code, and here's what I suggest you do:
Create unordered lists for "Social" and "Contact." Then use the images you have created as background images for each li element. Determine the height of the image, and use that as the height of the li element, and also set it as the line-height for the li so that the text will center vertically within the element. Using this method you could also include a snazzy hover effect for each list item. I'd include a link to the site I mentioned where I used this method, but I don't think I can include a link since I'm relatively new here. Oh... wait... maybe I can... http://www.laurenacooper.com/ohprefresh Ok if that works scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see what I'm talking about. Feel free to check out the code.

Also, instead of using images for the icons have you considered using a custom font? It's really easy (I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination and I was able to do it :P). Here's a link to a very helpful tutorial. With this, you can recreate those icons using only text and css (create circles with equal height / width + border-radius: 50%). http://css-tricks.com/video-screenca...tom-icon-font/.

Hope that is helpful!

[K. Wolfe]

i agree with the performance issues. With how simple the design is, you should have very speedy load times. As far as your showcase goes, I'd maybe look into something to allow for thumbnail viewing of all your sites without having to go "back" all the time.

[J in Calgary]

A few things:

I like to see an "about" page, especially for sites run by one person. I don't have a photo or a sense of your training and background, which would be important to me if I were determining whether to contact you about a job.

The main sentence on the home page that describes what you do is too long, IMO. When I click over to the blog (the post about productivity was very interesting and relevant to my new site--loved that!), it didn't help me clearly establish who you are or why your website exists. If you can clean up that sentence and/or add an "about" page, it might help visitors understand your site's purpose more quickly.

[Current: I'm a freelance web designer and developer based in Cardiff UK, focusing on building clean websites with modern technologies, company branding, vector based logo and icon design.
Suggested: I'm a freelance web designer and developer based in Cardiff, UK. I build clean websites with modern technologies, and create memorable logos for effective company branding.] This suggestion may not work best, because it may not emphasize what's most important to you. However, it's not clear to me from the existing sentence what is most important, either. You may want to include some information that helps visitors understand your target market.

I expect the Think Dan circle to be a link back to the home page, but it isn't.

I'm not a professional web designer, and I am far from a graphic designer, so the following could just be due to the fact that I'm not your target audience. However, when I click on your portfolio pictures from the home page, I'm not totally sure what I'm getting. Some of them have a good description, so I understand that you worked to revise the logo and that's what I'm viewing (The PDI description is a good example of that). Other pages, however, talk about each individual company, so I don't know if you're trying to get me to click to an affiliate link, or whether you had something to do with the graphic design for this company, because you haven't explicitly told me (the Purelearn and surfer are examples of this). Even if you had a heading over all the pictures that said "Portfolio," that would he a helpful indicator.

I think you have a great balance of space and content. It's easy on the eyes, and inviting to click. The social media "salad bar" is organized neatly without overpowering the main page content. Good luck with your site!

[marksmit]

Make hyper link on your Logo - "Thinkdan". It helps us easy to navigate.

[AthenaB]

I don't have anything outside of what everyone else has already said but, I just wanted to say, I love the designs you've done! I think someone else has already mentioned it but, I would really like to see for each one exactly what you've done.

[mkspllmn]

The general look and feel of of the site is good. The examples that you give on the front page are worthy. Write a little text about each one and tell us something about it. You need more pages to really go into depth on what you do, the knowledge you posses and the great skills and talents that make your services the one that the client decides on.

The all around concept is good and deserves to be touted. This is your chance to really show off. Lets see you really announce yourself in more detail with more pages and text.

[Marcelc]

What bothers me is the border around the image. Other than that all good
What script do you use for the hover?