This week I worked a bit more on tweaking my website design that was chosen in class.  At first, this was not the design I really liked, but now that I have had a chance to develop it a bit more, it is becoming my favorite of the three.  It just needed a bit of polish.  I tried to think of how to make it appear multilayered and interesting, while maintaining a flat, simplistic look.  After browsing some sites for inspiration, I accomplished this (I think) by using drop shadows to suggest multiple layers of the dark textured surfaces of the website.  I also added a bit of shine, literally, to the header and footer of my page.  Having large, flat areas seemed to be a bit boring so I added a bit of visual candy to help.

A website portfolio is probably going to be the best bet for me when applying for other jobs.  Me being almost a complete web person requires it.  As it said in "Building Design Portfolios," sometimes it is just the best way to view your art.  It was created to be viewed on the web after all.  Other things that I must pay attention to are ease of use and navigation.  I also must pay strict attention to filesize on everything I include in my webpage.  I have a lot of textures, but since they are small and in most cases only two colors, I can save a very small repeatable pattern and save people download time.  My navigation is pretty straight forward too.  Just buttons at the top left of the page for each section.  Portfolio will have a drop down too for subsections.  This is very important for me especially.  I have to impress with my website because I am focusing pretty much solely on web design.  Since I do little to no video editing, I have no business creating a demo reel hahaha.  Stick to your strengths!!

In "Designing a Digital Portfolio," the author talks about retouching physical artwork after it has been digitized into your computer.  This makes sense after thinking about it.  When you scan something like a printed brochure on fancy, textured paper and embossing, these things don’t really show up.  You must bring the scan into photoshop and physically add in the embossing to the image by painting it.  You can also create a very detailed scan of a paper texture and repeat it as a pattern on the background of your original design file to have a very realistic and perfect looking print example on your website.  Also when adding your stuff to your online portfolio, it is also important to write small introductions to each of the pieces.  Since you are not there physically presenting your portfolio to potential clients or employers when they view your site, you must write in what you would like them to know about each piece.  This does not include what programs you made it in, by the way.  Most of the time, people don’t care and they can also find out what programs you have experience with in your resume anyway.

I like to use patterns and textures in my web designs.  I think this sets me apart from a lot of others, especially textured pages.  I have built up a large collection of links for these sorts of things (probably nothing compared to some other people though) and would like to share a few.  In case you missed the links in my post, here they are again:

http://www.desktopanime.com/resources_textures.php  <– A great site with a lot of paper textures that I use in stuff.  There are more than just paper textures though.

http://www.k10k.net/pixelpatterns/  <– I used a lot of these in my latest design for the class.  There are a TON of great pixel patterns there for free.  I highly recommend this site.

http://patterns.ming-ling.net/  <– This site contains a lot of oriental looking patterns.  Kinda like those you find on rugs.  I can think of a lot of interesting uses for these.